How to judge a paid media agency before you sign

The questions that separate a competent paid media supplier from a confident one. Includes the contract terms that decide what you keep if it ends.

Every pitch sounds the same because they are built to

You will see certifications client logos screenshots of upward graphs and a confident person explaining their process. None of that distinguishes one supplier from another because all of it is available to anybody. Certifications are free to obtain. Logos prove a transaction happened rather than that it went well.

What distinguishes suppliers is mundane and discoverable before you sign. Who actually touches the account. What is written in the scope. Who owns the ad account. What happens to your data if you leave. Those four answers tell you more than any deck.

How the fees work and what they leave out

Three things are commonly excluded and should be confirmed in writing. Media spend is excluded and goes directly to the platform. Creative production is usually excluded or capped at a small number of assets. Landing page work is almost always excluded even though the agency will tell you it is the main constraint on results.

Fee structures come in three shapes and each has a bias. A flat monthly fee is predictable and gives the supplier no reason to grow your spend. A percentage of spend rewards increasing your budget whether or not that is right for you. Per-deliverable pricing is transparent and can leave nobody accountable for the outcome. None of these is dishonest. Know which bias you are buying. Setup or onboarding fees are frequently separate. All service fees carry GST at 18% and a quote that is unclear about whether tax is included is the first sign of how the relationship will run.

When you should not hire an agency at all

An agency makes sense when your media budget is large enough that a few percentage points of improvement exceed the fee and when you have somebody internally who can approve things promptly.

Do not hire one if your monthly media budget is small relative to any sensible fee. When the fee is a large share of total spend you are mostly buying administration and a capable freelancer or a few weeks of your own learning will serve you better. Do not buy a fixed productised scope if what you actually need is bespoke strategic thinking about a new market or an unusual business model. A published scope is good value precisely because it is fixed and that is the wrong instrument for an open question. And do not hire anybody if you cannot supply assets approvals and answers within a few days. The best supplier cannot run an account where every request waits a fortnight and you will pay a fee for a stalled relationship.

The questions worth asking

Ask who will do the daily work and whether that person is in the room. Pitch teams and delivery teams are often different people and the gap between them is where disappointment lives. Ask for the name.

Ask to see a live account rather than a report. A competent supplier can share a screen walk through search terms show you the negative keyword list and explain a decision they made last week. Someone who only has polished slides may never have been in the account. Ask what they would stop doing in your current setup. Suppliers who only add are not managing anything.

Then ask the ownership questions directly. The ad accounts the analytics property and the audience lists should be created under your company's name with the agency added as a user. Ask who holds administrative access and get the answer in the contract. Ask what you receive on exit and whether creative files are included.

What to measure them on

Their own reported return on ad spend flatters and so does any count of leads that includes every form fill. A supplier controls what goes into that number and the definition will favour them.

Measure them on qualified enquiries counted in your system rather than theirs and on cost per qualified enquiry over a rolling quarter. Define qualified in the contract before the first month. Nobody can promise you a volume of leads or a position in search results and any supplier who does is either misinformed or hoping you are. Treat a guarantee as the clearest disqualifier in the whole process.

The common mistake

The expensive error is letting the agency create the ad account in its own name. It feels efficient at the start and it means your conversion history your audience lists and your spend data belong to somebody else. When the relationship ends you begin again from nothing and the platform will not intervene on your behalf.

The second error is signing a long initial term to secure a lower rate. A twelve month commitment with a supplier you have not worked with converts a manageable mistake into an expensive one. A shorter term at a slightly higher fee is cheaper insurance than it looks.

Agree the exit before you agree the start

Write down what happens on the day somebody gives notice. Who retains administrative access. How much notice each side gives. Whether creative files are handed over in editable form or only as published assets. Whether audience lists and conversion configurations remain in place. These clauses are easy to negotiate while everybody is optimistic and impossible to negotiate afterwards. A supplier who resists them is telling you how the ending will go.

This guide explains how something works. It is not legal, tax or financial advice, and rules change. Confirm anything regulatory with a qualified professional before you act on it.