How to choose a marketing agency in 2026

The right marketing agency proves results like the ones you need, names the people who will do your work, and leaves every account in your name. Check all three before you sign anything. This guide gives a small or mid-sized business a practical vetting framework, from setting a budget to running the first 90 days.

Start with one goal and one budget

Agencies plan and price around the goal you hand them. A vague goal gets a vague proposal, and a vague proposal is hard to compare or hold to account.

Write the goal as one number with a deadline. Examples: 40 booked jobs a month within six months, a cost per lead under $80, or $25,000 in monthly online sales. Pick a number your business already tracks. Then you can check the agency’s reports against your own records.

The goal tells you which skills matter. A local plumber needs calls from local search and the map results. An online store needs sales at a cost per sale it can live with. Those are different jobs. Hire for the one you have.

Set two budgets next. The first covers the agency’s fee. The second covers ad spend, the money that goes to Google, Meta, or another platform. Keep the two apart from the first conversation.

Published surveys give a rough range for the fee. SE Ranking’s 2023 survey of 135 agencies put the median monthly retainer at $1,200, and at $1,863 in the US and Canada SE Ranking . Our pricing guide covers the other pricing models and what drives the spread.

Decide between a specialist and a full-service agency

A specialist agency works one channel, such as SEO, paid search, or web design. A full-service agency sells several channels under one contract.

Pick a specialist when one channel drives most of your leads and someone on your team can manage the rest. Pick a full-service agency when your website, ads, and content need to work together and nobody in-house owns marketing.

Check the label against the headcount. In an agency survey SE Ranking published in December 2024, 78% of respondents had fewer than 10 people, and 94% focused on small or local businesses SE Ranking . Agencies in its 2023 survey named higher subcontractor rates as one reason they raised prices SE Ranking .

Subcontracting is not a problem by itself. Hidden subcontracting is. Ask which services the agency’s own staff deliver and which go to freelancers or partners. Get the answer in writing.

Then ask for clients of your size. An agency that runs large national ad budgets works on a different scale from one that serves local shops. Ask for two current clients with a budget and market close to yours.

Check proof you can verify

Proof means named clients, dated numbers, and live work you can open. A strong case study gives the client’s name, the starting number, the ending number, the dates, and what the agency changed. Anything less is a testimonial.

Google tells business owners to ask an SEO for examples of previous work and success stories before hiring Google Search Central . Apply the same test to every channel. Open the live website. Search for the client’s business. Call the client if the agency offers a contact.

Treat online reviews as a lead, not as proof. The FTC finalized a rule in August 2024 that bans fake reviews, including AI-generated ones, and bars businesses from passing off review sites they control as independent FTC . A ban does not erase every fake review. Ask for two references you can call.

Read badges for what they measure. Google Partner status has three requirements Google Ads Help . The agency must meet a performance threshold. Its managed accounts must spend $10,000 on Google Ads over 90 days. And at least half of its account strategists must hold Google Ads certifications. The badge shows an agency runs Google Ads at volume. It does not show results for a business like yours.

Our agency index gives proof of results 35% of each agency’s score, more than any other criterion. The methodology page explains what earns a high mark.

Meet the people who will do the work

Find out who does the work before you sign, not after. At some agencies, an account manager passes your requests to specialists you never meet. Each handoff adds delay and drops detail.

Ask for the names and titles of everyone who will touch your account each week. Ask how many clients each of them handles. Ask whether a senior strategist joins the monthly review or only the sales calls. Then ask to meet the lead strategist before you sign.

Ask about turnover too. Find out who takes over if your strategist leaves, and how the agency hands off an account. A good answer names a backup person and a handoff document.

Our index scores this as senior attention and speed, worth 25% of the total. Agencies score lower when an account-manager layer sits between the client and the people doing the work. They score higher when founders or senior specialists do the work themselves.

A small team can work in your favor here. At a five-person agency, the founder can do your strategy work. Ask whether that will be true for your account, and put the answer in the proposal.

Test the agency’s AI search skills

About four in ten U.S. adults say they use chatbots to search for information, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 5,119 adults in February 2026 Pew Research Center . AI summaries change Google results too. A separate Pew study tracked the browsing of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025. People clicked a regular search result on 8% of visits that showed an AI summary, against 15% of visits without one Pew Research Center .

So the agency needs a way to measure whether AI answers name your business. Google says a page needs no special work to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible to show with a snippet Google Search Central . Search Console reports clicks from those features inside its standard Performance report, under the Web search type. It does not report how often ChatGPT or Gemini names you.

A good answer names the engines the agency checks, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. It lists the questions the agency tests, how often it runs them, and how it reports changes from month to month. Ask for a sample report from another client, with the name removed.

One technical check is quick. OpenAI says its OAI-SearchBot crawler surfaces websites in ChatGPT search, and sites that block it will not appear in ChatGPT search answers OpenAI . Ask the agency to confirm your robots.txt file allows it.

Our index gives AI search readiness 20% of the score. Our SEO and AI search guide covers the method in more depth.

Keep every account in your own name

Your business should own its domain, website, ad accounts, analytics, and Google Business Profile. The agency should get access, not ownership. Access is easy to remove when a contract ends. Ownership takes longer to win back.

Google’s tools are built for this split. On a Google Business Profile, owners can add or remove users, and managers cannot Google Business Profile Help . In Google Analytics, the Administrator role has full control, including adding and deleting users Google Analytics Help . In Search Console, only a property owner can grant other people access Search Console Help . In Google Ads, only Admin users can give access, change access levels, and unlink manager accounts Google Ads Help .

Keep the owner, Administrator, or Admin role for someone at your business, and give the agency a lower role. Ask the agency to request access from your accounts, not to create new accounts for you. Set this up before work starts. A new owner on a Business Profile must wait 7 days before transferring primary ownership Google Business Profile Help . A rushed fix on the last day of a contract will stall.

Put the same terms in writing. Our contracts guide lists the clauses to check, from ownership to the exit handover.

Insist on reports from your own accounts

A report should open with the goal number you set at the start. The numbers should come from your own Google Analytics, Search Console, and ad accounts. You should be able to open each one without asking the agency. An agency dashboard is fine as a summary, but not as the only source.

A useful monthly report covers four things:

• The goal number this month, last month, and at the baseline.
• The work delivered, with links to live pages, ads, or posts.
• Spend, plus the cost of each lead or sale.
• The plan for next month, with dates.

Google suggests asking an SEO how it measures success and whether it will share every change it makes to your site Google Search Central . Get both answers in writing. Our index scores accountability and identity at 20%: named leaders, a real address, and a review record outside the agency’s own website.

Read the proposal before the contract

A proposal shows how well the agency listened. A good one restates your goal and your budget in your own numbers. It lists deliverables with quantities and dates. It names the team. It shows the agency fee and the ad spend on separate lines.

Compare proposals on those points, not on design or length. A 40-page deck with no dates is weaker than a two-page plan with them. If a proposal skips your goal number, ask the agency to add it before you go further.

Questions to ask on the first call

Use the first call to test answers, not to hear a pitch. Ask each agency the same list, then compare the answers side by side.

• Ask for two case studies with named clients, dates, and before-and-after numbers.
• Ask who will do the work each week, by name and title.
• Ask how many clients each of those people handles.
• Ask which services go to freelancers or subcontractors.
• Ask what you will have at day 30, day 60, and day 90.
• Ask which numbers the reports will show and which accounts they pull from.
• Ask how they track your business in AI answers and which engines they check.
• Ask who will own the domain, website, ad accounts, analytics, and Business Profile.
• Ask for the minimum term, the notice period, and the exit handover terms.
• Ask for two current clients you can call.

Google’s own list adds experience in your industry and in your city or country Google Search Central . Specific names, numbers, and dates are good answers. Vague promises are not. Our red flags guide lists the answers that should end the conversation.

Run a paid trial or a 90-day first phase

A 12-month contract with an agency you have never worked with puts the risk on you. Ask for a paid first phase instead, with 90 days, a fixed scope, and written targets.

Split the 90 days into three blocks:

• Days 1 to 30: accounts set up in your name, tracking checked, and baseline numbers recorded.
• Days 31 to 60: first changes live, such as fixed pages, new ads, or an updated Business Profile.
• Days 61 to 90: a report against the baseline and a plan for the next quarter.

Judge the phase on delivery and on numbers that move early, such as tracked calls, form fills, and cost per lead. Agree in writing which longer-term results the agency expects and by when. Google tells business owners to ask an SEO that exact question before hiring Google Search Central .

At day 90, decide to continue, change the scope, or leave. Long relationships are normal in this business. In SE Ranking’s 2024 survey, half the agencies had worked with their clients for 2 years or more SE Ranking . A 90-day checkpoint is a modest ask.

Build your shortlist with the index

Start with three to five agencies. Our agency index scores agencies on four public criteria. Proof of results counts for 35% of the score, senior attention and speed for 25%, AI search readiness for 20%, and accountability and identity for 20%. Use the compare tool to put two finalists side by side, then run the first-call questions with each one.

Build the list from your own research, not your inbox. Google warns business owners to be wary of SEO firms and agencies that email them out of the blue Google Search Central .