Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Paid Media Agency

Hiring a paid media agency is a significant commitment — financially, operationally, and in terms of trust. You're handing someone access to your ad accounts, your budget, and in many cases your brand's first impression on potential customers.

Done well, it can be transformative. Done badly, you can burn through tens of thousands of pounds and end up with a polished deck full of metrics that have no bearing on your actual business.

The problem is that most agencies are good at selling themselves. They know which case studies to show, which numbers to lead with, and how to make a pitch feel reassuring. So the real skill isn't in evaluating what they show you — it's in knowing what to ask for.

This is a practical list of questions to put to any paid media agency before you sign a contract. Some are process questions. Some are about accountability. A few are deliberately uncomfortable — because the answers to those tend to be the most revealing.

1. Who will actually be working on my account?

This might be the single most important question you can ask, and it's one that agencies often sidestep.

Many agencies win business on the strength of their senior team — experienced strategists who present well and clearly know their stuff. But once you're onboarded, day-to-day management often passes to a junior account executive with twelve months of experience and fifteen other clients.

Ask specifically: who will be managing my campaigns on a daily basis, what's their experience level, and how many other accounts are they responsible for? Then ask to speak to that person before you sign anything. If the agency is hesitant about that, take note.

Also worth asking: what happens to my account if that person leaves? Staff turnover in agencies is high, and losing your account manager mid-campaign without a proper handover can set performance back significantly.

2. Can you show me a real example of an account you've improved — and what it looked like before?

Every agency has case studies. The question is whether those case studies actually demonstrate strategic thinking — or whether they just happened to be managing an account during a period of broader market growth.

Push for specifics. What did the account structure look like when they took it over? What changes did they make and why? What improved as a result, and what didn't work as expected? A good agency will be able to walk you through this confidently and honestly. A less good one will deflect towards headline numbers without the context to explain them.

Bonus points if they can show you an example where something didn't go to plan and explain how they handled it. That tells you far more about how an agency operates than a best-case success story.

3. How do you measure success — and how does that connect to my margins?

A surprising number of agencies will answer this with 'ROAS' and leave it at that. ROAS tells you the ratio of revenue to ad spend — but it says nothing about whether you're actually making money after costs.

A better agency will want to understand your margins before they define what success looks like. They'll talk about target CPA (cost per acquisition), blended return across channels, or — for e-commerce — what a profitable ROAS threshold looks like given your product costs and fulfilment. Before committing to any agency, a free PPC audit gives you an independent benchmark so you can evaluate what an agency is actually proposing against where your account genuinely stands.

If an agency can't articulate how their work connects to your profitability — not just your revenue — that's a meaningful gap.

4. Will I own my ad accounts and data if I leave?

This is non-negotiable, and yet it still catches businesses out.

Some agencies build and manage campaigns within accounts they own — meaning if you part ways, you don't just lose the agency, you lose the campaign history, the audience data, the conversion tracking setup, and the optimisation signals that the platform's algorithm has built up over months of spend. You're essentially starting from zero.

Always insist that ad accounts are created in your name, that you have admin access at all times, and that all assets — tracking, audiences, creative — sit within your own accounts. Any agency that pushes back on this should be viewed with significant scepticism.

5. How transparent are you about where my budget actually goes?

There are two distinct costs in paid media: your ad spend (what the platforms charge for actually running your ads) and the management fee (what the agency charges for running them on your behalf). It's worth being clear on both.

Some agencies charge a percentage of ad spend as their fee, which creates a problematic incentive — the more you spend, the more they earn, regardless of whether that spend is working. Others add a margin on top of the media cost without being fully transparent about it.

Ask for a clear breakdown: how much of what I pay goes to the platforms, and how much is your fee? A straightforward agency will answer this without hesitation.

6. What does your onboarding process look like — and how long until we see results?

Good agencies have a clear onboarding process: an audit of your existing accounts, a strategy session to align on goals and target audiences, a defined timeline for the first campaigns going live, and a clear communication rhythm once things are running.

Be cautious of two things here. First, agencies who promise fast results — paid media can produce results relatively quickly compared to SEO, but meaningful optimisation takes time, data, and iteration. Promises of transformational performance within the first month are usually unrealistic.

Second, vague onboarding. If an agency can't clearly describe what the first four to six weeks look like, that's often a sign that they don't have a consistent process — which usually means your account will get set up however they happen to do it that month.

7. How do you handle it when something isn't working?

This question tends to produce very different answers depending on the agency. The honest ones will talk about testing frameworks, threshold-based decisions, and how they communicate underperformance to clients. The less honest ones will give you a vague answer about 'continuous optimisation' that doesn't really mean anything.

What you're really trying to understand is: does this agency proactively flag problems, or do they wait for you to notice? Do they have a clear approach to diagnosing underperformance? And are they willing to recommend pausing spend if the data isn't supporting it — even if that reduces their fee?

The last one is a useful litmus test. An agency that would rather run underperforming campaigns than lose a month's fee isn't working in your interest.

8. Can I speak to a current client?

References are standard practice in most professional services — but in the agency world, they're rarely requested and even more rarely offered proactively. Ask for one.

A confident agency with happy clients will have no hesitation in connecting you with someone who can speak to their experience. If they only offer written testimonials, or suggest that client confidentiality prevents them from making introductions, push back gently.

When you do speak to a reference, ask about communication and responsiveness as much as performance. Many agency relationships break down not because the ads aren't working, but because the client feels out of the loop and doesn't get straight answers when they ask questions.

Red flags to watch for in the pitch process

Beyond the questions above, there are a few patterns in the pitch process itself that are worth paying attention to:

• They lead with their own awards rather than your potential outcomes
• They can't give you a clear answer on who will be in your account day-to-day
• They talk about 'strategy' without being able to explain what that means in practice for your specific business
• They recommend a minimum spend level that feels suspiciously aligned with their percentage-based fee structure
• They ask very little about your business, your margins, your customers, or what's been tried before
• They push for a long contract upfront rather than earning your confidence over time

The right agency will welcome these questions

If asking any of the above feels awkward, it shouldn't. A good paid media agency will welcome scrutiny — they'll have clear answers ready, because these are the kinds of conversations they have with every client they're proud to work with.

If an agency becomes defensive, evasive, or rushes you towards a contract before you've had a chance to do proper due diligence, that discomfort is telling you something worth listening to.

Paid media done well is a genuine growth lever. The goal of this process is to find a partner who's as invested in your results as you are — not just in managing your account. If you're based in Scotland, we offer the added benefit of working with someone who genuinely understands the local market alongside the full scope of Google Ads and paid media strategy.