How do I choose a digital marketing agency?
Choosing a digital marketing agency starts with the three filters that apply to any marketing agency (budget floor, who delivers the work, willingness to disqualify) and adds two that are specific to digital work: whether the agency can show measurement tied to business outcomes rather than platform-reported metrics, and whether you will own your ad accounts, analytics, and tags when the engagement ends.
The two digital filters exist because digital work is uniquely auditable and uniquely portable. An agency claiming results should be able to show, before you sign, how it connects spend to revenue or qualified leads in a real reporting view, because platform-reported conversions overcount by design. And digital programs accumulate in accounts: ad history, audience data, the analytics property, the tag container. Agencies that register those assets under their own logins create switching costs that have nothing to do with the quality of their work. Ownership is the difference between hiring a partner and renting a dependency.
Where this matters
Pricing structure moves the measurement filter. Agencies compensated as a percentage of ad spend have an incentive to grow spend, not efficiency; ask how the fee is calculated before asking anything else. Scale moves the ownership filter less than buyers expect: account ownership matters at every budget, because the smallest programs are the least able to absorb a restart. Three questions operationalize the filters: ask for a sample client report and check whether it leads with revenue or with impressions; ask who is named administrator on the ad accounts, the analytics property, and the tag container; ask what offboarding includes, in writing, before onboarding begins.
For how Binary Glyph structures measurement and account ownership inside an engagement, see In Practice.