Not all agencies are created equal. Here are the warning signs to watch for before signing that contract.
Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed ROI
Nobody controls Google's index or an auction-based ad platform. A guarantee is either meaningless or a sign that someone plans to game a metric rather than grow a business.
No access to your own accounts
If the agency owns your ad account, analytics property, domain or hosting, you are renting your own business. Ownership should sit with you from day one, with the agency added as a user.
Reports without a baseline
A report showing "312% growth" with no starting number, no time window and no comparison period is a slide, not evidence. Ask what the number was before, and how it was measured.
A portfolio with no outcomes
Screenshots of pretty homepages say nothing about whether they worked. Ask what problem the project solved, what changed, and whether the client is still with them.
Vague scope, fast contract
Pressure to sign before scope is written is the most reliable predictor of a bad engagement. Good agencies want scope pinned down more than you do — it protects both sides.
If a number in this article does not match what you see in your own dashboard, that gap is worth an hour of someone’s time. Ask us about it.
