Resources · Scorecard · Sent by email · Updated
THE AGENCY VETTING SCORECARD
Most agency pain was visible in the pitch, if you knew what to ask. Thirty questions, a scoring method, and the red flags that end a conversation.
What's inside
- 1
30 questions across ownership, reporting, team, commercials, method and fit
- 2
Double weighting on the two categories you cannot recover from
- 3
Six red flags, any one of which should end the conversation
If you would rather have this done with you than to you, this is the work I do. See services
Thirty questions and a way to score them
The questions cover resourcing, ownership, reporting, commercial terms and how the agency behaves when something goes wrong. Scoring matters as much as asking: without it, a charismatic pitch beats a competent one, which is how most bad appointments happen. The scorecard forces you to record answers during the meeting rather than reconstruct impressions afterwards.
The red flags that end the conversation
Some answers are not scored, they are disqualifying. An agency that will not confirm you own your ad accounts and data, cannot name who will do the work, or blames clients entirely for every account that went badly, has told you something no score should override.
COMMON QUESTIONS
What is the single most important question to ask an agency?
Who will actually do the work, by name, seniority and hours per week. The pitch team is rarely the delivery team, and that gap is the most common source of disappointment later.
Should I use the scorecard on my current agency?
Yes, and it is often more useful there. Running it on an incumbent surfaces things that were never agreed in writing, particularly around account ownership, which is much easier to fix while the relationship is working.
How many agencies should I score?
Three is usually enough to make the differences visible. Beyond that the process takes longer than the decision warrants, and the scores start converging because you get better at asking rather than because the agencies get better.