The presentation ended and the agency looked excellent. The number of posts was clear, the number of ads was clear, and the monthly retainer was clear.
One thing went unmentioned: which number we will be judged by after three months. That alone separates the agency selling execution from the one selling a result.
What Do You Actually Get When You Hire a Marketing Agency?
You get judgment, not execution.
Execution is available and relatively cheap: a designer, an editor, an ads person. What is hard to get is the judgment on where the next budget goes and why, and when to stop a channel performing below the others.
An agency selling you a number of posts hands you the cheap part and leaves the hard part with you.
How to Choose a Marketing Agency: The Criteria That Decide It
An agency is not measured by its deck, but by ten criteria, most of which show up before signing if you know where to look. Each one has a practical test you can run in the first meeting.
1. Do They Ask About Your Numbers Before Presenting a Plan?
The strongest and fastest criterion. An agency walking into the first meeting with a ready plan is selling a template designed before it knew you.
A serious agency asks first: what is your average order value, what does acquiring a customer cost you, where does your demand come from today, and which month is your peak. Without those numbers no expected return can be calculated, and without an expected return the plan is tidy guesswork.
How to test it: do not hand them your numbers at the start. Watch whether they ask for them or start presenting without them.
2. Do They Agree With You on One Number, a Review Date and a Stopping Rule?
Before starting, ask for three things in writing: one number the third month will be judged by, a date to review it, and a threshold below which the campaign stops.
The number must be commercial rather than media: cost per order, qualified enquiry count, or return after deductions. Reach and engagement describe activity rather than result.
How to test it: ask which number means we stop this campaign, and after how many weeks. An agency promising everything will work is postponing the hard decision to a point where the budget has already been spent.
3. Do They Know Your Business Model, Not Just Your Sector?
The sector name is not enough. Two stores in the same field can differ completely: one sells on prepayment and the other on cash on delivery, one sells once and the other on a repeating subscription.
An agency that knows your business model asks about refused deliveries, about repeat purchase rate, and about which governorates you ship to. One that stops at the sector name will apply what worked for a completely different model.
How to test it: ask them the biggest difference between your business and a previous client of theirs in the same field. A good answer names a mechanism rather than a company.
4. How Do They Calculate Return and Which Items Do They Deduct?
An agency calculating return from confirmed orders alone hands you an optimistic number that leads you to the wrong decision.
Listen to the answer for three items: incomplete orders, fulfilment cost covering shipping, packaging and returns, and exchange rate differences on ad spend. We covered what must be deducted in our article on marketing ROI.
How to test it: ask them to calculate the return on one of your past campaigns in front of you, and watch which number they start from.
5. Who Owns the Accounts and the Data After the Contract Ends?
Ad accounts and customer data are assets belonging to you. An agency holding them in its own name makes your exit expensive even when the result is weak.
Ask for every account to be in your company’s name from day one, and for your access to be complete rather than through reports they send you.
How to test it: ask for full access to the ad account in the first week. Hesitation here is an answer in itself.
6. Can They Say No?
An agency agreeing to everything you ask is selling comfort rather than an opinion. You are not paying for agreement. You are paying for expertise that stops you making an expensive decision.
Look for three markers in the first meeting: did they correct an assumption of yours, did they rule out a channel you said you wanted, and did they tell you something that will not work in your market.
How to test it: ask them for something deliberately excessive, like doubling sales in a month. A good answer refuses and explains rather than promising and postponing.
7. Does Their Own Marketing Match What They Sell You?
An agency selling you search engine optimisation whose site never appears on its own keywords, or selling you content while its blog has been dormant for a year, is telling you something about its capability rather than about how busy it is.
This does not mean being the best in every channel. But selling a capability you do not practise on yourself is a contradiction worth a direct question.
How to test it: search for their name and for the service they are selling you, and see where they appear.
8. What Do They Base Their Pricing On?
Pricing takes three forms, and each form describes a different relationship.
Pricing by hours or by output count puts the agency’s interest in raising volume rather than improving the result. A fixed monthly fee tied to a scope of work is better when the scope is clear and its indicators are defined. Pricing where part of the fee is tied to a result means the agency shares the risk with you.
No single form is always right. But an agency that cannot explain the logic of its price will not be able to explain the logic of its decisions later.
How to test it: ask about a first phase where part of the fee is tied to an agreed result. Whoever sells confidence shares the risk. Whoever sells working hours asks for the full fee upfront.
9. What Are the Exit Terms in the Contract?
Read the termination clause before the services clause. A long commitment with no clear exit turns a bad decision into an extended loss.
Look for four things: the notice period before termination, whether it is tied to a season or a full cycle, how accounts and data are handed over, and whether there are termination fees.
How to test it: ask for the contract copy before the final meeting rather than after it.
10. Is There One Person Accountable for the Number Rather Than the Execution?
A team executes, but one person must be answerable for the agreed indicator.
When every individual is responsible for their own task alone, nobody is responsible for the result. That problem surfaces in the third month, when everything has been delivered and the number has not moved.
How to test it: ask for the name of whoever will run your account daily and whoever will review its numbers, and how many other accounts they run at the same time. Then ask: who will tell me the number has not moved, and when?
The Difference Between a Content Package and a Results Plan
The package describes what you will receive: the count of designs, articles and campaigns. The plan describes what will change: which number, by how much, and across how many months.
The practical difference appears at the first weak result. The package owner delivered what you agreed, so no blame attaches. The plan owner is accountable for the number, so they adjust the message, the channel and the budget until they get there.
McKinsey research points to the highest-growth companies being 1.9 times more likely to work with agencies advanced in a specific capability, even where that means managing more than one agency.
What Does a Numbers-Based Decision Do to the Same Budget?
It redirects it rather than raising it.
One of the clearest documented examples is a home appliance company that spent a large share of its budget on traditional advertising, until customer journey analysis showed that less than 9% of people searching for home appliances visit the manufacturer’s site at all. When it shifted spend towards retailer page content, its online sales rose 21%, per McKinsey’s analysis.
The budget did not change. Where it went changed.
The Standard of Reporting You Are Entitled to Ask For
Look at what listed companies publish every quarter: a table of operational indicators with figures comparable year on year.
Fawry publishes in its business results statement a table covering transaction counts, service points, transaction value and rates of change. E-finance Group publishes in its disclosure transaction counts and values per segment separately.
Ask your agency for the same logic: few figures with fixed definitions, compared against the same period last year, with every movement explained.
When Do You Need an Agency and When Is an In-House Team Enough?
The size of the decision settles the question, not the size of the work.
An in-house team is better when the work repeats and its direction is known: daily operations, steady content, customer replies. But when you need a decision that changes budget allocation or opens a new channel, expertise accumulated across different businesses arrives faster and errs less.
Plenty of businesses need both: a team that executes, and an outside party that reads the numbers and sets the direction.
How Brand Brew Works With Its Clients
We start by calculating the expected return before proposing any plan. If the numbers do not show a clear opportunity, we say so early rather than selling a package.
We agree on one number the work will be judged by, on a date to review it, and on what we stop if it does not work. And every account and every dataset stays in your name from day one.
How do I choose the right marketing agency?
Measure it against ten criteria rather than its deck: that it asks about your numbers before presenting a plan, that it agrees with you on a number, a review date and a stopping rule, that it knows your business model, that it calculates return after deductions, that it leaves the accounts in your name, that it can say no, that its own marketing matches what it sells you, that it explains its pricing logic, that its contract holds a clear exit, and that one person is accountable for the number.
What is the difference between an agency selling a package and one selling a result?
The package describes what you will receive in designs, articles and campaigns. The plan describes what will change in a specific number and within a defined period. The difference shows at the first weak result, when one has delivered what you agreed and the other is accountable for the number.
What are the signs of the wrong marketing agency?
Talking about reach and engagement alone, holding the ad accounts in the agency’s name, no defined date for reviewing performance, and presenting a plan before asking about your business numbers.
When is an in-house team enough instead of an agency?
When the work repeats and its direction is known: daily operations, steady content, customer replies. A decision that changes budget allocation or opens a new channel benefits from expertise accumulated across different businesses.
Apply the Ten Criteria Before Signing With Any Agency
Before any contract, ask for the number the work will be judged by. Book a 20-minute diagnostic call with Brand Brew, and we will show you the expected return calculation for your business in numbers before we talk about any plan.
