Questions to ask an agency before commissioning a campaign

Most agency pitches sound polished. The real tell comes in what they won't answer cleanly. Before you hand over a brief and a cheque, you need to ask the questions that separate agencies with a genuine strategy from those who just like making pretty ads. These four lines of enquiry will show you exactly how an agency thinks—and whether they're thinking about your business or their own portfolio.

Who owns the thinking, and how do they protect it?

Ask: *How will you make sure the core insight or positioning stays ours, not locked into your next pitch?*

This matters because a good campaign is built on a specific idea about your customer or market. Some agencies treat that insight as their intellectual property, which means if you change providers later, you've lost the foundation. A strong answer sounds like: "We develop the strategy and positioning in workshops with you. Once approved, it's yours. We document it in a brand brief you keep." If they hedge—talking around ownership, or saying they'll need to reuse research for their case studies—you're hearing them prioritise their reel over your independence.

Pay attention to how they talk about confidentiality too. Ethical agencies have clear policies on what they show other clients and when. If they're vague or eager to show you half-finished work from competitors, that's how they'll treat yours.

How will they know if this campaign is actually working?

Ask: *What metrics will you track, and when will we review them? What would you change if the numbers weren't moving?*

Many campaigns fail silently because no one set up measurement from the start. A good agency will name specific things before the work launches—website traffic, conversion rate, social engagement, sales lift, brand awareness shift, whatever suits your goal. They'll also say how often you'll review them: weekly, monthly, quarterly. An evasive answer sounds like "We'll monitor performance" or "The creative will drive results." That's not a plan; that's a hope.

Press harder if they suggest measurement is too complicated or if they want to wait months before checking anything. Campaigns need course correction. If an agency can't tell you what winning looks like in concrete terms, or won't agree to review it with you on a set cadence, they're not accountable to your outcome—only to delivering the work.

What's their process for staying on strategy when the work gets messy?

Ask: *Walk me through how you'd handle a revision round. How do you push back if a stakeholder requests something that breaks the strategy?*

The strategy is the spine. Creative briefs, design choices, copy tone, channel mix—everything should hang off it. But revision rounds and stakeholder feedback often pressure agencies to drift. A confident answer includes something like: "We brief the strategy upfront so everyone understands the 'why' behind every decision. If a revision doesn't fit the strategy, we show you the risk and propose alternatives that do. If the strategy itself needs to change, we rebuild from there—we don't just patch the creative."

If they're vague about navigating pushback, or if they describe themselves as service-focused and happy to make any change you ask for, they'll erode the campaign through compromise. Your job is to hire people who can say no intelligently.

What happens after launch—is the relationship over?

Ask: *How much of your role is building the campaign versus helping us run it? Do you have a retainer option, or are you stepping away once we go live?*

Some agencies design a campaign and disappear. That's fine if you have in-house media and creative chops, but it means you're flying without a safety net. Others offer ongoing support—monitoring, tweaks, new assets—on a retainer. Neither is wrong, but you need to know upfront which model you're getting and whether you can add support later if you need it.

A direct answer is: "We'll be here for launch support and are available for adjustments. We can discuss retainer options if you'd like ongoing partnership." Vagueness or surprise when you ask about post-launch support suggests they haven't thought about continuity.

The best agencies answer these questions without deflection. If you're hearing a lot of "it depends" or stories about other clients instead of direct frameworks, that's a signal to keep interviewing. On Strove, you can read agency reviews and request references so you hear from people who've already asked these questions.