12 Questions to Ask a Meta and Google Ads Agency Before You Sign

Hiring a performance marketing agency is one of the highest-stakes decisions an ecommerce founder makes. Get it right and your store breaks through to a new revenue level. Get it wrong and you are out months of budget, time, and momentum.

Most agencies are good at sales calls. The right questions separate the ones that will actually deliver from the ones that will learn on your budget. This checklist is built for ecommerce founders and marketing managers in home and furniture retail who are evaluating agencies for Meta Ads scaling and Google Ads management. Use it on every discovery call before you sign anything.

Experience and Category Fit

Question 1: Do you have experience with ecommerce stores selling high-AOV products?

Category Fit

This is the first filter. Agencies that work exclusively with low-ticket DTC brands are used to shorter consideration windows, impulse-driven creatives, and 7-day attribution windows. None of that applies to a store selling furniture, lighting, or home decor at £200 to £2,000 per order.

Home ecommerce buyers research for 14 to 30 days before purchasing. They compare products across multiple sessions, on multiple devices. The ad architecture, creative strategy, and attribution setup required for that buying journey is fundamentally different from what works for a £25 product.

Good answer: The agency names specific clients in home goods, furniture, or similarly high-AOV categories and explains how their strategy accounts for longer consideration cycles.

Red flag: They reference only fashion, beauty, or consumer electronics brands and apply the same playbook across all categories.

Question 2: Can you show a case study with before-and-after revenue numbers from a brand in my category?

Proof of Results

Any agency can claim results. Verified case studies with specific numbers, a named brand, and a clear timeframe are what build justified confidence. The case study should show what the store was doing before, what the agency changed, and what the measurable outcome was. ROAS, revenue growth, and customer acquisition numbers are the right metrics to ask about.

Good answer: They share a named case study with specific ROAS, revenue, or customer acquisition numbers and can explain exactly what changed and why it worked.

Red flag: They offer only aggregate claims ("we average 4x ROAS for our clients") with no brand names, no specifics, and no verifiable context.

Strategy and Channel Architecture

Question 3: How do you structure Meta Ads campaigns for products with a long consideration window?

Meta Ads Scaling

This is one of the most revealing questions you can ask. A strong agency will describe a full-funnel campaign architecture: separate campaigns for cold audiences (people who have never seen your brand), warm audiences (people who have visited your site or engaged with your content), and hot audiences (people who added to cart or reached checkout). Each layer gets different creatives, different objectives, and different budget logic.

An agency running a single sales campaign at a cold audience for a £800 sofa does not understand how furniture buyers make decisions. Budget will burn fast and results will be inconsistent.

Good answer: They describe a three-layer awareness, retargeting, and re-engagement structure with distinct objectives and attribution windows for each layer.

Red flag: They describe a single campaign or lead primarily with Advantage+ Shopping as the only strategy for a high-AOV brand.

Question 4: How do you run Meta Ads and Google Ads as a connected system?

Google Ads Management

Meta and Google are not competing channels. They cover two different stages of the same buyer journey. Meta interrupts and plants the seed. Google captures the buyer when they go back to search. If an agency runs them as two separate budgets with two separate strategies, the buyer falls through the gap between them.

Ask how the agency coordinates messaging between channels, how they prevent budget from cannibalising itself across platforms, and whether one team manages both or whether you would be split between two separate account managers.

Good answer: They explain how Meta and Google work together across the consideration window and confirm that one team manages both channels with a shared strategy.

Red flag: They specialise in only one channel and treat the other as optional, or they split your account between two separate teams with no shared oversight.

Question 5: What does your full-funnel strategy look like beyond paid ads?

Ecommerce Growth Marketing

Paid media drives traffic. But if your website does not convert and your email flows do not capture the revenue from browsers who are not ready to buy today, you are leaving a significant portion of your ad spend on the table. The best performance marketing agencies for ecommerce think beyond the ad account.

Ask whether they cover CRO, email marketing, and CRM as part of their engagement or whether those are entirely separate. For home ecommerce brands, email alone can contribute 15 to 25 percent of total revenue when set up correctly. An agency that only manages ads and ignores that channel is leaving money in the funnel.

Good answer: They describe how paid media connects to email, CRM, and website performance, and can speak to specific flows or CRO interventions they have implemented for similar brands.

Red flag: They are ads-only and cannot speak to what happens after a user clicks the ad. The funnel starts at the click. It does not end there.

Question 6: How do you approach creative strategy for high-AOV home products?

Home-Related Ecommerce Advertising

Creative is the variable that most often determines whether a home ecommerce ad campaign works or fails. Generic product-on-white-background ads do not build the trust or aspiration that a £500 dining table requires. The right creative for home and furniture ecommerce shows the product in a real living environment, addresses the key buyer concerns (quality, dimensions, delivery, returns), and reflects the lifestyle the customer is buying into.

Ask who produces the creative, what their brief process looks like for a high-AOV product, and whether they have examples of lifestyle-led creative that has performed for a home brand.

Good answer: They describe a lifestyle-first creative approach, explain how they brief and produce assets for high-consideration products, and can show examples from similar brands.

Red flag: Their creative examples are all product-only, price-led, or built around urgency hooks. That approach works for £20 products. It undermines trust for £500 ones.

Tracking, Attribution, and Reporting

Question 7: How do you handle tracking and attribution in 2026?

Technical Setup

Platform-reported ROAS is not reliable. Meta over-attributes conversions. Google claims credit for sales that were already happening organically. Without proper tracking infrastructure, every budget decision you make is based on inflated numbers.

In 2026, a strong agency should have a clear position on server-side tracking, Meta Conversion API (CAPI) implementation, and Google Enhanced Conversions. They should also be able to explain how they reconcile platform data with your actual revenue numbers, whether through a third-party attribution tool or a blended MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio) approach.

Good answer: They describe their tracking setup clearly, mention CAPI and Enhanced Conversions, and explain how they account for the attribution window of a high-consideration product.

Red flag: They rely entirely on platform-native dashboards and cannot explain how they cross-reference ad platform data with actual store revenue.

Question 8: What does your reporting look like and what metrics do you prioritise?

Performance Marketing Agency for Ecommerce

The metrics an agency leads with in reporting tell you exactly what they are optimising for. Impressions, reach, and click-through rates are useful data points, but they do not pay your suppliers. The metrics that matter for a scaling home ecommerce store are revenue, ROAS, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and ideally lifetime value (LTV) and average order value (AOV) over time.

Ask what their reporting cadence is, whether you get a live dashboard or a weekly PDF, and what they do when the numbers are not moving in the right direction.

Good answer: They lead with revenue-focused metrics, offer a clear reporting cadence, and can describe a specific example of how they diagnosed and fixed underperformance on a client account.

Red flag: Their reporting is built around impressions, reach, or click volume, with ROAS treated as a secondary metric.

Team, Process, and Expectations

Question 9: Who will actually work on my account day to day?

Team Structure

This is the question most founders forget to ask and the one that has the biggest impact on results. Many agencies close deals at the senior or founder level and then hand the actual work to a junior account manager or an offshore team. The strategy you are sold in the pitch should be the strategy executed on your account.

Get the name and background of the person who will manage your campaigns. Ask how many other accounts they are managing simultaneously. Ask whether you will have direct access to them or whether all communication goes through an account manager layer.

Good answer: They name the specific person managing your account, share their background and experience level, and confirm you will have direct access to them.

Red flag: They are vague about who does the work, give you a "team" answer without names, or mention an account manager as the primary contact for strategy conversations.

Question 10: What are realistic expectations for the first 90 days?

Onboarding and Timeline

Home ecommerce has a 14 to 30-day buyer consideration window. Any agency promising significant ROAS or revenue improvements within the first 30 days either does not understand your category or is over-promising to close the deal. The first 30 days of any serious engagement are typically spent on setup: tracking infrastructure, account audits, audience building, and creative development.

A realistic 90-day timeline looks like this: foundations and setup in month one, initial testing and data collection in month two, and first optimisation cycles based on real data in month three. Significant revenue impact typically starts to compound from month three or four onwards for high-AOV home ecommerce brands.

Good answer: They set honest expectations, describe a phased onboarding process, and do not promise specific ROAS numbers before they have audited your account and seen your data.

Red flag: They promise a specific ROAS or revenue outcome within 30 days before seeing your account, your creative, or your historical data.

Question 11: What is included in your retainer and what costs extra?

Pricing and Scope

Agency pricing varies significantly in what is and is not included. Some agencies include creative production in their retainer. Others charge per asset. Some cover tracking setup as part of onboarding. Others bill it separately. Some include CRO recommendations. Others scope it as a separate project.

Before you sign, get a clear written breakdown of exactly what is included in the monthly fee, what triggers additional costs, and who owns the ad accounts and creative assets if you decide to leave. Account ownership is a detail that matters enormously if the relationship ends.

Good answer: They provide a detailed written scope, confirm you retain full ownership of your ad accounts and assets, and are transparent about what triggers additional fees.

Red flag: Vague scope language, unclear ownership terms, or a long minimum contract before any results have been demonstrated.

Question 12: How do you handle a period of underperformance?

Accountability

Every agency will perform well when results are strong. What separates genuinely good agencies is what they do when campaigns are not delivering. Ask how they diagnose underperformance, how quickly they communicate it to clients, and what their process is for course-correcting.

Agencies that proactively flag issues, bring a clear diagnosis, and arrive with a revised plan demonstrate real accountability. Agencies that go quiet, blame the platform, or wait for the client to raise concerns are a risk in any long-term engagement.

Good answer: They describe a specific example of underperformance on a past client, explain how they identified the root cause, and walk you through the steps they took to fix it.

Red flag: They have not thought about this scenario, default to blaming external factors (algorithm changes, seasonality, platform issues), or cannot give a concrete example.

How DeqVision Answers These Questions

DeqVision is a full-stack performance marketing agency built specifically for home ecommerce brands scaling to £150,000 per month and beyond. Every question on this list reflects how we think about building and running campaigns for high-AOV home products.

Our approach is built around the VISIONARY Method, a full-spectrum framework that covers the entire growth engine: digital strategy, website optimisation, Meta Ads, Google Ads, email marketing, CRM, and creative. Most agencies own one or two of these pieces. The VISIONARY Method ensures every part of your marketing is connected and working as one system, with no gaps between channels.

  • Category expertise: We work exclusively with home ecommerce brands. Furniture, home decor, lighting, home accessories. Not fashion, not food, not SaaS. That focus means every system we build is designed around how home buyers actually make decisions.
  • Proven results in your niche: Multimebeli: 14x ROAS and 57% revenue increase. Pavirani: 7x ROAS and 42% increase in average order value. Both achieved through the same full-funnel VISIONARY system.
  • Meta and Google as one connected system: We run both channels with one team and one shared strategy. No gaps, no handoffs, no conflicting budget logic between platforms.
  • Senior-led execution: Our three founders are directly involved in every client account. The strategy we sell is the strategy we build and run.
  • Full-stack coverage: Paid ads, email, CRM, creative, and web under one retainer. No vendor management. No coordination overhead. One team, one system.
  • Transparent tracking: We implement server-side tracking, Meta CAPI, and Google Enhanced Conversions on every account from day one. Every decision is based on real revenue data, not inflated platform numbers.

If you are a home ecommerce brand currently generating £30,000 or more per month and want to understand exactly what we would do to scale your store, book a free discovery call.

Already at 30K+ per month?

Scale your home ecommerce store to 150K/month and beyond

If your store is already generating £30,000 or more per month and you want a full-stack team that knows home ecommerce, book a free discovery call. We will look at your current setup and show you exactly what we would do to get you to 150K/month.

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