5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

Picking a digital marketing agency is a bigger decision than most business owners expect. There are a lot of agencies in Vancouver, and they all say roughly the same things. These five questions cut through the pitch and tell you what you actually need to know before you sign anything.

Do You Have Experience Working With Businesses Like Mine?

This question matters more than most agencies want to admit. An agency that mostly runs e-commerce campaigns for national brands thinks about marketing very differently than one that helps a plumber or electrician show up in local search results.

Ask for specific examples. Not logos on a webpage, but actual clients in a similar industry or location. A good agency will tell you what they did, what changed, and roughly what it cost. If they can't get specific, that's a signal.

For trades businesses in Vancouver British Columbia, local experience is especially important. Knowing which neighbourhoods to target, how competitive the local search market is, and how Google ranks service-area businesses takes time to learn. You don't want to be the client where they figure it out.

What Does Your Reporting Look Like?

Before you start paying monthly fees, find out what you'll actually see each month. Some agencies send a dense PDF that takes an hour to decode. Others send a one-liner that says "things are going well."

Ask to see a sample report. You want to know: how many leads came in, where they came from, what keywords are ranking, and what the agency did that month to move things forward. Analytics and reporting should feel like a conversation, not a homework assignment.

If an agency gets defensive about reporting, walk away. Transparency is the baseline, not a premium feature.

Who Actually Does the Work?

A lot of agencies sell you on a senior person and then hand your account to a junior employee you've never met. That's common, and it's not always a problem. But you should know going in.

Ask directly: who will be managing my account day to day? How many clients does that person handle at once? Can I contact them directly, or does everything go through a ticketing system?

Some agencies also outsource pieces of the work, like content writing or link building, to contractors overseas. Again, not automatically bad. But you should know, especially if local knowledge matters for your campaigns.

How Do You Approach Local SEO?

If you run a local business in Vancouver, you need to show up when people nearby search for what you do. That's a specific skill set, and not every agency has it.

Ask what they'd do in the first 90 days to improve your local visibility. A solid answer includes things like Google Business Profile optimization, building out local citations, cleaning up your on-page SEO, and making sure your site loads properly on mobile. If they jump straight to talking about ad spend before they've even looked at your organic presence, that's worth noting.

Local SEO takes a few months to show results, but an experienced agency should be able to tell you what they'll work on first and why.

What Happens If It's Not Working?

Every agency will tell you their strategy works. The better question is what happens when it doesn't, at least not as fast as expected.

Ask about their process for adjusting a campaign that's underperforming. Ask how often they review results and whether they'll change direction if something isn't pulling. Ask what the contract exit terms look like.

A long-term lock-in contract with no out clause is a red flag. Good agencies are confident enough in their work to offer reasonable terms. Month-to-month or a short initial commitment shows they expect to earn your business over time, not just collect fees.

Getting clear on this before you sign saves a lot of frustration later. It also tells you a lot about how the agency sees the relationship.

Most business owners don't realize how different agencies can be until they've worked with a few. Asking these questions upfront puts you in a much better position to find one that fits. If you want to talk through your situation and get a straight read on what your business actually needs, reach out and book a free website audit.