1. Do they understand the commercial model?
A developer launch, an off-plan brokerage, a luxury secondary team and an international roadshow programme do not share the same constraint. Ask the agency to explain your revenue model, buyer journey, inventory pressure and sales structure before discussing channels.
If the answer immediately becomes a list of deliverables, the diagnosis is not deep enough.
2. Can they connect creative and performance?
Media and creative are one learning system. The partner should explain how hooks, propositions, formats and objections become a testing matrix—and how results change the next production brief.
3. What happens after the lead arrives?
Ask who owns tracking, routing, response-time visibility, CRM stage definitions and sales feedback. An agency does not need to manage the sales team, but it must understand the conditions under which marketing becomes revenue.
4. How do they report quality?
Platform dashboards are not commercial reporting. Look for a scorecard that can include contactability, qualification, market fit, appointment progression, pipeline and eventual revenue when the data exists.
- Request examples of weekly decisions, not only monthly slides
- Ask how attribution limitations are disclosed
- Ask which metric would cause them to reduce spend
- Ask how sales feedback changes creative and targeting
5. Is the engagement built around a mandate?
A clear mandate names the commercial outcome, the operating scope, the decision cadence and the evidence used to judge progress. It is stronger than a menu of posts, videos and campaigns.
Choose the partner that can challenge the brief, explain trade-offs and make the system more legible to leadership.