Every Amazon brand owner we talk to has either been burned by an agency or is waiting to be. The industry’s default playbook is the problem: sign a 12-month contract, assign an account manager who’s juggling 15 other brands, run the same bid strategy across every account, and send a monthly report heavy on “impressions served” and light on revenue movement.
After managing hundreds of brands on Amazon, we’ve seen the exact patterns that separate agencies that actually move the needle from agencies that are selling retention dressed up as strategy. Here are the seven questions we’d ask before signing with any Amazon agency — including us.
1. “Who is actually in my account every day, and what’s their book of business?”
The single most important question, and the one most sales calls dodge.
Ask to know, by name:
- Who runs your PPC strategy
- Who owns your catalog operations
- Who manages your creative
- How many other brands each of those people work on
If the answer is “our senior strategist will oversee your account” and the senior strategist is oversight on 40 brands, you’re buying an account manager — not an operator. The account manager’s job is to make you feel heard on weekly calls, not to catch that your Sponsored Brands headline campaign is burning 38% of your ad budget on a branded term that would’ve converted organic.
Real operator ratios we’ve seen work on brands doing $100K+/month:
- PPC lead: 8–15 accounts maximum
- Catalog operations: 15–25 accounts
- Creative: 5–10 accounts for brands where creative is actively being reworked
Anything meaningfully above those ratios means your account is being run by rotation, not by judgment.
2. “Show me the last three accounts you onboarded — what did you find in the first 30 days, and what did you change?”
Don’t ask for “case studies.” Every agency has polished case studies. Ask for the last three, not the best three.
The answer reveals whether the agency audits for real or runs the same generic onboarding checklist on every brand. A real operator answer sounds like:
“First brand, we found 22% of Sponsored Products spend was on a single high-volume keyword that the hero image wasn’t qualifying — CTR was 0.8%, CVR was 4%. We paused that campaign on day 6, reworked the hero, relaunched on day 18. TACoS dropped from 17% to 11% over 45 days. Second brand, catalog had 14 variants parented under the wrong root ASIN, which was splitting review velocity. We consolidated the variation family in week 1…”
A generic answer sounds like:
“We ran a comprehensive PPC audit, identified optimization opportunities, and restructured campaigns according to best practices.”
The second answer is every agency in your inbox. The first answer is the agency you want.
3. “What’s your position on creative, and who executes it?”
Creative is where most Amazon agencies have a structural blind spot. Listing optimization, hero images, image stacks, A+ content, and brand story are arguably the single highest-leverage conversion drivers on Amazon — and most agencies outsource this work to a $15/hour freelancer with zero context on your brand.
Questions to ask:
- Is your creative team in-house or subcontracted?
- Do they track CTR and CVR before and after every creative change?
- Can they show you a before/after with real Search Query Performance data, not just “the new image looks better”?
- What’s their hero image methodology? (If the answer is “we make it look clean and premium,” that’s a design shop, not a merchandising shop)
Creative executed without CTR/CVR measurement is decoration. Agencies that can’t draw a line from a creative change to a metric movement aren’t worth what they charge.
4. “How do you handle a brand whose main problem isn’t PPC?”
This question exposes the agency’s actual diagnostic capability.
About 30–40% of brands we audit have a PPC setup that’s fine. Their real problem is somewhere else: hero image isn’t qualifying the click, listing copy isn’t matching search intent, catalog structure is splitting reviews, pricing is non-competitive against a BSR tier they’re trying to rank into, or their main ASIN is being outranked by a variant they’re actively suppressing.
A good agency will diagnose and say: “Your PPC is fine. Don’t pay us for more PPC management. Your problem is X, and that’s what we’d work on.”
A bad agency will say: “We can optimize your campaigns further” — because more PPC management is what they sell and what justifies their retainer.
If every agency you talk to says your PPC needs work, one of them is lying. The brand you hire should be the one that diagnosed something other agencies missed.
5. “What’s your contract length, and what’s the exit process?”
Industry-standard Amazon agency contracts are 12 months. Some are even 24. This is a retention mechanism, not a service mechanism.
The math of a 12-month contract:
- Month 1–3: Onboarding chaos, early wins that could’ve been found in a 90-minute audit
- Month 4–7: Plateau as the easy optimizations run out
- Month 8–12: Brand realizes the monthly report has been the same for four months, wants out, learns the contract is ironclad
Questions that expose contract risk:
- What’s the cancellation window each month? (Some contracts require 60–90 days written notice)
- Is there a month-to-month option or a shorter initial term (3–6 months)?
- What happens to your Seller Central access and campaign structures if you cancel?
- Who owns the creative assets they build?
Month-to-month or 90-day initial terms force the agency to earn your retention each cycle. It’s a signal that the agency is confident they’ll produce value. A mandatory 12-month contract is a signal they’re not.
6. “What’s your reporting cadence and what’s actually in the report?”
Monthly reports are the Amazon agency industry’s favorite theater.
A good Amazon agency report should answer:
- What moved in ad spend efficiency (ACOS, TACoS) and why
- What moved in organic performance (BSR, keyword rank, SQP share) and why
- What creative or catalog changes were made, with before/after data
- What’s the plan for next 30 days and what are the specific expected outcomes
- What’s blocked and needs the brand owner’s input
A bad Amazon agency report contains:
- “Impressions served: 4.2M” (meaningless without context)
- “CTR improved 0.03%” (noise, not signal)
- A bar chart of spend by campaign with no commentary
- Recommendations like “continue to optimize bids”
- No mention of what was actually changed in the last 30 days
Ask to see a real report from an existing client — redacted if needed. If the agency hesitates or sends a template, that’s the real report. If the agency sends something dense, annotated, and opinionated, that’s the one you want.
7. “If we wanted to bring this in-house in 18 months, would you help us transition?”
This is the ultimate philosophy question, and it separates agencies that see clients as retention assets from agencies that see clients as actual partners.
Most agencies will dodge. They’ll say “we’d love to keep growing with you” or “we don’t typically transition accounts in-house.”
The answer you want: “Yes, and here’s what that process looks like — we’d document the campaign structure, transfer creative files, train your in-house lead on the systems we’ve built, and run a 90-day overlap where we’re available for questions. We’ve done this four times.”
An agency that’s confident enough to help you leave is confident enough to make you want to stay.
What to Actually Do With These Questions
When you’re evaluating Amazon agencies:
- Send the same 7 questions to every agency you’re shortlisting. Compare answers side by side.
- Time the responses. The agency that takes a week to come back with a pre-approved answer is going to take a week to answer your questions during the engagement, too.
- Ask for specificity, not slogans. Phrases like “data-driven,” “best practices,” “comprehensive strategy,” and “full-funnel approach” are agency filler. Numbers, names, and scenarios are substance.
- Talk to two of their current clients, not just their reference clients. Agencies choose their reference clients carefully. Ask for a client at your revenue tier and a client who’s been with them for 6+ months.
FAQ
Q: What should I pay an Amazon agency?
For brands doing $100K–$500K/month, expect retainers in the $3K–$10K/month range for full-service management. Percentage-of-spend models typically run 10–15% of ad spend. Percentage-of-revenue models are rare and usually signal a misaligned incentive structure. Be suspicious of anything under $2K/month full-service — you’re almost certainly getting junior attention and rotating account management.
Q: Should I hire an agency or build in-house?
Rule of thumb: if your Amazon business is under $100K/month, hiring a specialist agency is almost always cheaper than a solid in-house Amazon lead ($120K+ fully loaded). Between $100K–$500K/month, it’s a coin flip depending on team capability. Over $500K/month, you probably want a hybrid — in-house brand manager + agency partners for creative and specialist PPC work.
Q: How long should I give a new agency before judging results?
90 days for PPC efficiency signals (ACOS/TACoS movement), 60–90 days for creative changes to show CTR/CVR impact through SQP data, and 6 months for organic ranking compounds to show up. Any agency that promises major revenue lift in 30 days is either sandbagging your baseline or overpromising.
Q: Can I test an agency with a small project first?
Yes — and we recommend it. A scoped 30-day audit or a one-time hero image optimization project reveals more about agency capability than six sales calls. If they won’t take a small project, that’s a signal.
Q: What’s the biggest red flag I should watch for in an Amazon agency?
Vagueness. Any agency that can’t tell you exactly who’s on your account, exactly what their reporting cadence looks like, exactly what they changed on their last three client accounts, and exactly how they measure success — those vague agencies stay vague after you sign.
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Most Amazon agencies are selling retention. A small number are selling results. The seven questions above are the fastest way we know to tell them apart before you sign a contract.
If you’re looking for a team that manages every lever — creative, advertising, and operations — Velocity Sellers works with brands doing $100K+/month on Amazon. Contact us for a free account audit.
