Marketing agency red flags to check before you sign

Aug 22
4 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Introduction

Most disappointing agency relationships were identifiable before they started. The warning signs were present in the pitch and were not recognised, because the buyer did not know what to look for.

None of the signs below prove bad faith. Each one is a question worth asking, and the answer usually settles it.

1. Marketing agency red flags start with guaranteed results

Nobody can guarantee a ranking, a lead volume or a return, because none of those are within any supplier's control.

Search engines change, competitors respond, markets move. A guarantee either has escape clauses that make it meaningless, or it is being offered by someone who intends to hit a number in a way that does not help you — cheap traffic, low-quality leads, or a keyword nobody searches.

The reasonable version is a guarantee about work delivered, not results achieved.

2. Accounts created in their name

The most expensive problem and the least visible during the sale.

Ask directly: will the advertising accounts, analytics and any tooling be owned by us, with you granted access? If the answer is that they run everything through their own accounts, you are renting a history you cannot take with you.

The same applies to the website, the domain and any content produced. Ownership on completion should be a stated term, not a matter of goodwill at the end.

3. No named deliverables and no defined scope

A proposal describing activities rather than outputs is a proposal you cannot hold anyone to.

"Ongoing optimisation", "content creation", "social media management" — none of these state what will exist at the end of the month.

Ask for the specific list: how many of what, produced when, and what "done" means. Suppliers who work to defined scopes provide this immediately. Those who cannot may not have a process.

4. Reporting on metrics that do not connect to money

A monthly report full of impressions, reach, engagement and rankings, with no cost per enquiry and no customer numbers, is a report designed to look busy.

Ask at the outset which numbers the report will contain, and insist that cost per enquiry and cost per customer are among them.

If a supplier resists reporting on the numbers that matter to the business, that resistance is itself the finding.

5. Pressure, urgency and exclusivity in the sales process

The sales behaviour predicts the delivery behaviour more reliably than the credentials do.

Discounts expiring today, limited availability in your area, an offer contingent on signing this week, reluctance to let you take the proposal away and think about it.

A supplier confident in the work does not need urgency. This is also the point at which to notice whether they asked you more questions than they answered — a proposal produced without understanding your numbers is a template.

6. Long lock-ins with no exit or handover terms

Twelve-month minimums are common and not automatically wrong. What matters is what happens at the end and in between.

Check the notice period, whether there is any exit before term, what you receive on termination, and whether the accounts and data transfer. Also check whether the contract renews automatically and how much notice is needed to prevent that.

The clause to look for specifically: a written handover on termination. Its absence is what turns leaving into starting again.

7. Case studies that cannot be verified

Ask for two references from clients in a similar situation to yours, and speak to them.

Be wary of case studies with percentages and no baseline — a 400% increase from a very low starting point is arithmetic rather than achievement. Ask what the absolute numbers were.

Also ask about a client relationship that ended, and why. The answer to that question is frequently more informative than any success story.

8. Nobody will say what happens if it does not work

The final question, and the most revealing: what will you do if this is not working after three months?

Good answers involve a defined review point, agreed criteria, and a willingness to change approach or stop. Poor answers involve asking for more time and more budget on the grounds that these things take a while.

Agree the review date and the criteria in writing before you start. That single term protects you against almost every problem on this list.

Conclusion

Treat guaranteed results, accounts held in the supplier's name, undefined scope and vanity-metric reporting as questions to resolve before signing rather than details to settle later.

Read the sales process as a preview of delivery, check notice, renewal, exit and handover terms, verify case studies with real references and absolute numbers, and agree in advance the date and criteria on which the arrangement will be judged.