Choosing an agency is hard because almost every agency sounds the same in a sales call. The differences show up six months later, in what you own, what you can measure and what actually got done.
We audit a lot of small businesses, and many of them already pay someone for marketing. This guide is built from what we find there.
What we find when a business already has an agency
The website belongs to someone else
A real estate broker we audited had a site where the listings, the blog and even the homepage video were all hosted on the vendor's servers. The blog posts were syndicated articles anyone can subscribe to. The homepage weighed 46 MB. She paid every month, and none of it was hers. If she left, she'd start again from a blank page.
Last year's audit was never acted on
We audited one company twice, months apart. Not a single finding from the first report had been fixed. The site was still running a Universal Analytics tag, a Google product that stopped collecting data in 2023. Advice that nobody implements is worth nothing, however good it is.
Tracking that tracks nothing
We often find analytics tags that were installed once and never checked again. It happens to agencies too: our own Google Analytics tag broke in August 2026 and showed zero visitors for a month, until we noticed that Search Console was still recording people clicking through from Google. Ask any agency you talk to how often they check theirs, and how.
Ads running before anything was ready
A design studio asked us to start Google and Meta ads right away. They had no conversion tracking, no Meta Pixel and no page for the ads to land on. We told them to wait 30 days while those got built. Plenty of agencies would have taken the ad budget on day one, and the client would have learned nothing from it.
Reports full of numbers that don't matter
"Impressions are up 22%" doesn't pay rent. If the monthly report doesn't show calls, form leads, bookings or sales, it's measuring activity, not results.
The 10 questions to ask before you sign
Ask them in writing, and keep the answers.
- Who owns the domain, the website, the Google profile, the ad accounts and the social accounts? The right answer is you, in your name, with the agency added as a manager.
- How long is the contract, and does it renew itself? Look for month to month, or a short first term with 30 days' notice after that.
- Is ad spend separate from your fee? And will you see the ad account, not just a summary?
- What exactly happens each month? "Social media management" should become a number: posts per week, ads checked how often, report on what day.
- What will you report, and how often? Ask to see a real report or live dashboard from a current client, with the private details hidden.
- How do you check that tracking works? If they can't answer this, nothing else they report can be trusted.
- Who will actually do the work? The person on the sales call, a junior employee, or a subcontractor in another country? Any of these can work. You deserve to know which one it is.
- What isn't included? Website changes, new landing pages, photography and ad spend are the usual surprises.
- What will be different in 90 days, and how will we both know? A good agency names two or three measurable outcomes.
- What happens when I leave? You should get every login, file and report, and keep everything you paid for.
If your customers speak Spanish, add an eleventh: who writes the Spanish content? A machine translation reads like one, and your customers can tell.
Red flags
- Guaranteed rankings, or "page one in 30 days." Nobody controls Google.
- Long contracts before any results. Twelve months, renewing automatically, with early cancellation fees.
- Accounts in the agency's name. Your Google profile or ad account sitting in someone else's login.
- Vague deliverables. If you can't list what you get each month, you'll never know whether you got it.
- Vanity reporting. Followers, reach and impressions, with no calls or leads in sight.
- Pushing ads first. Paid traffic sent to a slow site with a weak Google profile wastes money that the same budget would have earned after a month of groundwork.
Freelancer, small agency or big agency?
| Option | Typical cost | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer | $300 to $1,500/month | One clear job, such as ads or a website | Everything stops when they get sick or busy |
| Small agency | $600 to $3,000/month | Several channels with one point of contact | Make sure the owner is still involved after the sale |
| Large agency | $3,000+/month | Big budgets and many locations | Small accounts often go to the most junior staff |
| Doing it yourself | Your time | Very early businesses learning the basics | Hours that could go to the business itself |
How we handle these questions ourselves
Since we ask other businesses to hold agencies to this standard, here are our own answers: every plan is month to month; you own every account and every file; ad spend is always separate from our fee; reports show leads and calls; and every engagement starts with a free audit, so you see how we think before you pay anything.
The bottom line
The right agency is the one that leaves you owning more, understanding more and earning more each quarter. Ask the 10 questions, get the answers in writing, and pick the partner whose answers you could check yourself.
Want a second opinion on what your current agency is doing? Request a free audit. We review your website, Google profile and social media and send a written report with a score out of 10 and what to fix first. Free, no obligation.
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