Do not let them dazzle you with jargon; you need to ask questions that make them uncomfortable to see if they really are a pay-per-click agency in Illinois worth their salt. You are the one with the checkbook, so you need to control the conversation.
1. "How are you adapting your tracking strategies to survive the death of third-party cookies?"
Why this is useful: If they stumble on this, they are dinosaur firms that will drag your results down when the tech landscape inevitably shifts.
2. "What specific protocols do you have in place to ensure we do not violate GDPR?"
Why this is useful: A GDPR fine can be a business-ending event, and you need to know they aren't playing fast and loose with user privacy data.
3. "Do you verify that every single landing page meets WCAG accessibility standards before launch?"
Why this is useful: Ignoring WCAG is not just rude to disabled users; it is a massive legal liability that you can easily avoid with the right partner.
4. "Can you explain your internal process for building a content creation strategy for ad creatives?"
Why this is useful: Building a content creation strategy for ads is a specific skill; without it, your ads will look like everyone else's and get ignored.
5. "Do you rely on in-house talent or do you farm work out to external creative agencies?"
Why this is useful: You need to know if you are hiring them or unknowingly hiring a network of random creative agencies you have never vetted.
6. "Show me exactly how you perform competitive content analysis to find gaps in the market."
Why this is useful: Competitive content analysis is the difference between leading the market and just pitifully copying what your rivals did last month.
7. "Which attribution models do you refuse to use, and why do you hate them?"
Why this is useful: Asking what they hate reveals more about their technical depth than asking what they like; it shows they have strong opinions.
8. "What happens to our data access if we decide to fire you next month?"
Why this is useful: You need to know if they are going to hold your historical data hostage as a negotiation tactic when things go south.
9. "How do you integrate other marketing plan components into your paid search strategy?"
Why this is useful: Paid search cannot live in a vacuum; it needs to talk to your other marketing plan components, or it will fail miserably.
