The short version: you vet a paid media agency the same way you’d vet a subcontractor pouring your foundation — by asking to see the work before it’s covered up. Ask for raw platform access, not a dashboard demo. Ask what a bad month looks like, not just a good one. And ask three specific questions about reporting, fees, and account ownership before a single contract gets signed. Most of the pain we’ve seen business owners go through with paid media partners traces back to skipping exactly these steps.
We say this from the other side of the table. We run paid campaigns for clients, which means we’ve also sat in enough discovery calls to know which questions make an agency visibly relax (because the answer makes them look good) and which ones make them shift in their seat. This post is the second kind.
What does “vetting” actually mean here?
It doesn’t mean checking reviews or asking for three references — most agencies can produce three happy clients, that’s not a high bar. Vetting a paid media partner means confirming two things: that they can actually run your specific type of campaign well, and that you’ll retain enough visibility and control to catch it early if they can’t.
Those are different skills. An agency can be genuinely excellent at Meta ads and still structure a relationship where you have no way of knowing whether your account is being managed by their best person or their newest hire. The contract stage is where you fix that, not the exit interview six months later.
The questions that reveal how they actually work
Skip the pitch deck questions. Ask these instead, and pay attention to how directly they’re answered:
- “Who specifically will be on my account day to day, and how many other accounts do they manage?” A media buyer juggling 15+ accounts cannot give any single one real attention. There’s no universally “correct” number, but if they won’t tell you, that’s the answer.
- “What does the first 30 days look like, concretely?” You want a sequence — audit, account structure, tracking verification, first creative round — not a vague “we’ll get to know your business.”
- “Show me a client you took over from another agency. What was broken, and how did you find it?” This tests diagnostic skill, which matters more than campaign-building skill for most SMB accounts.
- “What’s your process when a campaign underperforms for two weeks straight?” Listen for a specific escalation process, not “we monitor closely.”
- “Will I have admin access to my own ad accounts?” This should be a one-word yes. Anything else is a flag — see below.
Reporting and access: the part people skip
A genuinely good agency wants you to have full admin access to your own Google Ads, Meta Business Manager, and analytics accounts — under your business’s ownership, with them added as a user. This matters for a boring but important reason: if the relationship ends, your campaign history, pixel data, and audience lists leave with you, not with them.
On reporting, ask to see an actual example, not a template with placeholder numbers. If we’re reading a Meta ads delivery report for a client, we want them looking at frequency, CPM trends, and placement breakdowns alongside the topline ROAS number — not just a single conversions figure with a green arrow next to it. A report that only shows metrics moving in a favorable direction, with no context on what’s not working, is a marketing document, not a management tool.
Reading case studies without getting fooled
Case studies are the easiest part of an agency’s pitch to dress up, because the agency chooses which numbers to show and which timeframe to show them over. Before you’re impressed by a percentage, ask three follow-up questions:
| What the case study says | What to ask before you believe it |
|---|---|
| “300% increase in conversions” | Increase from what baseline, and over what starting spend? 300% of 2 conversions a month is not a result. |
| “Reduced CPA by 40%” | Over what period, and did seasonality or a pricing change happen at the same time? |
| “Scaled ad spend 5x profitably” | What was the starting spend? Scaling €500/month to €2,500/month is a very different exercise from scaling €20k to €100k. |
| Any result with no timeframe listed | Ask directly. If they hesitate, the timeframe probably doesn’t help the story. |
None of this means the results are fake. It means a number without a baseline and a timeframe is marketing copy, and you’re allowed to ask for the underlying detail before you use it to make a decision.
How pricing structures actually differ
There are three common models, and each shifts incentives in a different direction:
- Flat monthly fee — predictable for you, and it means the agency isn’t financially motivated to push your ad spend higher than it should be. The tradeoff: make sure the fee still covers real strategic attention at your spend level, not just campaign babysitting.
- Percentage of ad spend — common, usually 10–20%. The obvious tension: the agency earns more if you spend more, whether or not spending more is the right call for your account this month. Ask directly how they handle a month where the right advice is to scale down.
- Performance-based — rarer, and worth real scrutiny. If an agency is willing to tie their fee to results, ask exactly how the result is defined and measured, and by whom. Vague performance terms tend to get renegotiated in the agency’s favor later.
We don’t think one model is inherently better — we’ve seen good work under all three. What matters is whether the incentive structure is one you understand and are comfortable with before you sign, not something you piece together from an invoice three months in.
Red flags that should end the conversation
- A guaranteed ROAS or conversion number in writing. Platforms, competition, and your own website can all move outcomes an agency doesn’t control — anyone guaranteeing a specific number is either overconfident or padding a contract with an escape clause you haven’t read yet.
- Refusal to give you admin-level access to your own ad accounts.
- No clear answer on who specifically manages your account.
- Pressure to sign a 12-month contract before a single test campaign has run.
- Case studies with no timeframe, spend level, or measurable baseline.
A short checklist before you sign
Before signing, you should be able to answer: who manages the account day to day, what access you’ll retain, what the first 30 days looks like, what the fee structure actually incentivizes, and what happens if performance dips for two weeks. If an agency can’t give you clear answers to those five things in a sales conversation, the working relationship won’t get clearer once you’re a paying client. We’d also suggest reading up on what running ads in-house actually costs before you compare agency quotes, since “expensive” and “cheap” only mean something relative to that baseline — and if you’re the one handing off the account, our notes on briefing a creative agency on paid ads cover the other half of getting this relationship started well.
None of this guarantees a good outcome. Paid media performance depends on your offer, your market, and your existing site as much as on who’s running the account. But a clear, direct conversation at the contract stage is the cheapest diligence you’ll ever do on this relationship — cheaper, certainly, than finding out six months in that nobody could tell you who was actually managing your campaigns.