A typical agency sales call runs 45 minutes, and the agency controls 40 of them. They ask about your goals, present a deck, and end with a proposal. You leave knowing how they sell and almost nothing about how they work.
The fix is a script. Below are the questions that reliably separate an agency that will do the work from one that will onboard you and disappear. Use eight to ten of them on a first call and hold the rest for the second.
Fit: are you actually their client?
1. How many clients do you currently have in my industry, and how many have you had in the last three years? Current clients matter more than logos. A single case study from 2021 is not experience.
2. What is your average client tenure? Under 12 months usually means a churn-and-replace sales model. Over 24 months means clients are getting results.
3. Can I speak to two current clients and one that left? The last part is the real question. An agency that cannot name a client who left on good terms is either very new or not being straight with you.
4. What kind of client is a bad fit for you? A confident answer here is one of the strongest signals in the whole call. Anyone who says "we can help anyone" is telling you they have no method.
5. What is the smallest budget you work with, and what does that client get? This tells you where you sit in their book. Being the smallest account in an agency is a slow, quiet problem.
Team: who does the work?
6. Who will be my day-to-day contact, and are they on this call? The pitch team is not the delivery team at most agencies. Ask to meet the account manager before signing.
7. How many accounts does that person carry? Above roughly 20 for a hands-on service, response time and proactivity fall off.
8. Which parts of the work are in house and which are subcontracted or offshore? Neither is disqualifying. Not being told is.
9. What happens if my account manager leaves? You are asking whether knowledge lives in a system or in one person's head.
10. Who writes the content and who touches the ad account? Titles and seniority, specifically. "Our team" is not an answer.
Process: what happens in the first 90 days?
11. Walk me through onboarding, week by week. A real agency answers in specifics: audits, access, tracking setup, baselines, first deliverables. A vague answer means it is improvised every time.
12. What will you deliver in month one, month two, and month three? Get it in writing. This becomes your early accountability check.
13. How long before we should expect results, and what does an early signal look like? You want a distinction between leading indicators (rankings, impressions, cost per click) and lagging ones (leads, booked jobs, revenue).
14. What do you need from me, and how much of my time per month? Programs fail on client-side bottlenecks as often as on agency work. Make the ask explicit up front.
15. How do you handle tracking and attribution setup? If call tracking, conversion tracking, and CRM connection are not part of onboarding, the reporting will be guesswork later.
16. What is your process when something is not working? Listen for a review cadence and a decision framework, not "we would optimize."
Proof: does the case study hold up?
17. For this case study, what was the starting point and what was the timeframe? A 300% increase from a tiny base is noise. See what a real agency case study looks like.
18. What else was that client doing at the same time? Honest agencies will name the other factors. That honesty is the point of the question.
19. Can you show me an account that did not work, and what you learned? The single best question on this list. Everyone has losses. Only the credible ones will discuss them.
20. Do you guarantee any results? Ranking and results guarantees are a red flag, not a feature. See why unlimited revisions and SEO guarantees are red flags.
Money and reporting
21. Exactly what is your fee, what is ad spend, and what is software? Three separate numbers, always. Anything bundled will be argued about later.
22. Who owns the ad accounts, website, content, and tracking data if we part ways? You should own all of it. Get it in the contract, not the sales call.
23. What is in the monthly report, and can I see a real one from a current client, redacted? A report that ends at traffic and impressions is a report designed to avoid accountability.
24. What is the one number you want to be judged on? Great answer: cost per booked job, qualified leads, pipeline, revenue. Weak answer: rankings, impressions, "brand awareness."
25. What is not included that clients commonly assume is? Landing pages, creative production, extra locations, and CRM work are the usual surprises. Compare against what a marketing retainer should include.
Contract
26. What is the term, what is the notice period, and what happens in month one if I want out? Six months is common and reasonable if onboarding is heavy. Twelve months with no exit clause on an untested relationship is not.
27. What are the price escalators, and when do fees change? Ask now so it is not a conversation in month seven.
Answers that should end the conversation
- "We guarantee page one rankings."
- "We cannot share client references."
- "Our process is proprietary, we cannot walk you through it."
- "Ad spend and our fee are one number."
- "We can start Monday" with no audit or discovery.
- Pressure to sign on the call for a discount that expires today.
- Any answer about who does the work that is not a named role.
How to run the call
Send three or four of the questions ahead of time, especially the references and the case study details. Serious agencies will come prepared and appreciate a buyer who knows what they are doing. The ones who go quiet have told you something useful for free.
Take notes on the second answer, not the first. The first answer is rehearsed. The follow-up question is where you learn how they actually operate.
The short version:
- Control the call. Pick eight to ten questions, hold the rest for round two.
- The three most revealing: what kind of client is a bad fit, show me an account that failed, and what is the one number you want to be judged on.
- Always separate agency fee, media spend, and software into three numbers.
- Ask to meet the person doing the work, and ask how many accounts they carry.
- Insist on owning the accounts, the site, the content, and the data.
- Start your shortlist from the agency directory, read four questions that filter a marketing agency, and see the methodology behind our rankings.