Crypto Marketing with Ty Smith
How to Hire a Marketing Agency | Top 5 Questions To Ask Before You Pick A Firm
About this episode
Ty Smith walks through five questions founders and marketers should ask before hiring any marketing agency, crypto or otherwise. The goal isn't just figuring out whether an agency is good in general, but whether it's the right fit for your company right now, at your size and stage.
He covers matching agency size to company size, setting clear expectations on communication style and frequency, understanding billing structures and payment terms, pressing agencies on past results with similar companies or matching KPIs, and digging into how an agency actually builds strategy versus reusing a cookie-cutter playbook. Throughout, Ty stresses that how an agency answers these questions often reveals as much as the answers themselves, since it signals how prepared they are to actually take on your account.
The episode is framed as a practical checklist: none of these factors are automatic dealbreakers, but skipping them tends to cause friction early in the client relationship, whether that's mismatched communication expectations, surprise pricing structures, or delays caused by an underestimated strategy phase.
Key takeaways
- Match agency size to your company size instead of defaulting to the biggest name you can afford.
- Ask upfront how often and through what channels the agency communicates, since expectations mismatches here cause a lot of early friction.
- Find out if pricing changes based on how much communication or attention you need.
- Get specifics on billing style (hourly, project-based, success fee, or a blend) and payment terms before signing.
- Treat easier payment terms from less established agencies as a signal of higher risk, not just a perk.
- Ask for past results tied to your specific industry and, more importantly, your specific KPIs, not just any past client.
- Press the agency on their actual strategy process, including how long it takes and whether delays there could hold up delivery.
Questions this episode answers
What size marketing agency should I hire?
Match the agency's size to your company's size rather than always chasing the biggest name. A small company at a huge agency often ends up low on the priority list, while a large enterprise at a very small agency (under 20 people) gets great attention but may hit scaling limits.
What questions should I ask a marketing agency before hiring them?
Ty recommends five: how big is the team relative to your company, how and how often do they communicate, what's their billing structure and payment terms, what past results can they show for similar companies or KPIs, and what's their actual approach to strategy.
How do marketing agencies typically bill clients?
Agencies generally use hourly, project-based, or success-fee billing, and many blend all three. Payment terms vary too: some want full payment upfront, some do 50/50, and some tie payment to milestones or KPIs.
Should less established agencies offer better payment terms?
Yes, according to Ty, less proven agencies tend to offer easier terms, like no upfront payment or a small deposit, because they're a riskier hire. More established agencies usually want full payment upfront or won't extend credit terms until you've built a track record with them.
Why does asking about an agency's strategy process matter?
Many clients don't realize how much the strategy phase affects delivery timelines. Ty advises asking what the agency looks at to build strategy, whether it's a cookie-cutter approach, how long that phase takes, and whether delays in strategy could hold up the rest of the work.
How often should an agency communicate with clients?
There's no universal standard, so it has to be set upfront to avoid friction, since a client might expect daily contact while the agency's pricing only covers one call a week. Larger agencies tend to communicate on a regular interval, while smaller agencies and freelancers work more as-needed.
Full transcriptShow
Ty Smith0:00
Hiring a marketing agency, I understand, can be a pretty overwhelming process, especially if you haven't done it before or haven't hired a ton of different agencies. So, I want to go through questions that will help you uncover not only are they a good agency in general, but are they the best agency for me specifically at this time.
Ty Smith0:13
Number one is the size of the agency team. I think this is a great question that no one really thinks to ask. In general, you want to match the size of the agency to the size of your company. And not necessarily like a one-for-one, but a small agency and a small company might be a better fit than a huge agency and a small company. If you're a tiny company, working with a massive company will kind of put you low on the priority list for that agency as a whole. They might just have much bigger clients, unfortunately. So, that might be one thing that you might not enjoy about that relationship. Again, none of these things are like you can't work with a small company can't work with a large agency. It's more of just like analyze the fit and also analyze what you're looking for out of the relationship. So, tiny company, huge agency, sometimes not a great fit. And also vice versa, if you're a massive enterprise-level company and you're working with a very small agency, let's say under like 20 people, you might enjoy the amount of attention that they're giving you because you are a massive priority for them, but they might not have the ability and process to scale as effectively or as quickly as you're hoping for.
Ty Smith1:06
So, question of just the general fit. Again, in general, smaller agencies tend to give more attention per account, especially if you're a larger account. Larger agencies, less attention per account. You might work with someone a little bit more junior, not have access to the higher-ups at the agency, but typically they have such a bigger team that they can deliver results either faster or at a larger scale, typically with a higher cost. But it is one of those things to just kind of analyze when you're going through the conversations.
Ty Smith1:29
Number two is ask an agency about how they communicate with clients. So, not only like how specifically, like what app are they using, are they using email or Slack or video calls, ask about how often as well. I find that is one of the aspects that, unless expectations are set early, there can be some friction regarding like maybe a client thinks you're going to chat with them eight hours a day, whereas the agency thinks that for the price point that they're quoting, they're doing one call a week. So, ask about that. Ask about how often. Ask about are meetings or just communications done at a regular interval or just like kind of on an as-needed basis. It's one of those things where like a larger agency will likely do it on a regular interval, whereas a smaller one will be more as-needed. Same goes if you're working with a freelancer or just a couple of consultants.
Ty Smith2:23
And then also ask about, beyond like their general structure of communication and the frequency, does pricing change based on if I need more communication or less communication? That's something that a lot of agency clients, I think, don't realize that they is affecting the price of what they're getting quoted. So, again, ask about the communication, ask about the frequency, ask about the style. It might be one of those things that you realize like, they're only using WhatsApp and I don't use WhatsApp or I'm never going to check WhatsApp, so maybe that's not the best fit for me. Not necessarily a deal breaker, but one of those things that just might make them a little bit lower on your list of agencies to hire. That's a great thing, I think, to uncover.
Ty Smith3:09
Number three, which is a major one that people do typically think to ask, is billing. So, three main styles of billing of an agency: hourly, project-based, success fee-based. And a lot of agencies will employ a style of like a blend of all three. So, ask about that. Ask about payment terms as well. So, some agencies want to get paid fully upfront before they start. Some will want like 50% before, 50% after. Some will want based on like certain milestones, like when we hit, let's say, a certain period of time that we've been working together or a certain KPI that we're targeting, that's when we'll expect payment again. In general, less proven agencies, less established agencies will offer better payment terms. So, they might offer like you don't have to pay anything upfront or like a very small deposit. That is because they're a riskier hire. So, there's a trade-off. More established agencies typically want to either get paid totally upfront or they won't work on any kind of credit terms until you've had a relationship with them as a client for a long period of time. So, that's another thing that, just make sure that you're asking and make sure that it's a style of payment and payment terms that you're comfortable with and works for your company.
Ty Smith4:10
Number four is past results. Relatively obvious one, asking about past results, but some people are too uncomfortable, I think, to do it. It's a question that every agency that's worth working with is prepared to answer. So, I think it's one of those questions that just everyone should ask. Ask about similar companies. So, what companies in my industry or in my like sub-niche, for example, of an industry have you worked with? What were the results like? Understand they can't typically give full data into things because of NDAs and things like that, but they should be able to give high-level overviews. Ask about like measurable results. Ask about, like I said, you can ask about companies in the same industry or similar companies. Also ask about companies that were working towards the same KPIs. Because you can, let's say you're like whatever, an e-com company and this agency has worked with an e-com company, but what if that e-com company was working just towards like organic traffic and you want paid traffic? Those are totally different KPIs and the marketing style is totally different. So, ask about both. Hopefully, they have case studies either on their website or through some kind of deck. If not, hopefully they can communicate it to you via the sales process. So, definitely ask about past results. And that's going to give you probably the best—no marketing agency could ever guarantee any kind of results. That's just not how agencies work. If an agency is guaranteeing you results, they're doing something shady or lying to you, usually lying to you. But ask about that.
Ty Smith5:13
And then, number five, I want to go through, and this is the last one for this episode, strategy. So, strategy is not every client comes to an agency looking for strategy, but most don't understand how important the agency's ability to create strategy is. So, ask about the team's approach to strategy. Ask about like what are they looking at to create a strategy, and if it's kind of the same cookie-cutter strategy they use for everyone, and if so, like is it because they found so much success with it or is it for some other reason? So, ask about like what their just style of strategy is. Understand also that, and you can kind of press them on the call, like what strategy do you think might work for this? But do that with the understanding that typically the salesperson that you're on the phone with of an agency also is not the strategy person. That almost that never is the case. Their advice with a little bit of a grain of salt. A lot of agencies will do the strategy component early on before the rest of like the delivery of services. So, just kind of ask what that process looks like, what kind of questions will be asked, how long does that process take, will there be any roadblocks to delivery of services if like the strategy takes longer than expected? Ask things like that that could cause some friction early in a relationship with an agency if you don't think to ask them upfront.
Ty Smith6:24
So, that's it. That are five questions that I think everyone should ask of their agencies when they're considering hiring them. I think if you ask these questions, you'll realize that there is a lot you can learn from the answers, not only like specifically how are they communicating and is it a style I want, but also how they answer questions, I think, is very important and can tell you a lot about the team's preparedness to take on an account like yours. So, ask all those questions. I'm hoping you found this episode valuable. If you did, hit the thumbs up or subscribe or whatever channel you're on, hit something, and we'll catch you on the next one.
