Start with what you need, not their package
Good agencies work backwards from your goals; weaker ones sell you their package regardless of fit. Before you take a single pitch, get clear on what the business actually needs to hit — revenue targets, margins, capacity — so you can judge whether what they're selling maps to it.
If an agency leads with its service menu instead of your numbers, that tells you how the engagement will run.
Questions that separate agencies from resellers
A lot of "agencies" are really resellers — they broker your work out to subcontractors and mark it up. These questions surface that fast:
- Who actually does the work — in-house staff, or subcontractors? Can I meet them?
- Will I own my ad accounts, analytics, and website, or do you hold them?
- How do you report, and is it tied to leads and revenue or to clicks and impressions?
- What happens to my accounts and data if we part ways?
- Can you tell me about a time you told a client not to do something?
Red flags that should end the conversation
Some things aren't yellow flags to weigh — they're reasons to walk:
- Guaranteed #1 rankings. No one controls Google's algorithm; a guarantee is a tell.
- Refusing to give you ownership or admin access to your own accounts.
- Long lock-in contracts with heavy early-termination penalties — confidence doesn't need a cage.
- Reporting that's all activity ("we posted 20 times") and no outcome ("it produced X leads").
- Vague answers about who's actually doing the work.
In-house vs. freelancer vs. agency
An agency isn't automatically the right answer. A freelancer can be perfect for a single, well-defined deliverable. An in-house hire makes sense when marketing is central enough to warrant a full-time salary and you can give that person direction.
An agency earns its keep when you need a range of disciplines run together — ads, creative, web, systems — without hiring and managing each one, and when you want senior judgment without a senior salary. The question isn't "which is best" but "which fits what this business needs right now."
What a good first call looks like
A good discovery call feels like a real conversation about the business, not a pitch. They ask about your numbers before they talk about their services. They're willing to say a service isn't right for you. And they leave you with a clearer read on what to do first — even if the answer is "not us, yet."
If you leave the call knowing less about your own situation than when you started, that's your answer.