12 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Growth Agency

The average client-agency relationship now lasts 7 years — more than double the 3.2 years reported in 2016, according to the ANA and 4As' 2025 tenure study. That's good news if you pick well. It means a bad hiring decision doesn't just cost you a quarter of wasted spend — it can cost years of underperformance before anyone questions the relationship.

These are the 12 questions that actually separate a good growth agency from a bad one, grouped by what they reveal.

Key Takeaways

• Client-agency relationships now last roughly 7 years, up from 3.2 in 2016.

• The same study found independent agencies keep clients longer (7.3 years) than holding-company agencies (5.8 years), and that mandatory review cycles cut average tenure by more than half — a structural incentive worth knowing about before you agree to one.

• Four categories matter: accountability, pricing, process, and track record. Most agencies can answer one or two well. Few can answer all four.

• Vague answers are the clearest red flag in any pitch.

Accountability: Who Actually Owns the Number?

1. What specific number are you accountable for, and what happens if you miss it? Every agency names a metric. Almost none say what actually changes if they miss it. Push here: a good answer describes a real consequence, whether that's a reduced fee, a defined improvement plan, or an exit clause — not "we'll optimise and get back on track," which changes nothing.

2. Who is my single point of contact, and how senior are they? Growth agencies often pitch with senior partners and then staff the account with juniors, so ask directly who runs it day to day.

3. How will I know if this isn't working before the quarter ends? You want a cadence, not a promise. A real answer names a reporting rhythm — weekly dashboards, a defined check-in — not "we'll flag it if something's off."

Pricing: What Are You Actually Paying For?

1. Is this a retainer, performance-based, or hybrid model — and what happens in a flat quarter? One question exposes the real fee structure, whatever it's called on the invoice: if the fee doesn't move when results don't show up, you're on a retainer. Our full breakdown, Retainer vs Performance-Based Pricing: What's Fairer?, goes deeper on which model fits.

2. What's included in the fee, and what gets billed separately? Get it in writing before you sign, not after the first invoice — ad spend, creative production, and tooling costs are sometimes bundled and sometimes not.

3. How long is the contract, and what does exiting actually look like? Long lock-ins with no review point are exactly how a mediocre relationship survives years past when it should have ended. The ANA/4As data backs this up: relationships without mandatory review cycles ran to 8.1 years, versus just 3.8 for those reviewed frequently.

Process: How Do They Actually Work?

1. Walk me through how you'd structure my account in the first 30 days. "We'll do a discovery phase" is the vague, common answer. A strong agency instead names specific first-month deliverables — audit findings, a test plan, initial channel allocation.

2. How do you decide what to test next, and how do you read the results? This separates agencies running a genuine testing system from ones running on instinct. It's the same discipline behind good performance marketing generally — ask for a real example of a test that failed, and what they did with that result.

3. Can I see an anonymised example of your reporting? Ask before you sign, not after. If they can't show you what a monthly report actually looks like, you won't like what you get once you're a client.

Track Record: Does This Growth Agency Deliver?

1. What's a result you're proud of, and what's one that didn't work? Anyone can tell a success story. Ask for a miss too — the answer tells you more about how they'll handle your account when something doesn't go to plan.

2. Have you worked in my market before, and what's specific about it? A generic answer here is a real warning sign, especially across India, Singapore, and Indonesia — three markets with genuinely different platform costs, payment behaviour, and regulatory context. If the agency can't name something concrete about your market, they're likely running the same playbook everywhere.

3. Why did your last few clients leave, if any did? Few agencies volunteer this, so ask directly. It's a fair question: Setup's 2023 Marketing Relationship Survey found dissatisfaction with value was the #1 reason clients ended an agency relationship that year — up from 39% to 53% year-on-year. An agency that's thought honestly about its own churn is more trustworthy than one claiming a perfect record.

The 12 Questions at a Glance

CategoryAsk thisA vague answer sounds likeAccountabilityWhat number are you accountable for, and what happens if you miss it?"We'll optimise and get back on track"PricingRetainer, performance-based, or hybrid — what happens in a flat quarter?"It's complicated, let's discuss on a call"ProcessWalk me through the first 30 days"We'll start with a discovery phase"Track recordWhat's a result that didn't work, and why?Only success stories, no misses named

What a Good Growth Agency Sounds Like

Across all twelve, the pattern is consistent: specific answers beat confident ones. "We'll get back on track" is confidence without substance. By contrast, "here's exactly what changes if we miss the number" is substance you can actually hold someone to. When we're the ones being evaluated in a pitch, these are the exact questions that separate a serious buyer from someone who hasn't thought past the first meeting — the founders who ask them are, unsurprisingly, the ones who end up happiest with whoever they hire.

We'd rather you ask us these same twelve questions than take our word for it. Book a free discovery call and put us through the same test.

Frequently Asked Questions

What questions should I ask before hiring a growth agency?

Focus on four areas, and push past the first answer in each. Accountability: what specific number are they responsible for, and what actually happens — a fee adjustment, an exit clause, a plan change — if they miss it? Pricing: is it a retainer, performance-based, or hybrid, and precisely what's included in the fee versus billed separately? Process: how do they actually run an account day to day — who touches your campaigns, how often, and what does a typical weekly cadence look like? Track record: can they name a specific result that didn't work and why, not just a highlight reel of wins? Vague, generic answers in any of these four categories are the clearest warning sign, more telling than anything on their pitch deck. An agency confident enough to answer specifically, including where it has struggled, is usually the safer bet.

How long should I expect to work with an agency?

Client-agency relationships now average 7 years, according to a 2025 ANA/4As study of client-agency tenure — more than double the 3.2-year average recorded back in 2016. That's a meaningful shift: agency relationships have become longer-term partnerships rather than short campaign engagements, which makes the initial hiring decision considerably higher-stakes than it used to be. A poor fit today is statistically likely to persist for years, not a single campaign cycle, which is exactly why the twelve questions in this post are worth asking properly rather than rushing through a pitch process. Budget real time for reference calls and a trial period if one's on offer, since the cost of getting this decision wrong compounds for much longer than most founders initially assume.

What's a red flag when evaluating a growth agency?

Vagueness on specifics is the clearest tell, and it shows up in a few consistent places: an agency that can't describe a concrete first-30-days plan, can't show you a real (even redacted) sample report, or can't name a specific result that didn't go well when asked directly. A confident, polished answer with no specifics behind it is worse than an honest "here's where we've struggled and what we changed," because the latter shows they actually measure and learn from their own work. Other red flags worth watching for: reluctance to share who specifically will work on your account, resistance to a defined review period, and case studies that cite vanity metrics (impressions, reach) rather than revenue or margin outcomes.

Should I pick an independent agency or a holding-company agency?

There's no universal answer, but tenure data is a useful starting point: relationships with independent shops tend to run notably longer than those with network or holding-company agencies, per the ANA/4As study cited throughout this post. Treat that as a signal worth weighing alongside your specific needs, not a hard rule — some holding-company agencies genuinely offer scale, specialised media buying power, or cross-market coverage that a smaller independent shop can't match, particularly if you're running campaigns across multiple countries simultaneously. The practical question to ask either type directly is who specifically will be on your account day to day, since the agency's brand name on the pitch deck says less about your actual experience than the seniority and consistency of the team assigned to you.

Does a long contract lock-in matter?

Yes, more than most founders assume going in. In the same ANA/4As dataset, relationships without a mandatory review period ran to more than double the length of those reviewed frequently — which sounds positive until you consider that a long relationship without a review checkpoint is also how underperforming agencies quietly stay on for years. A long contract with no defined review point removes your leverage to exit a relationship that isn't working, since there's no natural moment to renegotiate or walk away without it feeling confrontational. Ask specifically what a mid-contract exit looks like, what notice period applies, and whether there's a built-in quarterly or biannual review before you sign anything longer than a few months.

Conclusion

Twelve questions, four categories, one pattern: specific beats confident. Given that an agency relationship now runs about seven years on average, getting the hiring decision right matters more than most founders treat it. So ask these questions before you sign — not after the first disappointing quarter.

How this post was compiled. The client-agency tenure figures are from the ANA and 4As' 2025 Client-Agency AOR Relationship Tenure Report, verified directly against ANA's own published summary. That includes the 7-year average (up from 3.2 years in 2016), the 7.3-vs-5.8-year split by agency type, and the 8.1-vs-3.8-year split by review frequency. The churn-driver figure in Question 12 is from Setup's 2023 Marketing Relationship Survey, verified directly — Setup is a named marketing consultancy, and the figure reflects its fifth consecutive year running the survey. The 12 questions and what a good or bad answer looks like reflect our own hiring and account-management experience, presented as practical guidance rather than a sourced statistic. Written by Abhilash LR, founder of Coact, a performance marketing agency working across Singapore, India, and Indonesia.

Continue Learning

• In-House vs Agency vs Fractional: Resourcing Growth in 2026 — the resourcing decision this checklist assumes you've already made

• Retainer vs Performance-Based Pricing: What's Fairer?

• Performance Marketing in 2026: The Complete Guide — what good performance marketing actually looks like once the hiring decision is behind you and the real campaigns begin

• Get your free Growth Audit — no pitch, 30 minutes