Questions to ask before you sign with anyone

01 — Money

Money

1. What does it cost, in numbers, before we have a call?

Ours: SEO from $1,150 a month, Google Ads from $950, paid social from $980, AI search visibility from $850 as an add-on, tracking setup from $1,250 one-time. All published on the pricing page with inclusions and exclusions.
Watch for: a refusal to give any figure until a call. It's a negotiating position, and you're the one being negotiated with.

2. Is the advertising budget included in the fee, or on top of it?

Ours: on top, always. Google, Meta and LinkedIn bill you directly, at cost, on your own payment method. Nothing passes through us and nothing is marked up.
Watch for: an agency that pays the platform on your behalf and invoices you. It's not automatically wrong, but you lose the ability to check what was actually spent.

3. Is there a setup or build fee, what does it cover, and is it charged once?

Ours: yes, and it varies by service. SEO Foundation has a $1,650 technical foundation, not charged on Core or Growth. Google Ads has a $1,450 account build. Paid social has $1,450 per platform. Each is charged once and what it produces belongs to you.
Watch for: a setup fee with no description of what's in it.

4. Do you charge a percentage of my ad spend, and at what point?

Ours: no percentage at all while monthly spend is under $10,000 — a flat fee. Above $10,000 it becomes 11%. Both numbers and the threshold are published.
Watch for: a percentage model from the first dollar. Ask directly whether that means their income rises every time they recommend a bigger budget, and listen to how the answer is constructed.

5. What would make this cost more than the published price?

Ours: site size, market competitiveness, content volume, ad spend above the threshold, number of platforms, and the state of what already exists. All six are published on the pricing page.
Watch for: "it depends", with no list of what it depends on.

6. Is there anything I'd have to buy separately for this to work?

Ours: possibly. Third-party call tracking, a consent management platform if your site needs one, stock imagery, or video production if a campaign depends on it. We'll name them and scope them; the licence is yours to buy. We don't resell tools at a markup.
Watch for: tool costs appearing in month two.

Published on the pricing page →

02 — Scope

Scope and delivery

7. What exactly is delivered each month, in countable terms?

Ours: a stated number of content pieces or rewrites per tier, the technical work from the agreed priority list, campaign management, and a written report. The counts are on the pricing page.
Watch for: "ongoing optimisation" as a deliverable. It isn't one.

8. What is explicitly not included?

Ours: every service page and every pricing tier carries its own exclusions list, in the same size type as the inclusions.
Watch for: a proposal with no exclusions section at all. That's not generosity; it's where the month-four argument comes from.

9. Who is actually doing the work, and will you tell me if that changes?

Ours: you're told in writing which people or contracted specialists handle each part of your account before you sign, and told if it changes. If a contractor does part of it, you know before it starts.
Watch for: "our team" as a complete answer. Ask for specifics and see what happens.

10. Is any of this subcontracted or offshored?

Ours: answered directly, in writing, before you sign. See the previous answer.
Watch for: discomfort. The subcontracting isn't the problem; the concealment is.

11. What do you need from me, and how often?

Ours: access to your accounts, approval on content and significant changes, and answers about your business in week one. Realistically an hour or two in the first fortnight, less after that.
Watch for: an agency that says it needs nothing from you. That agency is going to publish something you'd have objected to.

12. What happens in the first two weeks?

Ours: access, audit, conversion tracking check, competitor comparison, and an agreed priority list. No performance claims, because there's nothing to claim in two weeks.
Watch for: a promise of early results.

03 — Exit

Ownership and exit

13. Who will own the ad accounts, the analytics property and the content?

Ours: you do, including accounts we create for you. We use delegated access, never ownership.
Watch for: any arrangement where the agency owns the account and gives you a login. That's the single most common way clients end up unable to leave.

14. Can I revoke your access myself, without asking you?

Ours: yes, from inside your own accounts, in about a minute, without a reason.
Watch for: a process that requires their cooperation.

15. If we stop working together, what do I keep?

Ours: everything produced for you — audits, reports, content, keyword lists, campaign structures, documentation — exported in a usable format on request, at no charge.
Watch for: work held in the agency's own tools with no export path.

16. What's the initial term, the notice period, and what happens to work in progress?

Ours: all three are in the written agreement, and you read it before signing. Work in progress is listed at the point of notice: what's finished, what's half-finished, and what happens to each. You aren't billed for work that isn't delivered.
Watch for: an evasive answer here, or a twelve-month lock-in presented as standard. Also watch for "no contracts" said casually, since it usually turns out there is one.

17. Will you talk to whoever takes over after you?

Ours: yes, and there's no charge for it.
Watch for: a handover fee.

Pushing on ownership and exit is the industry's own recognised test. Buyer-education guides across this category tell people to ask exactly these questions and to treat resistance as a red flag. An agency that hesitates here is telling you what leaving would be like.

The exit policy in full →

04 — Reporting

Results and reporting

18. Can you guarantee rankings or a specific return?

Ours: no. Nobody controls a search engine's output or an auction's prices, and we have no client history to base a projection on. The correct answer to this question, from anybody, is no. If you get a yes, that's the most useful thing you'll learn all week.

19. What metrics will you report, and will enquiries be one of them?

Ours: enquiries first, on every report, followed by cost per enquiry, spend against plan, traffic by channel with a fair comparison period, the service-specific detail, the named tasks completed, what's next, and what went wrong.
Watch for: reports built on rankings, impressions and reach. Those are the numbers that improve most easily without anything happening to your business.

20. How often does the report arrive, who writes it, and does it cost extra?

Ours: written reporting is included in every retainer and never billed separately. It's written by the person doing your work. The cadence is agreed in writing before work starts, so you know it before you sign.
Watch for: reporting as a paid add-on, or a dashboard link offered instead of analysis.

21. What does a bad month look like in your reporting?

Ours: it looks like a section saying what didn't work, which is in every report. If a report has no bad news in it, it's a sales document.
Watch for: an agency that can't describe one. Also watch, once you've hired anyone, for the month where the report suddenly says everything is fine and your phone hasn't rung. That specific mismatch is the most reliable early sign that you're being managed rather than served.

22. How long before I can fairly judge this?

Ours: paid media, a few weeks for real data. SEO, around six months for a fair judgement, and three months to see whether the work is being done properly.
Watch for: any compressed version of that.

The report specification →

05 — No

Questions we answer "no" to

Collected in one place, because scrolling to find them would be its own kind of dishonesty.

Who we're not right for →