Most retainers are sold on activity — posts, keywords, impressions. The questions below move the conversation to what the money is supposed to produce.
A monthly marketing retainer is one of the easier things to buy badly. The proposal lists deliverables, the deliverables arrive on schedule, the report is full of numbers, and a year later nobody can say whether it worked. That is rarely dishonesty. It is usually that nobody agreed at the start what the retainer was for.
What is the one number we are moving?
Impressions, reach and follower growth are easy to report and hard to connect to revenue. Pick a number further down: qualified enquiries, booked calls, orders. One number, agreed in writing, that both sides look at every month. If it cannot be measured today, the first month of work is making it measurable.
Who actually does the work?
Ask who writes the copy, who builds the landing pages, and who touches the ad account — by name, not by role. Agencies with a strong pitch team and a thin delivery team are common, and you will not find out which you hired until month three.
What do I own if we stop?
The ad account, the analytics property, the domain, the landing pages, the creative files and the keyword research should all be in your name and remain yours. Agencies that run campaigns from their own ad account are holding your history hostage, and that history is what makes the next agency effective.
What does month one look like?
A retainer that starts producing posts in week one has skipped the part where someone understands your margins, your enquiry handling and what happened to the last hundred leads. Expect the first month to be mostly audit and setup, and be suspicious of anyone who promises results inside it.
What is the exit?
Notice period, what happens to work in progress, and whether there is a lock-in. Twelve-month lock-ins are common and worth negotiating hard. If the work is good you will not want to leave, which is exactly why the agency should not need the clause.
A note on the report
Ask to see a real monthly report from an existing client, with the client details redacted. A report that leads with impressions and buries enquiries tells you what the agency considers success. That is the single most useful thing you can see before signing.
