10 Things to Check Before Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

A good digital marketing agency learns who your customers are and builds a plan across SEO, Google Ads, content marketing, and social media. It measures success by qualified leads, conversions, and ROI, not likes or page views.

Price and past work matter, but the real test comes when results slow down. A good agency will explain what went wrong and fix the plan. That honesty says more than any sales pitch.

At Search Miners, we believe your marketing partner should feel like a key team member, chosen for skill, clear communication, and long-term business growth.

Looking for a marketing partner that focuses on real business growth? 

Book an appointment with Search Miners to discuss your goals and see whether we are the right fit.

10 Things to Check Before Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency

Marketing is a major investment, with budgets averaging around 7.7% of company revenue according to the Gartner CMO Spend Survey, so choosing the wrong agency can be a costly mistake. 

These ten checks will help you look past the pitch and understand what working together would feel like.

1. Know What You Need Before You Start Looking

Most businesses come to us with some undefined objective such as “we need more marketing.”

This leaves us open to push something we know, despite it maybe not being the actual solution to their problem.

Start by defining what needs to change. 

If a dental practice has great website traffic numbers but isn’t getting many new appointments, that is their conversion problem, not a traffic problem.

An attorney that relies solely on referrals needs something else that can be done on Google Ads or local SEO.

And a roof company seeing their competitors rank at the top in Google Maps needs to boost their Google Business Profile and rankings.

When a business comes to Search Miners, budgeting is not often the first thing that we ask about.

We ask what a good month looks like six months from now.

2. Look at How the Agency Markets Itself

The SEO company needs to be somewhat visible in the search engine results. The content marketing company needs to have good content to read. The social media company should have some activity from itself.

Just try to run a quick test. Search for the service that the agency provides in connection with the city where the agency operates, like “SEO agency in Phoenix.”

Then just look at a few blog posts and check the Google reviews. When the blog hasn’t been updated in two years, and the reviews contain only one-liners, you will get useful information before your first call.

Of course, busy companies often ignore their own marketing, but still there should be no problems with practicing what they are selling.

An SEO agency should be reasonably visible in search results, and increasingly in AI-powered search experiences as well. 

3. Ask Who Will Actually Work on Your Account

Whoever is selling you the service will rarely be delivering it to you.

An experienced strategist will make the sales presentation, and a junior executive or an outsourced freelancer will handle your campaigns.

This is fine, but it is better if you know about it. Just ask whom they plan to appoint to manage your account, their experience, and how often you will be talking to him or her.

It is positive if they bring the delivery person along in the sales discussion. It allows you to listen to their mindset before signing anything.

4. Judge Case Studies by the Starting Point, Not the Final Number

“300% increase in organic traffic” sounds impressive until you learn the site went from 100 visitors to 400. And traffic means little if it didn’t produce inquiries.

Find the context: the industry, the starting point, the shift, and the timeframe it took. This is the type of case study worth listening to.

We were contacted by a local home services company that had stable website traffic but virtually no form submissions.

Instead of chasing more visitors, we rebuilt its service pages around high-intent searches like “water heater repair near me,” tightened the calls to action, and set up proper conversion tracking in Google Analytics 4. 

After 6 months, there was a 70% increase in qualified leads, while traffic had grown little.

See how the structure looks: Problem, Change, Result. Try, if possible, to meet an existing customer.

5. Pay Attention to the Questions They Ask You

Good agencies ask before they recommend. Who are your best customers? What is a lead worth to you? What have you tried before, and why did it stop working?

If a full proposal lands in your inbox after a fifteen-minute call, it was probably written before you spoke.

Our discovery calls often run longer than clients expect. 

We want to understand your average job value, your busiest season, and which services you actually want more of. 

A plumbing company that earns most of its profit from boiler installations should not be paying to rank for “how to unblock a sink.”

6. Be Careful With Guarantees

“Guaranteed first page rankings in 30 days” is one of the oldest red flags in digital marketing. 

No agency controls Google’s algorithm, and no honest agency promises a fixed ranking or number of sales.

What an agency can commit to is the work: deliverables, timelines, and how progress will be measured. 

It should also tell you what might slow things down, such as highly competitive keywords, slow page speed, or a weak backlink profile.

Honest expectations at the start usually lead to honest conversations later.

7. Ask to See a Real Report

Many agency relationships quietly go wrong at the reporting stage. Some reports are full of impressions, follower counts, and rankings for keywords nobody searches, while saying very little about leads or revenue.

Ask for a sample report with client details removed. 

Does it connect activity to outcomes? Does it explain what worked, what didn’t, and what changes next month?

At Search Miners, every monthly report starts with one question: did this month bring the business more of what it wants? 

We then show calls, form submissions, and bookings by traffic source, followed by what we plan to adjust. If a month underperforms, we say so on the first page, not the last.

8. Check Who Owns Your Accounts and Data

This is the step businesses most often skip and later regret. 

Some agencies set up Google Ads, Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, or even the domain under their own name. When the contract ends, years of data and campaign history can leave with them.

We have onboarded clients who had to rebuild their Google Ads account from scratch because a previous agency would not hand it over. Losing that conversion history meant restarting the learning phase and paying more per lead for months.

Before signing, confirm that your website, domain, ad accounts, analytics, and content belong to you, with the agency added as a user.

9. Understand the Contract Before You Commit

Long-term agreements are not always negative. SEO will usually take several months to yield any significant results. However, signing a twelve-month contract with no escape clause leaves you fully liable.

Make sure you know the minimum term, notice period, and exactly how much is covered by the monthly fee. Advertising costs, writing, link-building, and design may be charged separately, allowing your $1,000 monthly fee to suddenly rise to $2,500 per month.

Get everything in writing.

10. Start With a Clear Plan for the First 90 Days

The first three months set the tone for the whole partnership. Agree on priorities, what gets fixed first, how progress will be measured, and when you will review it together.

Here is what the first 90 days typically look like for an SEO client at Search Miners. 

• Month one covers a technical SEO audit, keyword research, and competitor analysis. 
• Month two focuses on fixing priority pages, improving on-page SEO, and strengthening internal linking. 
• And month three moves into content creation and early tracking of rankings, organic traffic, and conversions. 
• At the end, we sit down with the client and decide together what to scale, what to adjust, and what to drop.

Quick Questions to Ask Any Digital Marketing Agency

Question to ask	What a good answer sounds like	Warning sign
Who will manage my account?	A named person with relevant experience	Vague mention of “the team”
How will you measure success?	Leads, sales, or revenue tied to your goals	Only traffic, likes, or rankings
Can you guarantee results?	Clear commitments about the work, honest about outcomes	Guaranteed rankings or sales
Who owns the accounts and data?	You do, with access granted to the agency	The agency keeps ownership
What happens if results are slow?	An explanation and a plan to adjust	Avoids the question

You do not need an agency that gives perfect answers to every question. You need one that answers honestly and shows how it thinks.

Final Thoughts

Selecting a digital marketing agency is about finding a partner that understands your business, communicates openly, and focuses on results. 

Take your time with the decision. Ask direct questions, review real examples, read the contract, and make sure you keep ownership of your accounts and data.

At Search Miners, we help businesses grow through SEO and digital marketing strategies built around clear goals and honest reporting. 

If you are comparing agencies and want a conversation about what your business needs, we would be happy to talk.