Why this matters
Most founders hire a marketing agency at exactly the wrong moment.
The pattern is consistent: traffic is plateauing or conversion is stuck. The founder decides the issue is marketing execution. The agency is hired to fix it. The agency runs campaigns. Traffic moves. Conversion doesn't.
The structural problem is upstream of the agency. The agency was hired to execute against a journey that has a trust leak — and execution can't fix a trust leak. Better execution amplifies the leak.
The questions below surface that structural problem before the contract is signed.
Question 1 — What does the diagnostic say is broken?
If you don't have a measurement layer underneath the buyer journey, the agency will diagnose by interview — they'll ask you what you think is broken, then propose a campaign to fix it.
Your perception of what's broken may be accurate. It may also be the symptom of something else. The diagnostic measures empirically. Without it, you're hiring an agency to fix the thing you identified — not the thing that's actually leaking.
Run the diagnostic first. Bring the verdict to the agency interview. The conversation changes entirely.
Question 2 — Which milestone are they qualified to fix?
The six ADORE milestones — Marketing · Branding · Website · Commitment · Onboarding · Pricing — require different competencies.
A paid-media agency is great at the Arrival milestone. They're rarely qualified to fix the First Impression. A content agency might be excellent at Branding. They're rarely the right choice for Pricing-model clarity.
If the diagnostic says your leak is at the Onboarding milestone and you hire a paid-media agency to fix it, the agency will do excellent paid-media work — on a leak that won't move because it's downstream of where they operate.
Match the agency to the milestone the diagnostic identifies as the leak.
Question 3 — How will they measure success?
Most agencies measure success against the metrics they're operating on — impressions · clicks · cost-per-acquisition · lead volume. Those metrics tell you whether the agency did its work. They don't tell you whether the work moved your business.
Ask the agency to commit to a Brand Trust Score lift at the specific milestone they're operating on. If they can't, the engagement is being measured against the wrong outcomes.
Question 4 — What's their fix-vs-execution mix?
Some agencies are execution shops — they implement against your strategy. Others are strategic — they reshape the underlying model. Most are somewhere in between.
If the diagnostic identifies the issue as strategic (the wrong channel mix · the wrong positioning · the wrong audience), hiring an execution shop means paying for excellent work in the wrong direction. If the diagnostic identifies the issue as executional (the right strategy executed weakly), a strategic agency will overcomplicate the engagement.
The right fix-vs-execution mix is determined by the diagnostic.
Question 5 — What's the exit?
Agency engagements have a momentum problem. Three months in, the team is integrated. Six months in, switching costs are high. Twelve months in, the agency has become part of the operating model — and changing means absorbing a substantial transition cost.
Ask before the contract signs: at what point would we stop this engagement? What's the measurement that would tell us to end it? What's the off-ramp?
If the answer is "we'll see how it goes," the answer is implicitly "never" — and you're entering a relationship without an exit.
How to apply this
Run the diagnostic before the agency interview. Bring the Brand Trust Score and the verdict to the conversation. Ask the five questions. The agency's answers will tell you whether they're the right fit — and they'll respect you more for asking.
The Behavioural Trigger Insert (canonical signature) —
Before we commit budget — have we run RAMMP yet?
The diagnostic isn't a substitute for an agency. It's the precondition for hiring the right agency to fix the right milestone.
How this connects to RAMMP
RAMMP runs the diagnostic that answers all five questions. The Brand Trust Score identifies which milestone needs the agency. The STOP / KEEP / FIX / PROVE verdict frames what kind of engagement makes sense.
For agencies themselves, RAMMP runs as the measurement layer underneath their work — see /for-agencies for the agency-specific framing.
Read the full method → `/how-rammp-works`
What to do next
Before the next agency interview, run the diagnostic → `/rammp-web-dude`.
Bring the verdict to the conversation. Hire — or don't — with measurement underneath the decision.
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