What are the red flags when hiring a Facebook ads agency?
By Dan BartleyUpdated 3 minute read
The short answer
The biggest red flags take control away from you: running your ads from the agency's own ad account, asking you to pay ad spend through them without showing Meta's invoices, or refusing you admin access. Close behind are ROAS guarantees, long lock-in contracts, reports built only on Meta's numbers, and no plan for who makes new ads.
Which red flags put my ad account at risk?
Any setup where the agency, not you, owns the ad account, pixel, Page or spend. If the relationship ends, you can lose your ad history, your pixel data and your best-performing ads.
- Ads run from an ad account in the agency's business portfolio
- Ad spend paid to the agency, with no sight of Meta's own invoices
- View-only access, or none, to your own account
- A pixel or dataset created in the agency's portfolio
- Finished ads and source files that stay with the agency
Is a ROAS guarantee a good sign?
No. Return on ad spend depends on your offer, margin, stock and product page as much as on the ads, so a promised number is either a sales line or a sign it will be measured on the most generous attribution setting.
A guarantee of effort is different and reasonable: a set number of new ads each month, tests live within a set time, a report on a set day. Those are promises an agency controls.
What agency contract terms should worry me?
Long minimum terms with exit fees, automatic renewals, and terms that let only the agency end or change the contract. In Australia, unfair terms in standard form contracts with small businesses have been banned, with penalties, since 9 November 2023, and the ACCC lists one-sided termination and penalty terms among its examples.
The protection covers businesses with fewer than 100 employees or under $10 million in annual turnover. A minimum term is not automatically unfair, so read the exit clause before you sign rather than relying on the law afterwards.
What does a weak agency report look like?
One that leads with reach, clicks and Meta's ROAS, and never mentions your margin, your store's revenue or what was tested. A useful report shows cost per purchase against what you can afford, compares Meta's figures with Shopify, and says what changes next.
- Spend, purchases and cost per purchase against your target
- Meta's ROAS beside your store's blended figure for the same month
- How many new ads launched, and what each batch was testing
- What won, what lost, and what the agency will try next
- Anything outside the account that held results back, such as stock or price
Why does the agency's creative plan matter so much?
Because new ads are what keep an account growing, and the most common gap is that nobody is assigned to make them. An agency that answers the creative question with "send us your assets" is offering to manage the account, not to grow it.
Ask how many new concepts it will launch each month and who makes them. There is more on that gap in who is meant to make the ads.
What does a good Meta ads agency do instead?
It asks about your business before it talks about ads, keeps everything in your name, and commits to work it controls.
- Asks about your margin, average order value and stock before pitching
- Keeps the ad account, pixel and Page in your business portfolio, with partner access for itself
- Tells you who works on your account and how often
- Commits to a monthly number of new ads, and says who makes them
- Offers a short first term
- Reports against your breakeven ROAS and your store's numbers
Other questions people ask about this
What if my current agency owns my ad account?
Ask now, in writing, how the account, pixel and Page will be transferred, or how you will get full access. It is far easier to sort out during the relationship than after it ends.
Read the full answerAre lock-in contracts illegal?
No, a minimum term is not automatically unfair. The law targets unfair terms, such as a one-sided right to end the contract or a penalty for leaving, and New Zealand has similar protections for small trade contracts.
Read the full answerShould an agency ask for access to my Shopify store?
Access to sales reports is reasonable, because it lets the agency compare Meta's figures with your store. Full admin access is rarely needed for ads, so give the narrowest permission that does the job.
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