Most agency pitches sound identical once you strip out the logo. Everyone promises reach, everyone shows a client-logo wall, everyone has a deck with the word “360-degree” in it somewhere. The differences that actually matter show up later, usually in an invoice or a missed deadline, by which point you’ve already signed.

Here are ten things worth checking before you do, not after.

1. Are they actually accredited to place print and media?

If your business needs newspaper, TV, radio, or outdoor advertising, ask whether the agency holds Indian Newspaper Society (INS) accreditation. INS runs a formal accreditation system going back to 1943, and it exists precisely so publications know they’re dealing with a legitimate agency, not a reseller working off someone else’s rate card. Accredited agencies also operate under INS rules on how quickly they must pay the publications they book space with. An agency that can’t answer this clearly, or gets vague about “we work with partners who handle that,” is telling you something about where you sit in their supply chain.

2. Do they know their own GST rates without checking a spreadsheet?

This one trips up a lot of business owners because it sounds like a finance department question, not a marketing one. Under the current GST structure, pure advertising space in print media is taxed at 5%, but the moment an agency’s creative or design work is involved, or you’re buying digital, TV, radio, outdoor, or sponsorship, that rate jumps to 18%. If an agency selling you newspaper space as your agent is charging commission on that placement, the commission itself is taxed at 18% even though the underlying space was at 5%.

Ask for an invoice breakdown before you sign, not after. If everything comes back at one flat rate regardless of channel, either they’re not itemizing properly, which becomes your compliance headache eventually, or the print portion is quietly padded. Either way, you want to know now.

3. Is the quote itemized by channel, or built as a strategy?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a channel-by-channel breakdown. You’re entitled to know what a newspaper insertion costs versus a radio spot versus a magazine feature. But it’s worth asking the agency directly what you’d lose by buying those pieces separately from three different vendors instead of from one agency running them as a sequence. A good answer names something specific: coordinated timing, a single point of accountability, negotiated volume rates across channels. A vague answer, or an annoyed one, tells you the “strategy” was mostly a markup.

4. Can they show you actual placements, not just a portfolio deck?

A logo wall proves an agency once had a meeting with that client. Ask instead for tear sheets of print ads they actually placed, or screenshots of live analytics dashboards for digital work, not curated screenshots pulled together for the pitch. If a hospital or a real estate developer is on their client list, ask which specific publication ran their story and when. Anyone who’s done the work can answer this in under a minute. Anyone padding a client list usually can’t.

5. Do they run a real diagnostic before quoting, or price off one phone call?

Watch how the first conversation goes. An agency that asks about your business, your competitors, your last three months of enquiries, and your actual growth bottleneck before naming a number is doing real diagnostic work. An agency that hands you a templated three-tier package after a twenty-minute call is pricing a product, not solving your specific problem. Both approaches exist in the market. Only one of them is likely to get you a plan built around your business rather than around their standard rate card.

6. What happens if the campaign underperforms?

Ask this before you sign, while the answer still matters to how you negotiate the contract. Is there a review point before the full contract term, a defined process for adjusting the plan, or is it locked in regardless of results? Media buying commitments (a newspaper series, a radio flight) often can’t be reversed once booked, which is fair and normal. But the strategy layer around them, what gets tried next if the first placements don’t move enquiries, should have some flexibility built in. If the answer is “we’ll discuss it,” get that discussion process written down.

7. Who owns the media relationship, really?

Ask directly whether the agency is empanelled with the publications, channels, and platforms they’re proposing, or whether they’re routing your booking through another agency that holds the actual relationship. This matters for two reasons. Pricing usually gets marked up at each layer it passes through, and turnaround time gets slower the more hands a booking passes through before it reaches the publication. Neither is necessarily disqualifying. Some smaller or newer agencies genuinely need intermediary relationships for certain channels. But you should know which layer you’re paying for.

8. Are the references from your sector, or just references?

“Ask for references” is standard advice everyone gives and almost nobody acts on properly. The useful version is more specific: ask for a reference from a business in your sector, at roughly your scale. A hospital founder should talk to another hospital founder the agency has worked with, not a retail chain. A school administrator’s marketing problems look nothing like a real estate developer’s. An agency confident in its sector work will connect you without hesitation.

9. What’s actually included in the retainer, and what gets billed separately?

Creative revisions, translation for Telugu or Urdu-language publications, courier and artwork costs, additional rounds of design if the first draft doesn’t land: these often sit outside the headline retainer figure, and agencies don’t always volunteer that upfront. Get a written list of what’s bundled and what triggers an extra invoice. It’s a five-minute conversation now versus a surprised phone call three months in.

10. What’s the actual contract length, and what does exiting it look like?

Ask this plainly: if this isn’t working after two months, what does ending the relationship actually involve? Notice period, work-in-progress payment, ownership of creative assets already produced. Nobody enjoys this conversation at the start of what’s supposed to be a good working relationship, which is exactly why it’s worth having before you’re in one, rather than trying to have it later once you’re annoyed and they’re defensive.

None of this is about assuming the worst

Most agencies you’ll meet in Hyderabad are straightforward operators trying to do good work. This checklist isn’t about walking into every pitch meeting suspicious. It’s about the fact that the agencies worth hiring will answer every one of these questions clearly and quickly, because they already operate this way. The ones who get evasive, or annoyed that you’re asking, have just told you something useful about how the relationship is going to go.

If you’re evaluating agencies right now and want a second opinion on a proposal you’ve already received, we’re happy to look at it. Reach us on WhatsApp or drop us a line.