Here is the number that explains most bad agency relationships. When Setup surveyed clients and agencies side by side in 2025, clients said they ended relationships over dissatisfaction with delivery (61%) and value (61%). Asked the same question, agencies blamed client budget cuts (75%). Same breakup, two completely different stories, and the agency version is the comfortable one.
We are an agency. We have sat on the wrong side of that gap, and we have inherited accounts from firms that never noticed it existed. So this is the audit we would want a client to run on us: twelve questions, grouped by what they expose. Ask them of your current agency. Ask them of us on a first call. The answers are more revealing than any case study.
01 Why you need an audit at all
Relationships last longer than you would guess, and that is not always good news. The ANA and 4As found average client-agency tenure is now about seven years, more than double the 3.2 years measured in 2016. Media-only agencies still turn over faster, around 3.7 years. Long tenure can mean trust. It can also mean nobody has checked the work in a while, because switching is expensive and the monthly report keeps arriving on time.
The industry itself is not confident. In Basis’s 2026 survey of agency professionals, 87% said the traditional agency model is broken now or will be within five years, and the WFA reports that 66% of brands already run some kind of in-house agency. When the people selling the model doubt it, the buyer should at least inspect it.
02 Questions about ownership
1. Who owns the ad accounts, pixel, and analytics?
The answer must be you, in writing, with the agency holding revocable partner access. Every practitioner guide we checked calls agency-owned accounts the single biggest contract red flag, because losing the account means losing your conversion history, audiences, and the algorithm’s learning with it. If the agency owns it, you are renting your own business.
2. Can I export the raw data today, without asking?
Not a dashboard. The platform data, the search terms, the placements, the spend by day. If access to your own numbers requires a request and a delay, the report you receive is curated by definition.
03 Questions about the numbers
3. Which ROAS are you reporting, and is it written down?
ROAS is not standardized. One firm reports platform-attributed revenue, another nets out fees, a third blends channels that each claim the same sale. If the definition is not in the contract, the number is whatever makes the month look best. We explained the mechanics of that inflation in why your ROAS is lying to you.
4. What is our blended MER against our break-even?
A serious agency reports MER, total revenue over total spend, next to the break-even figure derived from your contribution margin. If they cannot tell you your break-even, they cannot tell you whether the account is profitable, only whether it is busy.
5. When did you last run an incrementality test?
Any agency that guarantees a ROAS number is either ignoring incrementality or intending to manage the attribution that produces it. Ask when they last ran a holdout and what it changed. “Never” is an honest answer at small budgets; it is a warning at $50k a month. The method is in the incrementality testing playbook.
6. Why has the account been “in learning” for two months?
Learning phase is real; Meta wants roughly 50 conversions per ad set inside a week. But a permanently learning account usually means over-segmentation, too many ad sets sharing too little budget, or constant small edits resetting the clock. Ask how many ad sets are live and why.
04 Questions about money
7. How are you paid, and what happens to your fee when you cut my waste?
Percentage-of-spend is the industry norm at 10% to 20%, and the World Federation of Advertisers has called it a structural conflict: the agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not it is profitable, and efficiency work cuts its own fee. Flat retainers ($1,500 to $5,000 a month is typical for SMB) and hybrid base-plus-performance models remove some of that. None is perfect. The question is whether the agency will name the conflict out loud.
8. Is there any markup on media?
Some agencies buy inventory wholesale and resell it at an undisclosed margin. The ISBA and PwC transparency study of UK programmatic, which is now a few years old but still the reference point, found markups on principal media running from 30% to 90%. Ask for a written statement that you pay platforms at cost.
9. Who is doing the work?
White-label arrangements are common and not inherently bad. Undisclosed ones are, because you bought the expertise on the pitch and got someone else’s. Ask for the names of the people in the account this week.
05 Questions about the contract
10. What is the notice period, and what is the handover SLA?
Thirty days is fair. Ninety days plus fees can hold you six months past the point you wanted out. Good contracts also define a handover window, typically five to ten business days, for accounts, audiences, catalogs, and tracking.
11. How often do we get a real report, and what is in it?
AgencyAnalytics’s 2026 benchmark found 69% of agencies report monthly and only 11% weekly. For paid media that moves daily, weekly is the right cadence for at least the first 90 days. And the report should answer three things: what happened, what it means, what changes next. A report that stops at “what happened” is a screenshot.
12. What would make you tell me to spend less?
This is the question that separates partners from vendors. An operator who owns the outcome can describe the conditions under which they would cut your budget: margin below break-even, marginal CAC over the cap, a tracking problem that makes the numbers untrustworthy. A vendor cannot picture it, because less spend is less fee.
06 Our own answers, since we asked
Clients own every account and property; we hold partner access. We report blended MER against your break-even, weekly at the start. We run incrementality when the budget justifies it and say so when it does not. We charge a base fee plus a growth fee, we pay platforms at cost, and our minimum term is 90 days with a defined handover. We will also tell you to spend less; we have done it, and it cost us fee income and kept the client. That is the trade we would rather make.
07 Where to start
Send the twelve questions to your agency as an email, not a meeting, so the answers are in writing. You are not looking for perfect scores. You are looking for the questions they dodge, because those are the exact places the relationship has been coasting. If you would like a second opinion on the answers you get back, send them to us and we will read them honestly, even if the honest read is that your current agency is fine. Which of the twelve would your agency least like to answer?
Sources: Setup 2025 Marketing Relationship Survey (client vs agency reasons for ending relationships); ANA/4As 2025 Client-Agency Relationship Tenure Report (7-year average, 3.2 in 2016, 3.7 for media-only); Basis 2026 Advertising Agency Report (87% say the model is broken now or within five years); WFA in-housing research (66% of brands with an in-house agency); AgencyAnalytics 2026 Benchmarks (reporting cadence, n=494); ISBA/PwC UK programmatic transparency study (30% to 90% principal-media markups, older study); 2026 agency pricing guides (Swydo, Get-Ryze, Clicksgeek) for fee ranges.
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How do I know if my ad agency is underperforming?
Check three things: whether you own the ad accounts and can pull raw data yourself, whether they report blended MER against your break-even rather than platform ROAS, and whether they have ever tested incrementality. Then ask what would make them tell you to spend less. An agency that cannot answer that is optimizing its fee, not your profit.
Who should own the Google Ads and Meta ad accounts, the client or the agency?
The client, always, with the agency holding revocable partner-level access. Agency-owned accounts are the most cited contract red flag because leaving means losing conversion history, audiences, and algorithm learning. Put explicit client ownership of ad accounts, pixels, and analytics properties in the contract.
How much should an ad agency charge?
Percentage-of-spend models typically run 10% to 20% of monthly ad spend, flat retainers for small businesses commonly land between $1,500 and $5,000 a month, and hybrid models pair a base fee with a smaller percentage above a threshold. The structure matters as much as the price: percentage models reward spending, not profit.
What questions should I ask before firing my ad agency?
Ask who owns the accounts, whether you can export raw data today, how ROAS is defined, what your blended MER is against break-even, when they last ran an incrementality test, whether there is any media markup, and what your notice period and handover terms are. Put the questions in writing so the answers are on record.
What is a normal contract length and notice period for a marketing agency?
Six to twelve month minimums are standard, with twelve the most common default. Thirty days notice is fair; ninety days plus fees is a lock-in. Good contracts also define a handover window of five to ten business days for accounts, audiences, catalogs, and tracking at termination.