Questions to Ask a Facebook Ad Agency Before You Hire One

Every agent I know who has been burned by an ad agency got burned in the first call. Not because the agency lied, exactly, but because the agent did not know what to ask, so the agency answered the questions it wanted to answer. Results. Testimonials. How many leads last month. All of that is fine to hear. None of it tells you what you are actually buying.

Hiring someone to run your Meta ads is a reasonable thing to do. Most agents do not want to learn Ads Manager, and they should not have to. But there is a version of done-for-you that leaves you owning a lead machine, and a version that leaves you renting one with a nicer invoice. The difference is decided by seven or eight questions, and the agency is not going to raise them for you.

Here are the ones I would ask, the answer I would want, and the answer that means hang up.

1. Whose business portfolio will the ad account, page, and pixel live in?

This is the question that matters more than all the others combined, and it is the one agencies most often skip. The ad account carries the spend history and everything Meta has learned about who responds to your ads. The page is what the prospect sees and where the instant forms attach. The pixel holds the conversion data. Whoever owns those owns the thing you are paying to build.

The right answer: yours. The account is created inside a business portfolio you control, with your card on it, and the agency is added as a partner with the permissions it needs to build and manage campaigns. If you leave, the agency loses access and everything else stays.

The wrong answer: “We run everything through our account, it is easier.” It is easier. For them. I went through what you lose in that structure, and how to check an existing setup, in who should own the ad account. Short version: the learning, the audiences, the pixel history, and any leads still in the lead center all walk out the door with them.

2. Do I pay Meta directly, or do I pay you and you pay Meta?

A surprising number of agencies quote one number a month that covers “everything.” It sounds simple. What it actually does is hide the split between ad spend and agency fee, and it means the spend is running through an account that is not yours.

The right answer: you pay Meta directly, from the payment method on your own ad account, and you pay the agency a separate, flat management fee. You can open Ads Manager any day of the month and see exactly what went to ads. You set the budget. If you want to spend more or less next month, that is your call, not a plan upgrade.

The wrong answer: a bundled price with no line item for spend, or a fee that is a percentage of spend. Percentage pricing rewards the agency for spending your money, whether or not the extra dollars produce anything. A flat fee by spend tier is fine, because the tier is the amount of work. A cut of every dollar is a different incentive.

3. Do I see and approve every ad before it runs?

Your name, your license, and your face are on these ads. Meta holds insurance advertising to a short list of rules about what you can and cannot imply, and a violation lands on your account and your page, not the agency's. Beyond compliance, you are the one who has to have the conversation when the lead calls back. If the ad promised something you would never say out loud, that call goes badly.

The right answer: yes, every ad, before it goes live, with a simple way to say no or ask for a change. Not a monthly report of what ran. Approval, in advance.

The wrong answer: “We have a library of proven creative, we will handle it.” A library is good. Running it without your sign-off is not. The most common way agents end up with a restricted ad account through an agency is creative they never saw, written by someone who does not hold a license and does not carry the consequence.

4. Where does a lead go the second someone submits the form?

Make the agency walk you through the path. A prospect taps submit. Then what, and how fast? The answer needs to end with the lead on your phone and in your CRM within moments, not in a portal you log in to check, and not in an agency inbox that forwards to you in batches.

The right answer: the lead is delivered to you directly, by text and email, at the moment it is created, with the form fields and the consent record attached, and it also lands in whatever CRM you already use. The agency can see it too, for reporting. But it does not pass through them first.

The wrong answer: anything with a delay or a middleman. A lead that reaches you an hour late is a lead that already talked to someone else. That is the whole point of speed to lead, and an agency that cannot deliver in real time is throwing away the biggest advantage of running your own ads in the first place.

5. What does the consent language on the form say, exactly?

This is the one nobody asks, and it is the one that shows up in a demand letter two years later. When you call a lead from your own ad, you are relying on the consent they gave on your form. If that form names the wrong party, or is missing the disclosures, or the record of who consented to what and when never made it to your system, then the consent is not worth much when it is tested.

The right answer: they show you the form, word for word. It names you or your agency as the party who will contact the prospect, it covers calls and texts including automated ones if you use a dialer, and every lead comes to you with the form ID and timestamp. What that language should look like is covered in the consent language guide for lead forms.

The wrong answer: “It is the standard Meta form, it is fine.” A form with no custom disclaimer is not fine. A form whose disclaimer names the agency and not you is worse. You are the one whose license is on the call.

6. Who builds the campaign, and how many clients do they have?

“Done for you” covers a wide range. On one end, a person who understands final expense or mortgage protection builds your campaign by hand, with copy that reflects your market and your product. On the other end, a template gets cloned across every client and a piece of software swaps in your name. The second one is cheaper to deliver, and you should pay less for it if that is what you are getting.

The right answer: a named person, who will be on the onboarding call, who has run insurance campaigns before, and who has enough hours in the week to actually look at yours. Ask how many accounts that person manages. There is no magic number, but if they hesitate to say, that is the answer.

The wrong answer: “Our system builds it,” or a sales rep who cannot tell you who will do the work. Automation has a place in the follow-up. It is not who should be writing the ad a prospect sees under your name.

7. What software do I have to buy, and what happens to it if I leave?

A lot of insurance ad agencies are also white-label software resellers. The ads are the front door. The recurring revenue is the CRM, the automations, and the phone system they set you up on, usually a rebranded GoHighLevel sub-account they control. That is not automatically bad. It becomes bad when the ads only work with their software, and the software only exists while you pay them.

The right answer: the leads go into whatever you already use. If they offer a CRM on top, it is optional, you can export everything, and leaving the agency does not mean losing your contacts, your notes, and your pipeline the same day.

The wrong answer: required software, on their sub-account, with your data inside it, and no clear export path. I wrote about the specific traps with white-label setups in GoHighLevel for insurance agents. The one-sentence version: if the agency's CRM is where your leads live, the agency owns your book.

8. What happens on the day I cancel?

Ask this while everyone is still friendly. The answer is a complete description of what you own.

The right answer: the campaigns pause, the agency's partner access is removed, and everything else, the account, the page, the pixel, the forms, the creative, the leads, is exactly where it was, in your name. No exit fee. No lock-in period past the current month. No “we will send you an export.”

The wrong answer: a 6 or 12 month contract, an early termination fee, or a vague promise about getting your data afterward. Contracts exist to keep clients who would otherwise leave. An agency confident in its results does not need one.

The quick-reference table

Print this, or keep it open on the call. If the second column is what you hear, keep going. If the third column is what you hear, you have learned what you needed to.

Two things you will hear that sound good and are not

“We guarantee X leads a month”

Cost per lead on Meta moves with the season, the state, the creative, the audience, and the age of the account. Nobody controls all of that. When an agency guarantees a lead count anyway, one of two things is usually true. Either the guarantee is padded with forms so loose that anyone who blinks at the ad counts as a lead, or the agency is quietly buying leads from a vendor and passing them through to hit the number. The second one means you hired an agency to get out of buying leads and ended up buying leads with an extra markup.

The honest version of this conversation is a range, a test budget, and an explanation of what they will change if the first two weeks come in high. Anyone who has actually run insurance campaigns will give you that answer without being pushed.

“We have a warmed-up account with a history”

This is the strongest honest argument for letting an agency use its own account, and it deserves a real response. A fresh ad account does start with less standing, and Meta is more cautious with new advertisers in the financial category. The first few weeks in your own account may be slower.

The trade is that the warmth stays theirs, and that a policy problem on any other client in their shared portfolio can take your campaign down with it. A good agency handles a new account by starting at a modest budget, keeping the creative squarely inside the rules, and scaling as the account earns its own history. Slower for a month. Yours forever.

Stay with an agency-owned setup if…

I am not going to pretend the answer is the same for everyone. There are situations where the agency-owned version is a reasonable trade, as long as you know it is a trade.

• You are running a short test. If you honestly do not know whether Meta ads are for you, and the agency offers a month or two in their account with no contract, the asset you would lose is small. If it works, plan to move.
• Your own account is restricted right now. An active restriction with an appeal pending is a legitimate reason to run through someone else's account for a while. Treat it as a bridge, not a home.
• Every lead lands in your system with its consent record, instantly. If that part is airtight, the biggest legal exposure is handled. You still lose the learning and the audiences when you leave, but the leads are yours.

This is the same conversation you have with a lead vendor

If the list above feels familiar, it is because these are the same questions that separate a vendor worth keeping from one you should have cut months ago. Who owns the source, whether the price is transparent, whether the consent holds up, what you walk away with. I laid out the vendor version in when to fire a lead vendor. The difference with an agency is that the stakes are higher, because the thing you are building is bigger than a batch of leads. Get the structure right and every month adds to something you own. Get it wrong and you are renting again, just with a longer invoice.

For what it is worth, FEXmagnet is built to pass this exact list. Your business portfolio, your ad account with your card on it, your page, your pixel. A real person builds every campaign and you approve every ad before it runs. You set the budget and pay Meta directly. Leads hit your phone and your CRM the moment they come in, consent record attached. Flat monthly fee by spend tier, no contract, and the day you cancel, everything stays where it is. That is not a pitch so much as the answer key. Any agency that can give you the same answers is one you can hire with your eyes open.

Frequently asked questions

What should I ask a Facebook ad agency before hiring them?

Who owns the ad account, page, and pixel. Whether you pay Meta directly. Whether you approve every ad. Where leads go the moment they come in. What the consent language says. Who builds the campaign. What software is required. What happens the day you cancel. The answers tell you whether you are building an asset or renting one.

Should ad spend go to the agency or straight to Meta?

Straight to Meta, from a card on an ad account you own. A bundled monthly price hides the split between spend and fee and puts the spend history in an account that is not yours. A flat management fee plus your own Meta bill is the transparent structure.

Is a guaranteed number of leads per month a red flag?

Usually. Cost per lead moves with factors no agency fully controls. A guaranteed count typically means loose forms that inflate the number, or leads quietly bought from a vendor and passed through. Ask for a range and a test budget instead.

Who is responsible for TCPA consent on agency-run campaigns?

You are. Your license is on the calls, so the demand letter comes to you regardless of who built the form. Read the consent language before signing, confirm it names you, and confirm the form ID and timestamp for every lead are delivered to a system you control.