How to Choose a Marketing Agency: A 12-Point Checklist

Before you even start shortlisting, understand three operating models:

• Vendor — executes narrow tasks (e.g., runs your Google Ads). Cheap but requires your in-house strategy and supervision.
• Full-service agency — covers multiple channels but typically follows its own playbook, not yours.
• Strategic partner — integrates with your business, owns the marketing function end-to-end, and is accountable for outcomes, not just deliverables.

Most mid-market companies in Central Asia need the third model: a marketing partner who acts as an extension of the leadership team. If you only need banner production, a vendor suffices. If you need growth, look for a partner.

The first four checkpoints deal with hard evidence of competence:

• 1. Relevant case studies. Ask for cases in your industry or a comparable vertical. Generic “we increased traffic 300%” stories without context are useless. Look for documented methodology, timelines, and measurable outcomes.
• 2. Industry expertise. Marketing for real estate developers is fundamentally different from marketing for SaaS. An agency that claims to do everything well usually does nothing exceptionally.
• 3. Team composition. Who will actually work on your account? Ask for the names and LinkedIn profiles of the strategist, the media buyer, and the analyst. If they can’t tell you, the team hasn’t been assembled yet.
• 4. Certifications and partnerships. Google Partner status, Meta Blueprint, Yandex.Direct certification—these are table stakes, not differentiators. Their absence is a red flag; their presence is merely a baseline.

Execution quality is invisible from the outside, but process quality is not:

• 5. Onboarding process. A good agency has a documented onboarding: timelines, deliverables, responsible persons. If onboarding is “we’ll figure it out as we go,” run.
• 6. Reporting cadence and format. Insist on seeing a sample report before you sign. The report should tie marketing KPIs back to business outcomes (pipeline, revenue), not vanity metrics (impressions, likes).
• 7. Communication SLA. How quickly do they respond? What channels do they use? The best agencies commit to response times in the contract.
• 8. Escalation path. When something goes wrong (and it will), who do you call? If the answer is “your account manager,” ask who the account manager escalates to.

At EffectOn, we structure our strategy engagements around weekly syncs, shared dashboards, and a named escalation contact from day one.

Money is where misaligned incentives become visible:

• 9. Pricing transparency. Ask for a line-item breakdown. Agencies that quote a single lump sum are often hiding margin on media spend. Read our guide on outsourced marketing costs for typical CIS market ranges.
• 10. Contract flexibility. Avoid long lock-in periods (12+ months) without performance clauses. A confident agency will offer a 3-month pilot with clear success criteria.
• 11. IP and data ownership. Your ad accounts, analytics, creative assets, and customer data must belong to you. If the agency runs campaigns from their own accounts, you lose everything when you part ways.

12. Cultural alignment. This is the most underrated criterion. Do they understand your market? In Central Asia, buying behavior, language nuances, and channel preferences differ sharply from Moscow or Western markets. An agency that treats Almaty like a smaller Moscow will waste your budget.

Watch for these red flags during the evaluation:

• They guarantee specific results before seeing your data.
• They cannot explain their methodology in simple language.
• They push proprietary tools that create vendor lock-in.
• They have high staff turnover (check Glassdoor or local equivalents).
• They are evasive about who will work on your account.

Conversely, green flags include: they ask tough questions about your business before pitching, they push back on unrealistic timelines, and they share failures alongside successes.

We recommend a structured three-step process:

• Step 1: Long list (5–7 agencies). Score each on the 12 criteria above. Use a simple spreadsheet with 1–5 ratings.
• Step 2: Short list (2–3 agencies). Request a paid test task or strategy outline. This filters out agencies that pitch well but execute poorly.
• Step 3: Pilot (1 agency). Run a 60–90 day engagement with defined KPIs. Evaluate not just results but the quality of collaboration.

This process takes 4–6 weeks but saves months of wasted spend. If you need help structuring the evaluation, reach out to our team—we are happy to consult even if you ultimately choose another partner.