Why the intro is the risk
Before diligencing anyone, establish which kind of firm you are talking to, since four different businesses answer to the word agency and they sell unrelated things. The four models.
When a fund introduces a vendor, the founder reads it as vetted. If it goes badly the founder does not conclude that the vendor was bad, they conclude the fund's judgment was. That asymmetry is why the reference call happens before the intro, and it is the right instinct.
The trouble is that the standard diligence questions are easy to pass. Case studies are curated, references are hand-picked, and every agency will tell you their process is bespoke.
The questions that work
These are harder to answer well, and the answers are checkable.
- "Who writes the posts?" If the agency writes copy that creators publish verbatim, you are buying a manufactured ad campaign that readers will identify as one. The right answer is that creators write their own copy from a brief.
- "Show me a campaign that underperformed, and why." Anyone running real volume has them. An agency that cannot produce one is either new or not being straight.
- "How do you select creators?" If the answer is follower count, they are pricing on the least predictive number available. You want median post performance and audience overlap with the buyer.
- "How is disclosure handled?" Paid posts carry a material connection that must be disclosed. If the answer is vague, the liability lands on your portfolio company's brand while the agency carries none of it.
- "What do you decline?" An agency that takes everything has no thesis and no capacity constraint. Both are bad signs.
- "Can I see per-post numbers instead of campaign totals?" Totals hide the fact that one account did most of the work. Per-post data is where competence shows.
What good answers sound like
To be concrete, and because it is only fair to answer my own questions: our creators write their own copy from a brief and never a script; every paid post carries X's paid partnership label and creators who will not tag do not run in our launches; creators are selected on median post performance and audience overlap rather than followers; we take a limited number of launches a quarter; and our case studies publish every drop's numbers rather than a rounded campaign total.
You should ask anyone else the same questions and compare. If the answers are less specific than these, that tells you something.
Hard flags
- Guaranteed results. Nobody controls the algorithm. A floor can be estimated from creators engaged multiplied by median reach; a guaranteed ceiling means either guessing or buying fake engagement.
- Reluctance to show a shortlist before signing. The client should see the type of founders, engineers and creators who will carry the launch.
- No disclosure policy. The regulatory exposure sits with the advertiser.
- Metrics that are only totals. Ask for the distribution. If it is one outlier and a long tail of nothing, that is the product.
- Referral fees they do not volunteer. Fine if disclosed, corrosive if not, and worth asking directly given you are the one making the introduction.
- A GEO scope that is an SEO scope. Crawlability, schema and page structure are the SEO retainer you may already be paying for. Ask what sits outside it, and treat a rank-tracking dashboard for a channel with no ranks as the answer to your question. The line between the two.
Questions we get asked
What should you ask a marketing agency before hiring them?
Who writes the posts, whether creators publish agency copy verbatim or write their own from a brief, how creators are selected, how paid disclosure is handled, what work they decline, and whether they will share per-post numbers instead of campaign totals. The last one is where competence shows, because totals hide a single outlier carrying everything.
What are the warning signs when evaluating an agency?
Guaranteed results, since nobody controls the algorithm. Reluctance to show a creator shortlist before a contract is signed.
No clear disclosure policy, because the regulatory exposure sits with the advertiser rather than the agency. Metrics presented only as totals. And undisclosed referral fees.
Why does an investor introduction raise the stakes on agency selection?
Because a founder reads an introduction as a vetting signal. If the engagement goes badly they tend to conclude the fund's judgment was poor rather than that the vendor was, which is why reference checks reasonably happen before introductions.