An agency pitch can make very different operating models sound identical. Everyone has partners, data, creative, and a results slide. The useful comparison begins when you ask who owns the inventory path, how the team makes decisions, and what the operator can inspect after the presentation ends.

These eight questions are designed for a first or second conversation. A strong answer should be specific to the proposed market and campaign, even if the final media plan is still being built.

1. Which regulated markets do you work in today?

Ask for current, relevant experience rather than a list of countries touched once. The agency should be able to explain how licensing, age controls, offer language, publisher standards, platform rules, and approval timing affect the proposed channel mix. It should also be comfortable saying when local counsel or the operator's compliance team owns the final answer.

2. Where does the inventory come from?

For each important placement, ask whether the agency buys directly, through a reseller, through a demand platform, or through another agency. None of those routes is automatically wrong, but the seller path, fees, controls, and reporting should be visible. If a premium publisher name appears on the plan, ask for the actual property, format, device mix, geography, and expected delivery.

3. How do you make money on the account?

Request a plain explanation of retainers, project fees, media commission, markups, rebates, technology fees, production, data, and third-party costs. Ask whether the agency can earn from both the operator and the supply side. The goal is not to eliminate every commercial incentive. It is to understand which recommendations affect the agency's revenue.

4. Who will actually run the work?

Meet the day-to-day lead and the people responsible for media, creative, trafficking, reporting, publisher coordination, and escalation. Ask which roles are internal, which are freelance or partner-led, and how much senior time is included after kickoff. A polished new-business team is not evidence of a well-staffed account.

5. How close is creative to the media plan?

Creative should reflect the actual placement, audience moment, product, market, device, and approval requirements. Ask how the agency moves from a media recommendation to a format matrix, first-frame concept, localization, QA, fallback, and test plan. If creative is handed to a separate vendor, identify who protects the campaign logic during that handoff.

6. What will the first report help us decide?

A report should do more than display spend, impressions, clicks, and conversions. Ask which decisions it will support, how delivery is reconciled, how a qualified outcome is defined, and how market, publisher, placement, format, and creative remain visible. The agency should explain attribution limits without using them as an excuse to avoid measurement.

7. What happens when policy, product, or delivery changes?

Regulated campaigns need named owners and pause rules. Ask who monitors platform or publisher issues, who can replace creative, how a broken destination is handled, and what evidence is kept after an incident. The answer should include a communication path and decision thresholds, not simply a promise to be responsive.

8. What do we own if the relationship ends?

Clarify access to accounts, audiences, creative files, source files, contracts, tracking, reports, naming conventions, research, and campaign history. Include notice periods, outstanding media commitments, data retention, transition support, and the treatment of agency-owned technology. A clean exit clause improves the working relationship because neither side has to rely on leverage created by missing access.

Score evidence, not confidence

  • Specificity: does the answer change when the market, product, publisher, or campaign role changes?
  • Transparency: can the operator inspect the supply path, costs, account access, decisions, and reporting logic?
  • Operating fit: are the people, pace, approval process, and communication style suitable for the internal team?
  • Commercial fit: does the scope create enough learning or impact to justify its full cost and internal effort?

Impressax explains its model on the iGaming marketing agency page. Use the direct publisher advertising guide to take the inventory discussion one level deeper.