What to Ask a Programmatic Agency Before Signing

What to ask a programmatic agency before signing

1. What specific deliverables are included in your programmatic services?
2. Which advertising platforms do you use (and why)?
3. Can you show me case studies of how you drove results for clients like me?
4. What does your reporting look like?
5. How often do you optimize campaigns after launch?
6. Who owns the advertising data, pixels, and campaign history if I leave?
7. How transparent is your pricing?

Choosing to partner with a professional agency for help with your programmatic advertising campaigns is a smart choice — but it’s only the first step. If you’re wondering what to ask a programmatic agency before signing, start by narrowing down your options and figuring out which agency is right for you.

Before you sign with a programmatic agency, make sure you know exactly what you’re getting, how performance will be measured, and who controls your campaign data. A good place to start is by asking about seven core areas: deliverables, platforms, past results, reporting, optimization, campaign ownership, and pricing.

That’s why on this page, we’ll be talking about what to ask a programmatic agency before signing. The right questions can help you avoid vague reporting, hidden inefficiencies, and a partnership that’s harder to leave than it should be. Check out the full list of questions below!

What to ask a programmatic agency before signing

It’s important to ask the right questions when hiring a programmatic agency — that’s how you determine if the agency is trustworthy, competent, and a good fit for your needs. To that end, here’s a breakdown of some of the best questions for programmatic agencies:

Read on to learn the value of each of those questions.

1. What specific deliverables are included in your programmatic services?

The first programmatic agency consideration to look into is the specific deliverables you’re getting with your agency service package. Programmatic services can look very different depending on the specific offerings your agency includes, so this is important to ask about.

Some of the most common types of deliverables to consider include:

• Audience research
• DSP and DMP setup
• Ad and landing page creation
• Conversion tracking
• Bid management
• A/B testing

Of course, it really just depends on which deliverables you specifically want. Exactly what do you want the agency to do for you? Whatever that is, see if it’s included in their service package.

2. Which advertising platforms do you use (and why)?

Another of the first programmatic agency questions to ask is what platforms the agency uses. That includes DSPs, DMPs, and data providers. Those platforms will be where all the action happens in your programmatic campaigns, so it’s important to know which ones you’ll be using.

That’s not to suggest that you should necessarily be looking for one specific DSP or data provider. But whichever platforms your agency says they use, you might at least want to look them up to make sure you’d be happy using them. You don’t want to get trapped using a platform that turns out to have a bad reputation.

A strong agency should be able to explain how its chosen platforms support your goals, targeting, measurement, and brand safety needs.

3. Can you show me case studies of how you drove results for clients like me?

There’s nothing worse than partnering with an agency that doesn’t drive results. So, before signing, make sure your chosen agency has a history of driving results for their past clients. To do that, ask the agency if they can provide you with any case studies showcasing past successes.

These case studies should not only demonstrate strong results like leads and conversions, but also a history of happy clients. If they do, that’s a giant green flag, and it likely indicates that the agency is a good option to partner with.

4. What does your reporting look like?

Reporting is one of the most important programmatic agency considerations. An agency that doesn’t keep you informed about what’s going on with your campaigns is probably not one you should partner with. So, be sure to ask what your agency’s reporting looks like.

Ask questions like:

• What metrics does your reporting focus on?
• How often will you send me reports?
• How transparent is your reporting?
• Does your reporting tie campaigns back to leads and revenue?

You want to find an agency that will be highly transparent with their reporting and constantly keep you in the loop about everything they do. Your reporting should highlight both business outcomes and campaign health, including metrics like conversions, cost per lead, return on ad spend, spend allocation, and the optimizations being made over time.

5. How often do you optimize campaigns after launch?

Your ad campaigns probably won’t be perfect immediately — you’ll need to optimize them over time to drive better results. But it’s worth verifying that your chosen agency will actually do that. To that end, ask questions like:

• What types of changes will you make to my campaigns after launch?
• What will your changes be based on?
• How often will you make those changes?

Ideally, your agency will consistently monitor your ad performance and regularly run A/B tests to see which ad variations drive the best results.

6. Who owns the advertising data, pixels, and campaign history if I leave?

No matter how good an agency is, it’s always possible that you’ll eventually want to move on. For that reason, you should definitely make sure to ask about who will own all your advertising campaigns if you choose to leave the agency.

Typically, agencies will ensure that you still own all your data, pixels, and campaign history if you decide to part ways down the road. However, there are some shadier agencies out there who will maintain ownership over all of those resources if you leave, basically holding your campaigns hostage to keep you around.

Don’t let yourself get trapped in that situation. Make absolutely sure that your campaigns will belong fully to you before you commit to an agency.

7. How transparent is your pricing?

To wrap up this list of questions for programmatic agencies, you should ask about pricing transparency. You probably already have a basic idea of the pricing structure if you’ve made it far enough to be asking the questions on this list, but it’s still worth making sure there aren’t any hidden costs you’re not aware of.

Be upfront about this question with your agency before you commit. Ask them to break down every element you might have to pay them for, not leaving anything out. Get assurance that the numbers they give you represent the full amount you’ll have to pay. Only once you have that assurance should you think about making the final hiring decision.

Satisfy all your programmatic agency questions with WebFX

If you’re looking for an agency that satisfies all the programmatic agency considerations on this page, WebFX is the way to go. We have a rich history of driving results for our clients, and you can rest assured that we’ll be completely transparent about every optimization we make to your campaigns.

If you’re interested in partnering with us for our programmatic advertising services, just call us at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!