Most lists of questions to ask a marketing agency are written so that any agency can pass them.
"How long have you been in business?" "Do you have experience in our industry?" "What's your USP?" An agency that has never kept a client past month four can answer all of those with a straight face.
The eight questions below are different. They come from what business owners say they wish they had asked, in places like the UK Business Forums thread on digital agency red flags, and from paid-ads practitioners who have cleaned up after other agencies.
Each has a good answer and a weak answer. We have put our own answer under each question, in one line, so if you are comparing us against another agency you can hold both of us to the same list. They are the questions we would put at the centre of choosing a digital marketing agency in the UK.
Who will work on my account day to day, and can I meet them?
The person on the sales call is often not the person who will touch your account, so ask for the name of the one who will. James Critelli describes the pattern in his six red flags when hiring an ad agency: a senior account manager is promised at signing, then swapped for a junior one within months.
A good agency names the person, says how many other accounts they run, and lets you speak to them before you sign. A weak agency says "you'll have a dedicated team" and cannot name anyone.
Ask too whether any work is subcontracted. The opening poster of the UK Business Forums thread, with six years inside agencies, said some firms pass client work to freelancers or offshore teams without saying so. Being told is fine. Finding out from a Loom video is a problem.
Our answer: the person who scopes your work at Growthcart is the person who runs it, and you meet them before any contract is sent.
Whose name will the ad account, pixel and analytics be in?
The accounts should be created in your name with the agency added as a manager, and an agency that resists this is one to walk away from. The UK Business Forums thread kept coming back to this:
The client should ALWAYS own their pixel. Aleksander_Gramm, UK Business Forums
What you lose otherwise is in an older thread on the same forum. A business owner tried to take Google Ads in house and found the agency had run everything through its own manager account, with the company's card attached. The agency refused access and offered an export, because it planned to reuse the account for other clients.
PPC Hero's piece on who owns your PPC account puts a number on the history that stays behind: one new account spent $13,390 in five days before the agency had found $1,004 of wasted spend to add as negative keywords. That learning lives in the account.
A good agency asks you to open the Google Ads account and the Meta Business Manager, or creates them under your email, then requests access. A weak agency says "we'll set it all up for you" and the login ends up with them.
Scusa Media's guide gives a quick check for Meta: open Business Settings, then Ad Accounts, and if your business is not listed as owner, you do not own it.
Our answer: every ad account, pixel, Analytics property and Business Profile is owned by you, we work inside it through our manager account, and you keep admin access throughout.
What is the notice period, and what is the minimum term?
Ask for both numbers and add them together, because the sum is the real commitment. Both belong in the marketing agency contract, not just the sales call. Bill Ross of Emulent did the arithmetic: a 12-month term with 90 days' notice is a 15-month commitment, and a missed auto-renewal window can take it to 24.
Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks explained her reasons in a post on cancellation clauses: a 90-day initial lockout plus 90 days' notice, which in practice keeps a client for about six months, because she says it takes that long to do good work. That is a fair position, openly stated, and it rarely appears in the proposal deck, so you have to ask.
Silence on the subject is worse. The Court of Appeal had to decide a reasonable notice period in Alpha Lettings v Neptune because the contract never stated one. The agent wanted 12 months, the principal gave one, and the court settled on four. Nobody wants a judge filling in that blank.
A good agency states both figures in the proposal, explains the ramp-up it needs, and lets the contract go month to month after that. A weak agency buries the term in clause 14, auto-renews for a further 12 months, and charges the remaining months in full if you leave early.
Our answer: a three-month initial term, then rolling monthly with 30 days' notice, written on the first page of the proposal.
Can you show me a report from a current client, with the numbers redacted?
A sample report shows you what the agency says it measures, and a real one shows you what it sends. The gap is the difference between activity reporting and outcome reporting. The polished sample on the website has a revenue line. The one that goes out on the third of the month has impressions, reach and a paragraph about continued optimisation.
Critelli's fourth red flag is this exact swap: an agency that talks about click-through rate when you asked about cost per lead is changing the subject. His example is a $50 cost-per-lead goal that quietly became a conversation about a 0.25% click-through rate.
A good agency sends last month's report for a client in a similar sector, be it a law firm or a dental practice, name and figures blacked out, so you can see the structure: what was spent, what it produced, what changed and what is planned. A weak agency says reports are confidential, or sends a dashboard screenshot with no commentary.
Look for the "what we did" section. Shaun Gambit, on the UK Business Forums thread, described agencies that charge a monthly fee for a one-off setup followed by reporting, and that only act "when leads drop or you complain". A report that lists the month's changes is hard to fake.
Our answer: yes, we will send a redacted report from a current client before you sign, and ours lists every change made that month next to the numbers.
What did you stop doing for a client last quarter, and why?
An agency that has never stopped doing anything has never looked at its own results honestly. A lot of marketing does not work, and a good agency kills what fails and says so.
There is no rehearsed answer for this question, which is why it is useful. The good version is specific: "We paused Performance Max for a client in March because most of the conversions were brand searches they would have had anyway, and moved the budget to search." The weak version is "we're always optimising", which means nothing was stopped and nobody checked.
Our answer: we drop at least one tactic per client per quarter on average, and the report says which one and where the money went instead.
Does ad spend go to the platform or to you, and will I see the platform invoice?
Paying Google or Meta directly from your own card is the cleanest arrangement, and if the agency insists on billing ad spend through itself, ask to see the platform invoice each month.
One poster on the UK Business Forums thread, makeusvisible, said a client without their own ad account has no way to verify the agency spent the full budget. Another said paying the agency is fine, provided the invoices come straight from the platform.
The same thread's opening poster described a practice that still turns up: a flat monthly fee that includes ad spend, with no breakdown. He claimed that in some cases up to 90% of that fee went to management. We cannot verify that figure, and the fix is the same at any percentage: separate the management fee from the media cost, in writing. A straight UK Google Ads agency will show you the platform invoice without being asked.
A good agency puts your card on the ad account and invoices only its fee. A weak agency quotes one monthly figure "including ads" and will not split it.
Our answer: ad spend goes from your card to the platform, our fee is a separate invoice, and the two never sit in the same number.
What does a client that is going badly look like, and what do you do about it?
Every agency has a client whose numbers are poor this month, and how it talks about that client tells you how it will talk to you in month five. Critelli's second red flag is cherry-picking: one good week, a warm-traffic campaign, or a lucky client with a tiny budget presented as the norm.
Ask what the worst-performing account looked like last year, what changed, and whether the client stayed. A good agency has a story with a decision in it: the budget was cut, the targeting was rebuilt, or the client was told to stop spending until the website was fixed. A weak agency says all its clients are happy, or blames the client's sales team for the leads.
Our answer: we will tell you about the account we nearly lost, what we got wrong, and what we changed in the following 60 days.
What do I get back on the day I leave?
Ask for the handover list before you sign, because that is the only point at which you can still change it. What that handover should cover is the whole subject of leaving a marketing agency without losing your accounts.
Scusa Media's guide lists what walks out of the door when accounts were created under the agency: the Meta ad account and pixel with its audiences, the Google Ads history, the CRM with every lead in it, the domain, the website files, the Google Business Profile and the creative.
It also suggests a sensible clause: on termination, the agency removes itself within five working days and hands over any logins it created, and creative belongs to the client once paid for. An agency that refuses to add that paragraph has told you something.
A good agency has a written offboarding process and will show it to you. A weak agency has never thought about it, or has, and the plan is to keep the accounts.
Our answer: you own everything already, so the day you leave we remove our access, send a written handover of what is running and why, and stop invoicing.
The short version to take into the meeting
The weak answers all do the same thing, which is keep information on the agency's side of the table.
| Question | Good answer | Weak answer |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the work? | A named person you can meet | "A dedicated team" |
| Who owns the accounts? | You, with the agency as manager | "We'll set it up for you" |
| Notice and minimum term? | Both stated on page one | Clause 14, auto-renewing |
| Real report? | Redacted current-client report, changes listed | Sample dashboard, no commentary |
| What did you stop? | A named tactic and the reason | "We're always optimising" |
| Where does ad spend go? | Your card to the platform, fee invoiced separately | One figure "including ads" |
| A client going badly? | A specific account and the decision taken | "All our clients are happy" |
| What comes back when I leave? | Written handover, access removed in days | Silence |
A decision rule for the meeting: if an agency gives weak answers on ownership and notice, do not sign, however good the rest of the pitch sounds. Those two decide what the exit costs you, and the exit is the part nobody is thinking about on the day they sign.
If you want to put these questions to us, ask about our paid media service or get in touch and we will answer all eight in writing before you see a proposal.