The short answer
Hire the agency that can show you the work, the numbers and the exit.
Choose a marketing agency by checking five things: they have named results for businesses like yours, they put exactly what they’ll do in writing, every account and the website stay in your name, they report on calls and booked jobs instead of vanity numbers, and the price and contract terms are clear before you sign. If an agency fails any of them, ask why before you sign.
Owners who’ve been burned by an agency often tell the same story. They signed a long contract for a vague “SEO package”, got monthly reports full of traffic charts, couldn’t tell whether the phone rang more, and found out on the way out that the agency owned their website or ad account. Every question in this guide is built to catch one of those problems before you sign.
Decide before you talk to anyone
- The services you want more of, and the ones you don’t
- The towns you serve and how far you’ll drive
- How many more jobs your crew can handle
- A monthly budget, with ad spend separate
- Whether your website is part of the problem
Bring to the first call
- A month of call logs, including missed calls
- Logins or owner access for your accounts
- Your current agency’s last few reports
- A rough idea of what a typical job is worth
- The person who can approve facts about your business
If you’re weighing SEO, the small business SEO page explains what the work involves. Websites, Google Ads and phone answering are separate needs, so any proposal should spell out which ones it covers.
Questions to ask
Eight questions that separate good agencies from the rest.
Who will do the work on my account?
Meet them. Some agencies send a senior person to sell the deal, then hand you to someone you never met. Ask who handles day-to-day contact and who you call when something goes wrong.
What will you do in the first 90 days?
A good agency names specific tasks: fix tracking, rebuild these pages, launch these campaigns. “Optimize your online presence” isn’t a plan.
Can I see results for a business like mine?
Ask for a named client in a similar trade, the starting point, what changed and the numbers. Then check that the client and website exist.
Who owns the website, domain and accounts?
The right answer is you. Your Google Ads, Google Business Profile, analytics, domain and website should stay in your name.
How do you track calls and booked jobs?
Clicks and traffic aren’t the goal. Ask how they’ll track calls, forms and, ideally, which leads became jobs.
What does the monthly report show?
Ask to see a sample. You want work completed, calls and leads by source, and plain-English next steps.
What does it cost, all in?
Get the management fee, ad spend, setup fees and any software costs in writing. Ad spend should be separate and visible.
How do I cancel?
Know the term, the notice period and what you keep if you leave. If the answer is vague, assume it favors them.
Red flags
Walk away if you hear any of these.
Promises no one can keep
- “We guarantee #1 rankings on Google”
- “We’ll get you into ChatGPT answers”
- A guaranteed number of leads or calls
- Results promised by a specific date
- “Sign today and we’ll waive the setup fee”
Terms that trap you
- The agency owns your website or ad account
- A long contract with no exit and big cancellation fees
- Call tracking numbers you can’t keep if you leave
- Ad spend bundled into one fee you can’t see
- Reports that only show traffic and impressions
None of these is automatically fraud. Some honest agencies use long contracts, and some bundle ad spend for simplicity. But each one shifts risk from the agency to you, so ask them to explain it, and get the answer in writing.
For a concrete comparison, read our Scorpion alternatives guide for service businesses. It puts published policies, account ownership, billing and a real agency-switch case beside Lithium’s offer.
Compare proposals line by line
Ask what will be done, owned and reported.
Two proposals at the same price can buy very different work. Lay them side by side and check each line. For SEO, which technical, local, content and link work is included, and which pages or profiles will change? For Google Ads, how much is management and how much is ad spend? For a website, what’s the scope, who writes the content, how long does it take and who owns it at the end?
Then compare prices against that scope, not against each other. For reference, Lithium’s SEO is $1,300 to $3,000 a month, Google Ads management is from $500 a month plus ad spend, a website is typically $5,000, and the AI receptionist is $179 a month with no contract. Optional hosting and maintenance is $99 a month. Those are our prices, not an industry benchmark. The pricing page lists what each one includes, so you can hold any proposal up against it.
A cheap proposal with no tracking and vague tasks can cost more in the end than a pricier one that shows you exactly which calls it produced.
Check the proof
A case study should show the work behind the number.
Every agency has a success story. Good ones name the client, show where it started, explain what changed and print the numbers. Ask for examples from your trade or a similar one, then look up the client’s website and reviews yourself.
Here’s what that looks like. The Sarkinen Plumbing case study shows how Lithium doubled leads on the same budget after rebuilding the website, SEO and Google Ads together, with search visibility up nearly 4X and a 27.37% Google Ads conversion rate against an average of about 5%. Every number is printed on that client’s case study, along with the work that produced it.
Meet the people
Hire the team, not the sales pitch.
Before you sign, meet the people who will run your account and judge whether you’d trust them with your phone ringing. Do they explain their thinking plainly? Do they ask about your jobs, your crew and your margins, or only about your budget? Will they tell you when something isn’t working?
At Lithium, your first call is with a co-founder, and an account manager handles day-to-day contact after that. Our usual agreement starts with six months, then runs month to month with 30 days’ notice. You own your website and domain. We don’t guarantee rankings or lead counts. What we guarantee is the work. Lithium has worked with 100+ businesses since 2010, and you can read the numbers in our case studies .
