Nate Tilley walks through four things to check before hiring an ad agency: case studies, how long they've been around, whether they've succeeded with businesses like yours, and if they'll take performance-based incentives. Marketing can't guarantee sales, but you want them to have skin in the game.
First, you're going to want to look and see if they have any case studies. If they have case studies, you can probably count on them being a good business. Second, you're going to want to see how long they have been in business. Third, you're going to want to make sure that not only do they have case studies, but that they've actually had successful results for businesses just like yours. Fourth, you want to make sure that they have some kind of performance based incentive or some kind of guarantee that they offer on a minimum amount of results. Look, it's marketing. You can't guarantee sales from marketing directly, but you can at least make sure there's some skin in the game. That way, if they at least don't hit the minimum criteria, you're not hung out on a big retainer or something like that.
