12 questions to ask a marketing agency before the pitch becomes a contract

Before you sign with a marketing agency, ask who will actually do the work, how they will learn your buyer, what they will report, and what the contract lets you do if progress stalls. Good agencies answer all four in writing. Vague answers on any of them usually predict a slow first quarter.

You're an operating partner, or the CEO of a company you have just bought, and the value-creation plan has a marketing line in it. A shortlist of agencies has arrived, every pitch looked strong, and you have a fortnight to choose. The pitch rarely shows how the work will run in month three, which is where these questions help.

Key takeaways

• Ask who does the work each week, and whether you can speak to them before you sign.
• Ask how the agency will learn your buyer before it writes a single page.
• Agree that progress is reported in qualified pipeline, with activity counts as context.
• Read the notice period, the ownership terms, and the exit before anything else in the contract.
• Ask for the first 90 days in writing, with dates against each output.

Find out who will actually do the work after the pitch

The people in the pitch and the people on the account are often different, and that gap explains more disappointing engagements than any other single factor. Three questions close it:

1. Who will run our account day to day, and can we speak to them before we sign?
2. How many other clients does that person look after at the same time?
3. Who writes the strategy, and who writes the content, and are they the same people?

A confident agency will put the senior person on a call before the contract is signed. If the answer to the second question is a large number, expect the senior attention to be thin by month two. The wider choice of who can do this work at your company size is covered in who actually does marketing for mid-market portfolio companies.

Buyer understanding should come before the first content calendar

An agency can only write well about a buyer it understands, and a company you have just bought often has a message aimed at an older customer. Ask these three questions:

4. How will you find out who our best customers are and why they chose us?
5. Will you speak to our customers directly, and how many conversations do you plan?
6. What do you need from us in the first two weeks to get started?

Strong answers mention customer conversations and a written positioning document before any content goes out. The trade-offs between a short workshop and a round of 15 to 20 interviews are covered in positioning workshop or buyer interviews, and what that document should contain is set out in the messaging house.

The reporting conversation should start with qualified pipeline

Reporting shapes behaviour, so agree it before you start. An agency that reports impressions and posts published will optimise for impressions and posts.

7. Which numbers will you report each month, and which one matters most?
8. How will you show the link between your work and qualified pipeline?
9. What will you recommend we stop, and how often will you review that?

The best answer to the last question is a regular review that includes stopping work that is not producing. How marketing should report into the wider plan is set out in the marketing workstream inside a value creation plan.

Read the exit clauses before you read the scope of work

Most of the commercial risk sits in a few clauses. Read these before the scope of work:

10. What is the notice period, and is there a minimum term?
11. Who owns the content, the data, the ad accounts, and the domain logins if we part ways?
12. What do we receive at handover if the engagement ends?

A month-to-month arrangement with everything owned by the company keeps your options open through the hold period. A 12-month minimum with accounts held by the agency makes any change slow and expensive.

Five things to check in every agency pitch: the team, buyer research, reporting, contract terms and the first 90 days

Use this as a quick scoring sheet after each pitch.

One warning sign is worth a follow-up question. Three usually mean the engagement will be harder to manage than the pitch suggested. For a realistic picture of what the first quarter should contain, the 100-day marketing plan for a newly acquired company sets out the sequence.

How 12 questions changed the agency choice at a 60-person software company

Take a newly acquired Nordic software company we work with: Around 60 people, 600+ customers, two marketers, no CMO. The shortlist included a well-known agency with an impressive pitch and a 12-month minimum term.

The questions surfaced the gap quickly. The senior strategist in the pitch would not run the account, the plan went straight to content without speaking to customers, and reporting was based on reach. The company chose an arrangement that started with buyer interviews and a written positioning document, kept every account in its own name, and could be stopped month to month. The two marketers stayed on the work only they could do, close to the product and the customers.

FAQ

Choose the agency you can hold to its answers in month three

Ask who does the work, how the buyer gets learned, what gets reported, and what the contract allows. Ask for the answers in writing, score them against the table above, and choose the agency whose answers you could hold them to in month three. No random acts of marketing.

If you would like to see how a small senior team answers these questions for a company you have just bought, the value-creation programme for portfolio companies sets out how the work runs and where to book a strategy session. You will leave with a bird's-eye plan, whether or not we work together.