Most agency-selection processes we see are optimized for the wrong thing: the pitch. Agencies are great at pitching. Pitching is their product. The thing you actually want to evaluate is how they operate after the contract is signed. This list is the twelve questions we give operators who are shopping agencies, including us.

Feel free to use them with anyone. If an agency can't answer them cleanly, that's signal. If they can, you've done the hard work of the evaluation.

Twelve questions

  1. Who works on my account, specifically — and what is their tenure at the agency? Name the humans. New names every quarter is a churn red flag.
  2. Can I talk to three clients you onboarded in the last year — not your flagship case study from three years ago? Recent work is the only reliable signal of what you'll actually get.
  3. What business metric are you measured against? If the answer is “impressions” or “engagement,” walk. Pipeline, revenue, and cost to acquire are the answers.
  4. What does your weekly operating rhythm look like? A good answer names a weekly sync, a living dashboard, and a proactive flag system. A bad answer is “monthly check-ins.”
  5. How do you staff creative production? In-house studio, contracted specialists, or AI-first? All three can work. What matters is that they can ship at the pace you need without a quality cliff.
  6. What's your tooling stack? GA4, GTM, a CDP, CRM integration, ad platform APIs. If the answer is vague, measurement will be vague.
  7. How do you handle EN / FR parity? In Québec, this is not a nice-to-have. Ask for examples of bilingual campaigns they've shipped.
  8. What's your exit clause? A good agency will quote 30–60 day notice and hand over accounts cleanly. A bad one buries 12-month lock-in in the MSA.
  9. When have you fired a client? Agencies that have never turned work away are either new or undisciplined. Good agencies pick the work they can do well.
  10. What's the scope you'd recommend we not do? An agency pitching everything is an agency pitching revenue, not results.
  11. How do you price? Fixed retainer, performance-based, hybrid? Ask what happens if results are 2x expectations — and what happens if they're 0.5x.
  12. Who approves my work before it ships — and do I see it first? Some agencies ship live without approval. If you need a stage gate, lock it in writing.
Every agency can pitch. The question you're actually answering is whether you can live with these people in a weekly operating rhythm for the next year. Pitch answers don't tell you that. Operating answers do. — The fundamental evaluation

Red flags that don't show up in the pitch

A few patterns are almost diagnostic. If an agency sends you a 60-slide deck for a $5K engagement, they're pitching you the wrong product. If their case studies are all flagship brands and no mid-market operators, your scope is not their comfort zone. If they can't tell you specifically who will be in your weekly sync, staffing is unstable.

And the biggest one: if the person who pitched you is not the person who'll run your account, ask why, in writing, before you sign.

One last thing

The best agency relationships we've seen are the ones where the client is a genuinely good client. Clarity on goals, timely approvals, honest feedback, and the willingness to have hard conversations. Evaluate the agency, yes — but also evaluate yourself. A great agency working with a chaotic client still produces chaos.