Most performance marketing RFPs in India still ask the wrong questions: which clients have you worked with, what's your ROAS guarantee, can you do everything. These questions don't separate operators from sales teams.
Below are the 10 questions Frameleads' founders would want a prospect to ask us. They reveal team shape, attribution rigor, and whether the agency optimizes for your outcomes or theirs. Print this and bring it to your shortlist calls.
Team + ownership
1. Who specifically will run my account, week to week?
Listen for: name, years of experience, direct phone access, and weekly time committed to your account. Strong agencies match a senior operator (5+ years) with a junior media buyer. Weak agencies put a 'strategy lead' on the kickoff call and route weekly work to an SDR-style account manager who relays tickets.
2. How many other accounts does that senior operator manage simultaneously?
Anything above 4-5 active retainers per senior person is a red flag — the math doesn't allow real attention. Best operators cap at 3-4 strategic clients and use junior leverage for execution. Ask for the named list (the agency doesn't have to disclose client names, just say 'four others at the same retainer band as ours').
Attribution + measurement
3. What's your attribution stack, including server-side?
Strong answer mentions: Meta CAPI or server-side GTM, GA4 with custom dimensions, post-purchase survey for self-reported attribution, and a triangulation method when sources disagree. Weak answer stops at 'Meta Pixel + Manager dashboard.' Post-iOS, that's under-instrumented by 30-60%.
4. How do you decide which metric is ground truth when they conflict?
There's no single right answer, but there is a right framework. Best operators say: 'Meta in-platform for creative testing; server-side CAPI for actual ROAS; GA4 last-non-direct for cross-channel; post-purchase survey for offline + brand traffic. We weight ROAS decisions on the lowest-variance source and reconcile monthly.'
Creative supply
5. Who builds the creative, and how many variants per month?
Performance marketing in 2026 is creative-bottlenecked. Strong agencies have in-house creative or a tight retainer studio producing 20-50 variants/month minimum. Weak agencies outsource creative to whichever freelancer their AM finds on Upwork. The math: if Meta's algorithm rotates winning creatives every 2-4 weeks, you need 20+ variants/month just to maintain — let alone scale.
6. What's your creative testing methodology?
Listen for: testing structure (4-7-1, ASC+ creative blocks, BCT), success thresholds (kill-by-day-X for spend > $Y if ROAS < Z), and learning capture (the agency should have a tagging taxonomy that records why a winning creative won — hook, value-prop angle, format, etc.). Without learning capture, you're paying for trial-and-error forever.
Reporting + cadence
7. What does your weekly report look like, and what changes week-to-week?
Ask for a sample (redacted). Strong reports lead with 'changes implemented since last week' and 'next-week experiments'. They include cohort-level ROAS, creative-level breakdown, and recommended budget reallocation. Weak reports lead with a 'spend / impressions / clicks / conversions' table and call it a day.
8. How do you handle a bad month?
Strong answer: 'We hold a root-cause review by day 5, identify creative fatigue / audience saturation / attribution drift / market dynamics, share a remediation plan with cost implications, and adjust retainer scope if structural. If we contributed to the miss through under-delivery, we credit the next month.' Weak answer: defensive narratives about market conditions or platform changes.
Transparency + ethics
9. Are you willing to share ad-account access with my in-house team?
Strong agencies share Meta + Google ad account access in viewer or editor mode from day one. Weak agencies hide their work behind 'we'll send screenshots.' If they refuse access, you're paying for opacity, not expertise. Walk away.
Exit + handoff
10. What happens if we want to leave — what's the exit clause, and what assets stay with us?
Strong agencies: 30-day notice, ad accounts + creative library + analytics dashboards + processes documented for handoff. They expect you to outgrow them in 18-24 months. Weak agencies: 6-12 month lock-ins, refuse to transfer ad-account ownership, won't share creative source files. Locked-in clients become disengaged clients become churned clients. The exit terms reveal more than the sales pitch.
Bonus: the one question that filters 80% of bad fits
What would you tell us not to do, if we were a friend?
Agencies optimizing for the close will hedge. Agencies optimizing for fit will say something specific and uncomfortable: 'I'd tell you to fix your AOV before scaling Meta — your unit economics don't survive the CPM environment we're in.' Or: 'I'd tell you not to hire any agency for the first 6 months; build in-house and call us when you hit ₹15L/month spend.' Pay attention to the agencies that say something useful here. They're your real candidates.
Use this checklist
Print these 10 questions. Ask each one on the first discovery call. Score the agency 0-2 per answer (0 = hedged, 1 = generic, 2 = specific with examples). Total out of 20. Anyone scoring 16+ deserves a 30-day discovery sprint. Anyone below 12 — move on.
Where Frameleads fits
We published this checklist because the same 10 questions filter wrong-fit prospects from our pipeline too. If you've used it to shortlist three agencies, book a free 30-minute audit and we'll join your scoring table — same questions, same scoring, no special treatment.