7 Red-flags for hiring a digital ad agency
🚩 1. Agency wants to use a new ad account that you don't own 🚩
This is an immediate deal breaker. Agencies will bury this term deep in your terms of service to make it very difficult to change once you sign.
They will tell you it’s due to protecting Agency IP, or so they can hook in their proprietary software/AI bidding tools.
The reality is you would never ever hire an email marketing/CRM agency who keeps your list, or build a website with a developer who keeps your code. Or at least I hope you wouldn't!
So do not run digital advertising with an agency who keeps your data. This is double handed red flag...deal breaker!
If you don't already, create your own Admin accounts
🚩 2. The Agency is offering multiple services or full service. 🚩
It can feel like most digital marketing services are complimentary. And yet if you are seeking expertise, the frequency of change and depth of detail make it almost impossible for a single person or team to stay afloat of 1 area, let alone everything.
Offering SEO & SEM for example. While keyword research & copywriting is aligned, after this point it would be like hiring a PR agency to also do your Direct Mail campaign; the technicals, approach, timings and metrics are not.
Now it could be absolutely fine if they have teams built out for the multiple service offerings with expertise in each, that you can access. The reality of most full service is they are great at 1 service, and too scared or greedy to refer to others. So instead tell clients they offer the services, then pull in contractors or hire a single person who they have to trust blindly to manage that part of the work.
Questions to ask; what is the original service/service you are best at? Who is specifically doing the work on the account? Are you using Contractors? Will I meet/have access to the Contractors?
It's a red flag, if you cannot speak with the person managing the ad accounts OR there is a single person in the agency team to do this.
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🚩 3. Specialist agencies that can’t refer. 🚩
Once upon a time I thought it was only sunshine from specialist agencies. Until you realise the same fear and greed exists.
While we don't currently offer or receive a referral fee to/from our partner agencies, be aware they do exist. I've become more comfortable with this idea, as most of the referrals offered a small % that only become financially incentivising if you as the client stay with the agency for a long period of time.
Questions to ask; What other agencies they work with? Do they receive a commission for referring? If they cannot or only recommend advertising (or whatever specialisation they have) it’s a red flag. I would highly recommend to call the other agencies as a reference check.
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🚩 4. Agency does not give you the option to pay for your advertising directly. 🚩
Appreciating that in some cases the simplest management of budgets is to have your agency pay directly for the advertising. Here’s where this gets tricky:
- It’s difficult to spend to the exact $ amount on a monthly amount. And if above you did not get access to your own ad accounts, this becomes a dangerous game.
- For advertisers using direct buys/programmatic, you may also be surprised a the mark up on your ad spend / credits / commissions paid out by publishers, that if you raised the PO directly with would receive as a brand, not to the agency.
- Sadly, the programmatic industry makes it almost impossible/commercially negative for the Brand to own the account. There are some work arounds I can share if of interest.
We always offer our clients and strongly advise to use their payment methods direct with the platforms. We also never accept any kickbacks, any provided are disclosed to the client and re-invested.
If the agency never offers and/or demands to use their own payment method (especially on Google/Meta) this is a red flag.
Did you know Google and Meta offer monthly invoicing?
🚩 5. Bloated Boardrooms. 🚩
This one is a tricky ego balance, that is not immediately a red flag.
On one hand your agency wants to show you their full strength and give you peace of mind on the team supporting your brand. However, from my time on client side, nothing annoyed me more than your agency brining all the big guns to the sales pitch, and then never being able to see them again.
I’ve always believed there is a strength in presenting the realistic situation, don’t bring 6 people to the meetings if only 1 or 2 people will ever be available. While there are varying pricing methods for agencies, like every service business our product is our people. Each person comes at a cost.
Often the tell is that the most Senior team do all the talking, while the fresh faces take coffee orders and take notes. And yet when you start working post-pitch the coffee orderer is now your planner.
Questions to ask: Who is the day-to-day team? Who can I expect to speak directly with (aka pay for)? Who is working in the background? If you get any shady "we all work on the account/it's a collaborative" to me it's a red-flag.
If you're an eCommerce brand definitely worth reading this book. It'll do 2 things:
- Gives you education on your own numbers
- Gives you an understanding of your agencies business, both empathy and when you're overpaying!
🚩 6. Pushing a proprietary software/CMS/plugin. 🚩
In this age of open source, in my opinion it’s a poor business choice to not utilise platforms, SaaS, app stores that 100s or 1000s of customers are already utilising.
The number of brands we’ve seen unable to grow due to poor infrastructure decisions is outstanding. We are no longer working with clients who have custom CMS, due to the massive time drain and cost in troubleshooting and making basic changes.
The same is true with advertising, the number of platforms and plugins that are sold to agencies is mind boggling. If an agency is pushing their own software/plugin, it’s a red flag.
In some cases we highly recommend using a set of software/plugins in all these cases we ask the client to sign up, own the account and provide us access. Any other way is a red flag.
🚩 7. Case Studies no References. 🚩
Finally, in every agency owners bookshelf sits the book Influence, by Robert Cialdini. I would highly recommend if you’re hiring agencies to read/watch a summary as you’ll be able to notice a lot of the techniques employed. That’s not the red flag.
One of the key points of Influence is the huge value in social proof. Marketers the world over are heavily influenced by Case Studies. Yet, almost every Case Study or Award Submission has been written by the agency!
The equivalent is hiring somebody only reading their CV and never reference checking. We always offer past/present clients details on request for clients to reference check. And we’ve begun to request Clutch.co reviews, which take clients 15-20 minutes to complete a phone reference check with a 3rd party. (although I did just listen to a podcast of the agency with the most Clutch reviews that pays clients to refer)
Digital & Brand Manager, Health & Wellness Company
So ask for References, if they cannot supply. It's a red flag.
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Closing
Sadly every day we see more examples of blatant misconduct in a completely un-regulated market.
I used to blame the agencies. Now I blame marketers who suspend reality on promised results, forgoing due diligence, that enables the cowboys to continue cashing in.
My aim is to provide education for marketers to make better decisions in hiring and working with digital agencies.
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