5 Questions You Should Ask A Digital Marketing Agency Before You Hire One

No, definitely not the "Who are your other clients" question - as in most times, you will end up with a reply that adds no value to your decision making. The decision to hire a digital marketing agency is as important as analysing whether the other party could make the cut as a life partner, especially in most times, you will end up sharing important data of your business as soon as the relationship starts. So treat the selection process as an extremely important step and a thoughtful one.

Question 1: My management has a strategy for business growth but from the marketing execution point of view, can you tell me the steps that you will take in getting me there?

Sounds like a trick question but as a matter of fact, a good digital marketing agency should have great clarity what are the factors that make your business successful. If anything, they are your partner for a crucial part in the business and in the event they are merely repeating what you've told them without the ability to explain to you in their own words, beware.

Save your time and walk away if you hear this:

Well the key is to get your word out there. Afterall, the more eyeballs you get for your ad the better it is. We'll make full use of your budget to do that. Can't guarantee your return as at the end it's all up to you. We can show really engaging ads to the audience and hopefully they reply. Afterall, ad is for you to reach new customers and we'll do that based on your allocated budget. If you can't do much after we've helped you in your getting the word out there to engage with your potential customers, there's really nothing we can do.

Question 2: Can you tell me how much is my potential return on marketing spend and the breakeven point to ensure that I can continue to spend on the budget as you have proposed?

A good marketer should be able to give you an indication of the quantity of sales that you have to make or the potential leads that should convert into buyers for you to make the marketing spend worthwhile - well, we're not asking an on-the-dot response but an indication or at least, an initiative to help you measure the return. Else, what are they even proposing in their proposal/media plan if it's not based on the objective of getting a return on the marketing budget?

Beware if they're only proposing to you vanity metrics such as CPC, CPM, CPE, CTR. Ask them back how much kg is a CPC? In other words, what do those metrics even mean in ROI on the marketing spend?

Save your time and walk away if you hear this:

We'll run awareness ads and show it to maximum audience - the more people see your ad, the better it is. So we'll strive for the lowest costs per thousand impression (CPM) and then roll another ad to optimise for lowest costs per click (CPC). We'll also do retargeting ad to ensure that they engage with you and hopefully click through to your website to find out more. So we'll aim the highest click through rate (CTR).

Question 3: In your opinion, should we narrowly focus on this marketing channel for our business?

Remember, marketing strategy is generally referred as marketing mix for a reason. The process of communicating your brand's key message is always done in a combination of more than one channel in today's age and time. We have encountered narrow based agencies that only focus on a specific marketing channel - nothing wrong with that. The key is whether your intention is to get a specialist in specific channel because you have other channels covered properly VS you just need the best and most optimum help to manage your advertising and marketing strategy execution.

The latter would definitely require a broader outlook into the latest workings of all channel and every decision should be driven by data - less creative conversation and more numbers - which also means campaign testing, testing and more testing. So if that's your intention the key is to listen for signs that the agency has consider the broad marketing mix and concluded that specific choices of channel is the best bang for the buck to get maximum results for your business.

Save your time and walk away if you hear this:

I believe you should put more money in <name your the preferred channel> as based on our experience, they have the best <name the one key reason of the specific channel>. If anything, you should <go on and on why that ONE channel should be the preferred one>. The rest may still work for you but this is the one that you should place more emphasis on!

Question 4: How would you keep us updated on the progress of our campaigns?

Well, if the agencies provide you with a dashboard of good analytics and real time reporting, kudos to that. We understand many don't and only provide Powerpoint reports as means of updates. Nothing wrong with that, but the key here is to understand the level of communications and accessibility to the agencies - they may not be able to be at your side 24/7.

Understand that with limited budget, they can only be there for you for a limited time but that shouldn't be the reason to get limited access to information of your campaigns. Afterall, it is right to monitor your marketing spend results at your convenience, so ensure that the arrangements are in place to ensure that you still have the level of monitoring on progress without the need to take too much of the agency's time (and further billable).

Else, look for an agency with a proper set up in place that you can still access information of your campaigns if they are willing to provide you information at request or better, real time access to analytics via the web.

Save your time and walk away if you hear this:

We don't have a real-time analytics dashboard for our clients and as much as we would like to provide you with a real-time update via e-mail or instant messenger, based on your budget, we can only allocate X amount of time a month to see you for an update. If you can spend (more), we can increase the level of communication as after all, we are billable by time (man hours/days).

Question 5: How would you prepare for a proper handover in the event our official engagement period end?

Sounds counterintuitive as you have barely started and you're now discussing the end. Well, think about it again, are you already preparing for life after you in case anything happens to you? It's a fair question to say the least - that you need to know what to expect in case the worst happens and you do not want to be stuck with confusion, lack of communication in case the working relationship goes south in the near future. Based on the pace of changes in the digital world, the likelihood that newer technology, service, systems that will evolve with time will take place, hence the likelihood that the agency you have been engaging would possibly obsolete too, can't be discounted.

We've seen many worst case scenarios to know that this is an important question to address from the start.

Save your time and walk away if you hear this:

We'll not let that happen unless you're planning to do so from the start? (jokingly) I'm sure that'll be highly unlikely scenario as we're <fill in the blank> so let's talk about how we are going to start ASAP instead. Shall we?

Of course, they are more than the above when considering hiring a digital agency and in most cases, agencies should be there for you and assist you when necessary. As a result, have a clear idea on how they operate, communicate and serve you is important to ensure a healthy and fruitful relationship with your agency.

*This story is originally published on Medium.