Every agency site looks the same: big revenue number, wall of testimonials, logos. None of it is verifiable, and some of it is not even theirs. These checks are.
1. Ask who will be in the account, by name
Then ask how many other accounts that person runs this week. A real answer is a number. A vague one tells you the person you met on the call is not the person doing the work.
2. Ask to own the account
Campaigns should run in your Google Ads account, on your billing, with the agency holding manager access. If they insist on their own account, everything you pay for stays with them when you leave. This is the single most important term in the relationship.
3. Ask what happens in month one, specifically
"We'll audit and optimise" is not an answer. A real one names things: tracking verified against store orders, search terms read, structure rebuilt, feed fixed. If they cannot describe day three, they have not thought about day three.
4. Ask what they would refuse to do
An agency that will take any client, in any vertical, at any spend level, is describing a sales process rather than a service. Everyone competent has a list of things they turn down.
5. Ask for the contract before the call ends
Notice period, minimum term, setup fee, what happens to the account at handover. If any of it is "we'll sort that later", it will be sorted in their favour.
6. Ask them to explain your own numbers back to you
Give them view access and ask what they see. Someone good will find something specific and uncomfortable in ten minutes. Someone selling will talk about their process.
7. Two minutes in your own account
If you already have an agency: Tools > Change history. Every edit, timestamped, and you own it. Three weeks of silence means nobody is running it. This is the check almost nobody uses and it is decisive.
8. Ask for a reference, not a screenshot
A client who will take a ten-minute call is worth more than a wall of cropped Slack messages. If nobody will, ask why.
We do not have them yet — we are newer than the big names and we are not going to borrow anyone else's. Ask for references on the call and we will connect you with a client directly. More on that here.