Choosing a Meta ads agency is harder than it looks, because almost every pitch sounds the same. Everyone uses the same Ads Manager and shows a screenshot with a good return on it. The difference only shows up a few months in, when you find out whether anyone was checking the tracking or testing creative.
I run RobbP Media, a Meta ads agency in Los Angeles, and a lot of our work starts with an account another agency built. Here is what I would check if I were hiring one myself.
First, make sure you own everything
Ask where the ad account, the pixel and the Facebook page will live. The answer you want is your own Meta Business account, with the agency added as a partner. That way the campaign history, the pixel data and the audiences you build stay with your business. If an agency runs your ads from its own business account, you start from nothing the day you leave.
We always work inside the client's own Meta Business account.
Ask what they check before spending a dollar
The best single question to ask any Meta ads agency is: what is the first thing you check in a new account? If the answer is not tracking, keep looking.
Meta's delivery system learns from the conversions you send it. If the pixel double counts or misses sales, Meta optimizes toward the wrong people and every report afterwards is fiction. A careful agency checks the Meta pixel and the Conversions API together, confirms the event that matters and watches a real one come through before launch. For a practice, the event that matters is a booked consult, not a form fill.
Our free ad account self-audit checklist starts with exactly these checks.
Ask how they make and test creative
Meta decides who sees an ad largely from who engages with it, so the ad itself does most of the targeting work now. That makes creative the biggest lever in the account.
Ask three things. Who makes the ads? How many new ads go into the account each week or month? And how do they decide which ones stay? A good answer names a regular testing rhythm, several hooks and lengths for each video, and a clear rule for pausing tired ads and replacing them.
This is what turned Dead Soxy around. The account was running creative its audience had seen too many times. We introduced video, set a weekly testing cadence and moved budget toward the winners, and return on ad spend went from 2.23x to 4.64x without doubling the budget. The full story is in the Dead Soxy case study.
Ask them to explain the account structure in two sentences
A healthy Meta account is usually simple. A prospecting campaign that finds new buyers, a retargeting campaign for people who visited or engaged and did not buy, and a retention campaign for past customers when there is something worth saying. If an agency needs a diagram to explain it, the budget is probably split too thin to learn.
Two details tell you a lot. Ask whether prospecting and retargeting are kept separate. And ask how they run audience tests. When we test audiences against each other we switch off Meta's automatic audience expansion, otherwise the test is not a fair one.
Agree one number before any money goes out
Ask what number the agency will be judged on, and do not accept a list. For ecommerce it is usually return on ad spend, and the target should come from your margin, not from a round number that sounds good. I explain how to work that out in what ROAS means and how to set a target. For a practice or a service business it is cost per booked consult or cost per qualified lead.
Then ask how they will check Meta's reported results against your own records, your store or your CRM. An agency that only ever shows you Ads Manager screenshots is grading its own homework.
For practices, ask about the follow up and the policies
Medical practices need two extra questions. First, what happens after the lead comes in? For Dr. Zoumalan, a Beverly Hills surgical practice, every lead from the Meta campaigns was followed up until it became a booked consult or a clear no. That is why $1,837 of spend turned into $24,500 in revenue from 43 qualified leads. The Dr. Zoumalan case study has the details.
Second, ask how they handle Meta's rules on health claims and before and after imagery. An agency that has not run practice campaigns before will learn those rules on your budget. Instant forms or a landing page is its own decision, covered in Meta lead forms vs landing pages for med spas.
Red flags in a Meta ads pitch
A guaranteed return before anyone has seen your account or your margins.
Ads run from the agency's business account rather than yours.
A plan to spend more before fixing what the current budget is doing.
Reports built on reach, likes and cost per click, with sales or booked consults missing or buried.
Case studies with numbers but no named client attached.
A long contract before any results. Ours is ninety days to prove it works, then month to month.
What a Meta ads agency should cost
Our Meta ads management starts from $1,500 a month on top of your ad spend, and we take on accounts spending at least $2,000 a month on ads. The ad spend goes straight to Meta from your own account, never through us. Below that, the account rarely gets enough conversions to learn.
When you compare quotes, compare what the fee buys. It should cover strategy, new creative on a regular rhythm, daily budget decisions and a weekly report against the number you agreed. A cheaper fee that leaves out creative often costs more in the end. The full picture of how we run accounts is on our Meta ads agency page, and if Google is on your list too, the questions are similar in how to choose a Google Ads agency.
Questions people ask
How do I choose a good Facebook ads agency?
Ask four things before you sign: will the ads run in your own Meta Business account, what they check in the tracking before launch, how often they add and test new creative, and what single number they will report against. Then ask for an audit of your current account.
What should I ask a Meta ads agency before hiring?
Ask who owns the ad account and pixel, how they check the pixel and Conversions API, who makes the ads and how often new ones go in, how the account is structured, how they test audiences, and how they will compare Meta's reported results with your own sales or bookings.
How much should I spend on Meta ads with an agency?
We take on accounts spending at least $2,000 a month on ads, with management from $1,500 a month on top. Below that, Meta rarely gets enough conversions to optimize well.
How long before I know if a Meta ads agency is working?
The first two to three weeks are learning. By about week four you should know whether the account is on track against the number you agreed, and you should see that number in a report from the first week of spend.
Let's talk
If you are choosing a Meta ads agency because the last one did not work out, send me a short note about what you sell and what you spend now at info@robbp.com, or ask for the free ad audit. I will tell you what I would fix first, whether or not we end up working together.
