12 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Marketer

A question is only worth asking if you already know what a bad answer sounds like. Most hiring checklists hand you a list and leave you to interpret the replies, which is the hard part and the part where guides get talked around. What follows is the script with the expected responses attached: for each question, why you are asking it, what a good answer contains, and the specific reply that should end the conversation. Ask all twelve before any money moves. Get four of them in writing. None of this is adversarial, and a shop that has done this work before will recognise every question and answer most of them before you finish asking. If the answers send you back to the paperwork, the article on term structures and ownership clauses is where that goes next.

1. Who owns the website, the copy and the photographs when we stop?

Ask it exactly that way, with the ending built into the sentence. A good answer is immediate and specific: the work is yours, assigned on payment, in writing. A worrying answer talks about how they never have problems with clients leaving, which is not an answer to the question you asked.

This one goes first because it is the one that costs the most and the one people ask last, usually after a relationship has already soured. It is also the question with a real legal spine underneath it rather than a preference, which is why the written version matters more than the verbal one.

Good answers sound like: we assign everything to you on payment, it is clause such-and-such, I will send you the agreement now. Worrying answers sound like: everything we build is yours, of course, do not worry about that. The second is warm and means nothing, and the whole argument for why is in the custody article.

Blue Line, MA

2. Whose name is on the domain registration?

Yours, ideally already, and if you do not know then find out before the call. The registration record is public, so this is the one question you can answer yourself in thirty seconds rather than taking anybody's word for it.

Look it up on ICANN's public lookup before you speak to anyone. Seeing somebody else's business listed as the registrant means you have an existing problem to solve, separate from whoever you hire next, and solving it first is the cheaper order.

A good answer from a new shop is that they will help you register it in your own name at your own registrar, or point the existing one at whatever they build. A worrying answer is any version of "we will handle the domain," which is not wrong in itself but should prompt the follow-up: registered to whom.

3. Whose account holds the ad accounts, and what happens to the history?

Yours, with them granted access. Ad account history has real value because it carries your conversion data, and starting a new account from zero means paying for a learning period you already paid for once. Ask specifically what happens to that history if you part ways.

The good version is that you create the accounts under your own business manager and add them as a user, or that they create it and transfer ownership to you at the start. Both are normal. The worrying version is an agency account that runs campaigns "for" you, because when you leave, the account and everything it learned stays behind.

The follow-up worth asking: if we stop, do I keep the campaign history, or do I start from nothing? A shop that has ended relationships cleanly will have a straight answer. Why that history is worth protecting is a mechanical matter covered in the piece on realistic timelines.

4. Who manages the Google Business Profile, and will you claim the existing one?

The right answer is that they will claim and manage the profile you already have. The answer to worry about is anything involving creating a new listing, because Google's own guidelines say there should only be one profile per business.

Google states it plainly in its guidelines for representing your business: there should only be one profile per business, since duplicates cause problems with how your information displays on Maps and Search. The same page notes that Google reserves the right to suspend access to profiles that violate its guidelines.

So an agency that makes a second listing rather than claiming yours is not taking a shortcut, they are creating a documented problem on the surface that produces a lot of a guide's local enquiries. The same guidelines are worth knowing for two other reasons: represent the business as it is recognised in the real world across your signage and branding, and choose the fewest categories that describe your core business. Both are things agencies get wrong in the direction of stuffing.

5. Can I speak to a client who left you?

The single most predictive question on the list. Current clients are selected for you. Somebody who has already finished with a shop watched the last chapter too, which is the chapter that goes wrong. Whether that name arrives easily is itself half the answer.

A good answer is a name and a number, possibly with a caveat about why the relationship ended, which is fine and often honest. A worrying answer is a pivot to testimonials, a wall of quotes, or an offer of three more current clients instead. The pivot is the information.

Once you have the name, steer the call toward the exit. Was everything returned, on what timescale, and did anybody have to chase it. Testimonials in advertising are governed by the FTC's Endorsement Guides, but a rule about honest advertising is a floor, not a substitute for a phone call with somebody who has been through it. The wider set of things worth verifying before you sign is in the red flags article.

6. Who is actually doing the work, and will that change?

Ask for a name, and ask whether the person in front of you will still be on the account in three months. It is common to be sold by the owner and then handed to their newest hire. Nothing improper about that, but you want it established up front instead of noticing it a month and a half in.

Good answers are specific and unbothered: I do the work, or here is who does, and here is what I stay involved in. Worrying answers are about the team, the process, the system, without a person in them.

The follow-up that gets the truth: what happens if that person leaves in July? A shop with real coverage has an answer. A shop that is one person with a good website will tell you, and that is fine as long as you know it and price it. That tradeoff is the whole subject of agency versus freelancer versus doing it yourself.

7. What will you send me every month, and what will it say?

Ask to see a real report from a real client, redacted. The shape to look for is three plain lines: the change made, the result it produced, and the next move with the outcome they are betting on. What you do not want is a dashboard of impressions with no named next action.

A good answer produces the artefact. Somebody who has been doing this properly has a report they are proud of and will show you one within a minute. A worrying answer describes the reporting rather than showing it, or leads with the words dashboard and real-time.

The tell inside the report itself is whether calls appear anywhere. Impressions, reach and engagement all move because you spent money and none of them is evidence. What a monthly summary owes you, line by line, sits in the reporting article.

8. What are you optimising for, and how often does that happen for a business my size?

This is the question that separates people who have run small local accounts from people who have only run large ones. If the answer is completed bookings, follow up immediately: how many of those do you need per week for the platform to stabilise, and do you think I produce that many?

The reason it matters is mechanical rather than philosophical. Ad platforms need a certain volume of the event you optimise for before delivery becomes stable, and a one-boat operation running a handful of trips a week does not produce enough completed bookings to clear that bar. Point an ad set at bookings and it never settles.

A good answer names a more frequent event, a call, an enquiry, a form fill, and explains the tradeoff: you get more volume and more filtering. A worrying answer does not recognise the question. The published numbers behind it are laid out in the timeline article, and it is worth knowing them before the call so you can hear whether the answer is real.

9. What happens in my off season?

Your revenue arrives in a compressed stretch of the calendar; a level monthly invoice is indifferent to that. Ask what the scope looks like in your quiet months and whether the fee reflects it. The answer tells you whether they have worked with a seasonal business or only read about one.

Good answers engage with your actual calendar: everything running while enquiries and trips are live, a reduced and explicitly listed set of tasks in the quiet stretch, and a calendar date for returning to full effort. Better answers ask you when your enquiries actually start, which is usually earlier than when your fishing starts.

Worrying answers treat the year as flat. That is not dishonest, it is a template from an industry whose demand hums along all year, and it will quietly overcharge you for several months annually. Naming it is a fair negotiation, not hardball.

Lake Fork Premier, TX

10. What does it take to end this, and how much notice?

Put it on the table at the beginning, back when neither side has any incentive to be awkward about it. You want a notice period that runs both ways, no requirement to prove fault, and a stated list of what gets handed over and by when.

The phrase to listen for is termination for convenience, meaning either side can end it without building a case. Without that, ending a term agreement means arguing that thin results amount to a breach, which is a much harder position while you are already unhappy.

Ask about prepayments in the same breath. Say you have paid three months up front and stop after the second: does the remaining month come back to you proportionally, or does the shop keep it? That paragraph is negotiable now and not negotiable later, and it is the one nobody reads.

11. What have you built for a business like mine, and can I see it live?

Ask for a live URL, not a screenshot in a deck. Then open it on your phone and try to book a trip. Thirty seconds of that tells you more about how a shop works than an hour of conversation.

The qualifier "like mine" is doing real work here. Like mine means a small owner-operated business selling a few hundred experiences a year, not a national brand. A shop whose portfolio is all large accounts is not disqualified, but you should ask directly whether they have run something at your size, because the mechanics genuinely differ.

Absence of fishing clients specifically is a gap, not a flag. What is a flag is claiming deep fishing experience without being able to name one operation. And while you are on their example site, notice whether it loads quickly on a phone and whether the booking path is short, because those are the things that decide bookings and they are both visible in seconds.

12. What would make you tell me not to hire you?

The best question on the list and the one nobody asks. A shop that has thought honestly about fit has a real answer ready. A shop that says nothing would make them turn work away has told you they are selling rather than diagnosing.

Good answers are specific and slightly against interest: if your budget is under a certain number the fee ratio does not work, or if you are not going to answer the phone quickly there is no point buying traffic, or your season starts in six weeks and that is too late to matter this year.

Somebody willing to name the conditions under which you should not hire them is somebody who will also tell you when something is not working later. That is worth more than any answer to the other eleven questions, and it is entirely free to ask.

How do you ask all this without souring the deal?

Send the list ahead of the call, framed as wanting to use the time well. It is not an interrogation and treating it as one is the mistake. Shops that have done this before will have most of the answers ready and will think better of you for asking.

Tone does the work. "I got burned before, so I ask these up front now" is disarming and true for most guides asking. It also invites the honest version of each answer rather than the polished one, because you have signalled what you are actually worried about.

Watch the response to the request itself, not just the answers. A shop that sends the agreement unprompted, answers in writing and volunteers a former client has already told you how the working relationship will go. Everything else written here about finding and running this relationship sits under the marketing help topic.

What should a good shop be asking you?

If the whole call is you asking and them answering, something is off. Somebody diagnosing rather than selling will want to know your season, your average trip value, how many trips you run, where your enquiries come from now, and how fast you answer the phone.

The questions they ask reveal what they will optimise. A shop that asks about your trip value and your booking volume is thinking about whether the numbers can work. A shop that asks only about your goals and your competitors is preparing a proposal.

The best sign is a shop that asks something you had not considered and that changes your own thinking about the business. That has happened on a call before any money changed hands, and it is a better predictor than anything on their website. What the arrangement should cost once you get there is worked through in the cost article.

What if you already signed without asking?

Ask anyway, today, while things are going well. Most of these have answers you can still change: accounts can be transferred, an assignment clause can be added by amendment, a domain can be moved. The leverage disappears the moment you mention leaving, so do it before there is any reason to.

Start with the two you can check yourself rather than ask: run the domain lookup, and open your ad accounts to see whose business account they sit in. Those two take five minutes and they are the ones that cost the most to discover late.

Both platform policy and the legal picture get revised, so check whatever is current against the platform's own documentation, or with a lawyer where the stakes justify it, rather than treating this page as settled.