A pitch meeting is a strange conversation. The agency has rehearsed, you have not, and the questions you ask in that hour largely determine what you learn. Most business owners ask about price, deliverables and timelines, which are the three things every agency has prepared polished answers for.
The questions below are the ones that produce useful information, because they are harder to answer with a script. Use as many as apply. Watch how they answer as much as what they answer.
Questions about strategy and understanding
What do you think our actual problem is, based on what we have told you? A strong agency will diagnose before prescribing, and may disagree with your own framing, which is a good sign.
What would you do in the first thirty days? Look for discovery, audit and strategy before spending. Be wary of an answer that begins with content calendars and ad launches in week one.
Who do you think our best customers are, and why? This tests whether they listened. Vague answers here mean vague work later.
What would you not do for us? An agency willing to rule things out has a point of view. One that says yes to everything is selling scope.
What is the biggest risk in this plan? Every plan has one. An agency that cannot name it either has not thought hard enough or is not being straight with you.
Questions about the team and the work
Who will actually do the work day to day, and can I meet them? The pitch team and the delivery team are frequently different people.
How many other clients will this team handle at the same time? There is no single right number, but the answer tells you how much attention you can expect.
What is done in house and what is outsourced? Neither is wrong, but you should know where quality control sits.
Who is my point of contact, and what is the response time when something is urgent? Ambiguity here becomes frustration in month three.
What happens when a key person on our account leaves? Continuity plans separate organised agencies from improvised ones.
Questions about proof and results
Can you show me a client where results were slower than expected, and tell me what you changed? Anyone can present a success story. How they handle underperformance is what you are buying.
Which of your clients can I speak to directly, without you on the call? Hesitation here is informative.
What results did the work produce in business terms, not platform terms? Push past impressions and engagement to enquiries, cost per acquisition, conversion and revenue.
How long did those results take? Realistic timelines build trust. Anyone promising page one rankings in thirty days is describing something that does not work that way.
What percentage of your clients renew, and what is your average client tenure? Retention is the honest scoreboard of an agency business.
Questions about measurement and reporting
What will you measure, and which single number matters most? A clear primary metric focuses the work.
How is tracking set up, and who verifies it works? Broken tracking invalidates months of reporting, and it is far more common than people assume.
What does a monthly report look like, and can I see a real one with the client details removed? Reports full of charts and empty of decisions are a warning.
How do we know whether the leads are any good? Lead volume without quality is a very expensive illusion, and the answer should involve your sales team.
What happens if the numbers do not move after three months? You want a considered process, not reassurance.
Questions about ownership, contracts and exit
Do I own the ad accounts, website, domain, analytics, creative files and data? The answer should be yes, in your accounts, with access granted to them.
If we part ways, what do I keep and how does handover work? Settle this while you have leverage.
What is the notice period and are there lock in clauses? Long lock ins protect the agency, not you.
Is ad spend separate from your fee, and how is it billed? Anything unclear here becomes an argument later.
What is explicitly not included in this scope? Ask it directly. This is where the real cost of the year hides.
How to read the answers
Confidence is not the signal you are looking for. Specificity is. Good answers include details, tradeoffs, numbers and occasional admissions of uncertainty. Weak answers stay general, redirect to case studies, or reframe your question into one they prefer.
The best signal of all is when an agency tells you something you did not want to hear. That candour is rare in a sales conversation, and it is the closest thing you have to a preview of how they will behave when a campaign has a bad month.