Nine questions to ask before you pay a deposit

A portfolio tells you what an agency can make look good in a screenshot. These nine questions tell you what it will be like to work with them, and what happens when you want to leave.

1. Whose name is the domain registered in?

It must be yours. If the agency holds the domain, they hold your business. This is the single most common way small companies get trapped, and the answer takes four seconds to give.

2. Do I own the ad accounts and the pixel?

The ad account should be under your Business Manager with the agency granted access, not the reverse. Otherwise you lose every conversion history and audience you paid to build the day you change agencies.

3. Is that price excluding VAT?

SA convention is to quote ex VAT, and a surprising number of quotes do not say. On R10 000 that is a R1 500 surprise. Get it in writing.

4. What is the deadline, and what happens if you miss it?

"Six to eight weeks" with no consequence attached means whenever. A real answer has a date and a penalty. Ours is five working days or the build is free.

5. Who writes the copy?

If the answer is "you send us your content", you have bought a template and a fair amount of unpaid work for yourself. Sites fail on words far more often than on design.

6. What conversion tracking will be in place on day one?

Analytics installed is not tracking. You need a defined conversion event — a WhatsApp click, a form submission, a purchase — firing correctly and visible to you. Without it nobody can tell you whether anything worked.

7. How does an enquiry reach me, and how fast?

If the answer is an email to info@, expect to lose most of them. Ask specifically what happens to an enquiry that arrives at 21:00 on a Saturday.

8. How is POPIA handled?

A site collecting names and numbers processes personal information. There must be a lawful basis, opt-in wording on the form, a privacy policy that matches reality, and a retention schedule. If the agency looks blank at this question, that liability is landing on you, not them.

9. What happens if I want to leave?

Ask for the exit terms before you sign, not after. Notice period, what you get handed, whether the files transfer. If leaving is expensive or messy, the relationship is being held together by lock-in rather than by results.

One more, for the ads

If anyone guarantees you a specific ROAS or a specific number of leads before seeing your margins, walk away. Nobody can promise a market's response. What can honestly be guaranteed is the deliverable — the site is live, the campaigns are running, the tracking fires — and honest weekly reporting after that.