We are an agency, so take this with the appropriate scepticism — but that is also why the list below is specific. Every warning sign here is something we have been asked to clean up after.
Choosing an agency in Egypt is hard for a simple reason: the pitch is the product you can see, and the work is the product you cannot. Everyone shows the same deck of logos. The questions below are the ones that pull the two apart.
1. Ask for cost per result, with the volume
A screenshot of a good week proves nothing. Ask what one result cost and how many of them there were. Our own numbers are published with both: 4.87 EGP per conversion across 2,235 conversions, 1.74 EGP per lead across 1,764 leads, 10.66 EGP per qualified real-estate lead across 93 leads. The whole table is on the benchmarks page and each row ties to a named client. An agency that cannot show cost and volume together is showing you its best day.
2. Ask who owns the accounts
Ads must run from a Business Manager you own, with the agency added as a partner. Your website, your domain, your analytics and your content should all sit in accounts registered to your email. This costs nothing to set up correctly on day one and is painful to unwind later. If an agency insists on running ads from its own account, the reason is leverage, not convenience.
3. Ask what the scope excludes
Scope arguments are the main reason good relationships end badly. The contract should say how much production is included, how many revisions, how fast a response is expected, and what counts as extra. Shooting days, for example, are priced separately in our model — a mobile reels day at 6,000 EGP, a professional camera day at 12,000–30,000 EGP — precisely so a client who does not need them is not paying for them inside a monthly fee.
4. Ask who actually runs the account
The person who pitches is rarely the person who executes. Ask for a name, their role, and how many accounts they handle. There is no magic number, but a straight answer tells you the agency knows its own capacity. A refusal tells you more.
5. Match the pricing model to the work
| Model | Fits | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | Content, community, continuous campaigns | Being sold a retainer for a one-off build |
| Project fee | Identity, website, launch campaign, event | No defined deliverable list |
| Percentage of ad spend | Large budgets with heavy management | An incentive to spend more, with no cap |
Our published model is flat: ads management at 10,000–18,000 EGP a month, social at 18,000–53,000, SEO at 20,000–37,000 — all separate from media budget. We explained when each model fits in retainer or project.
6. Ask what the first ninety days look like
A good answer is boringly concrete: audit and tracking in week one, offer and creative in weeks two and three, first campaigns live by week four, first real read on cost per result by week six. An answer made entirely of words like awareness, synergy and engagement means nobody has thought about your account yet.
7. Check what a report contains
Ask to see a sample report from a live client with the name removed. You want cost per result, volume, what changed this month, what did not work, and what happens next. A report that is only reach, impressions and engagement is a report designed to be impossible to fail.
8. Timelines you should expect
| Channel | First real signal | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Paid social | 2–4 weeks | Needs ~50 results a week to exit learning |
| Paid search | 2–3 weeks | Intent already exists; it is a bidding and landing-page problem |
| SEO | 3–6 months | Crawling, indexing and trust move on their own clock |
| Content and community | 2–3 months | Compounds; the first month is production, not return |
9. The red flags, plainly
- Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed sales. Nobody controls an auction or an algorithm.
- Prices with no scope attached, or scope with no prices.
- No named contact, or a different person in every meeting.
- A refusal to work inside your Business Manager.
- A contract with no exit clause, or one that keeps your files after exit.
- Reports that never contain bad news.
We wrote a longer list in Arabic in 12 red flags, and the clauses a fair contract needs in what belongs in an agency contract.
10. Judge the first month on process, not results
Thirty days is not enough to judge outcomes, but it is more than enough to judge how an agency works: did tracking get fixed, did creative actually ship, were questions answered in hours or days, did the first report tell you something you did not know. Agencies that run a good process almost always produce results; agencies that produce one good month without process do not repeat it.
For context on us: 18 people, working since 2020, more than 760 million EGP in managed ad spend, with the numbers published on benchmarks, the work on work and prices on pricing rather than behind a form. If you are comparing shortlists, send us the brief — if the fit is wrong we will say so, because a client who leaves in three months costs us more than a deal we never signed.
Quick answers.
01What should I ask a marketing agency before signing?
Ask for cost per result with the volume behind it, who owns the ad account and content, what the scope excludes, how often you get reports and what the exit terms are. Vague answers to any of the five are the answer.
02Is a bigger agency better?
Only if the senior people who pitched you are the ones doing the work. Ask who specifically will run your account day to day and how many other accounts that person carries.
03Should I pay a retainer or per project?
A retainer fits continuous work — content, community, ongoing campaigns. A project fits anything with a beginning and an end, like an identity or a website. Paying a retainer for project work is the most common way businesses overspend.
04What is a realistic timeline before I see results?
Paid media can show a first signal within two to four weeks. SEO realistically takes three to six months before meaningful movement. Any agency promising page-one rankings in thirty days is selling something else.
05What are the clearest warning signs?
Guaranteed rankings, no named account manager, refusing to run ads from your own Business Manager, reporting that shows only reach and engagement, and a contract with no exit clause.
