The best time to find out an agency is wrong for you is before the contract. These questions separate partners from vendors.
Ownership and access
- Who owns the Google Ads account, the analytics property and the domain? (Answer: you.)
- If we part ways, what do I walk away with? (Answer: everything, in a usable format.)
Reporting and accountability
- What does a monthly report include, and can I see a real one?
- How do you track phone calls and form fills back to a channel?
- Who is my day-to-day contact, and how often do we talk?
Scope and incentives
- Do you work with my direct competitors?
- Is your fee a percentage of ad spend? (If so, ask how they decide to raise it.)
- What is the minimum term, and why?
Walk-away answers
Guaranteed rankings. Accounts in the agency’s name. Reports that are screenshots of dashboards. Contracts that auto-renew for a year. None of these are deal-breakers alone, but two together usually are.