What a pitch is for

A pitch is a performance by an agency's best people, rehearsed for weeks, about a business they've studied for a fortnight. It's designed to win, which is a different skill from the one you're hiring for. The agencies that pitch best are not always the ones that work best. (Some are, of course. It just isn't the safe way to bet.)

So treat the pitch as the most polished and least representative hour of the whole relationship, and spend your attention on evidence of what month six will look like.

Five questions that tell you more than the deck

Who will be on our business every week, and were they in the room today? Ask for names, and for how much of their week you'll get. A vague answer usually means a junior team, introduced warmly at the kick-off and seen rather less often by the people who pitched.

Whose name will the ad accounts and data be in? Your Google Ads, Meta, analytics and CRM should belong to your business, with the agency given access. Some agencies run everything from their own accounts, which is perfectly convenient right up until you leave and discover that your buying history, your audiences and several years of learning are staying behind with them. It's the marketing equivalent of renting your own house.

How will we know it's working? Listen for numbers your finance team already uses, like revenue, cost per sale and new customers. An answer heavy on reach, impressions and engagement is mostly telling you how the agency would prefer to be judged.

What would you stop doing? A good agency should be able to look at your current marketing and say which parts aren't earning their keep. If every recommendation adds spend, you've learnt something about the incentives, if not much about the strategy.

Can we speak to a client who's been with you for more than three years? Anyone can be impressive for six months. A long relationship is the one reference that's properly hard to fake.

How much do marketing agencies charge?

There's no standard price, and a rate card wouldn't tell you much anyway, since two businesses with similar briefs often need very different things. What you can compare is the model.

• Monthly retainer. A fixed fee for an agreed scope, every month. Suits ongoing work like media, content and CRM.

• Project fee. A fixed price for a defined piece of work. Suits rebrands, website builds, research.

• Time and materials. Billed by the hour or day. Suits short or unpredictable work.

• Performance-linked. Part of the fee tied to agreed results. Suits work where results can be measured cleanly.

Whatever the model, ask what hours sit behind the fee and whose hours they are. A cheap retainer that buys a few hours of a junior each month is an expensive way to get very little. Keep media spend separate from fees and visible to you line by line, and if an agency marks up media or seems shy about showing you the invoices, it's fair to ask why.

Are agencies worth it?

They are when they bring something you can't sensibly hire yourself: senior judgement formed across many businesses, specialist skills like media buying and analytics, or capacity you need now and not forever. They aren't when you're paying for a large team's overheads and receiving a small team's attention, which is the trade worth testing for in every pitch, ideally before anyone opens the champagne.

Quick answers

What should you ask a marketing agency before hiring one?

Who will work on your business each week, whose name the ad accounts and data will sit in, how success will be measured in your finance team's numbers, what they would stop doing, and whether you can speak to a client who has stayed with them for years.

Big network agency or a smaller independent one?

Choose whichever puts senior people on your account every week. Big networks bring scale and breadth, and smaller founder-led agencies tend to bring the people who pitched. For most mid-size businesses, the second matters more.

How soon should a new agency show results?

Expect a clear plan and working measurement within the first month, and early evidence in the numbers within three. If nobody can say what has improved in revenue or cost per sale by month six, you have your answer. If the real gap is senior direction rather than delivery, a fractional CMO may suit you better.

Where we stand

We built Armada around those five questions, largely because we spent years inside big network agencies watching clients forget to ask them.

Armada is founder-run. Ernst van der Merwe and Theo Bili work on every account themselves, from the first conversation to the latest report, and bring in senior specialists they've worked with for years when the work needs them. We keep the client list short so that stays true. Ad accounts and data are set up in your name from day one, and most engagements start with a short diagnostic that tells you what isn't earning before we suggest adding anything at all.

We work with retail, financial services and B2B businesses in South Africa and the UK. Get in touch, or see the work first.