Most agency relationships fail for reasons that were visible in the first meeting. Here is what to ask while you still have leverage.
Who owns the accounts?
Ask directly whether the ad account, analytics property, Search Console and domain will be registered to your business. If an agency holds these in its own name, leaving means starting over with no history. This question tells you a great deal about how a relationship will end before it begins.
What will you report, and against what?
Impressions and engagement are inputs, not outcomes. A good answer names the commercial metric the work is meant to move and explains how it will be measured, including how long it should take before that measurement means anything.
Who is actually doing the work?
The people in the pitch are not always the people on the account. Ask who will do the work day to day, how much of it is subcontracted, and who you will speak to when something needs fixing.
What does the first ninety days look like?
Vague answers here are a warning. A specific answer — audit in weeks one and two, tracking corrected by week four, first content live by week six — shows the agency has a repeatable process rather than an improvised one.
How do you handle being wrong?
Every campaign includes decisions that do not work. What matters is whether that gets surfaced quickly or buried in a dashboard. Ask for an example of something that underperformed and what happened next. An agency that cannot think of one is either very new or not telling you much.
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