Most sellers pick an Amazon PPC agency the same way: a referral or a search, a good first call, a proposal that looks thorough, a signature. Three months later they are not sure whether it is working. The agency was not necessarily wrong. The process was too short to find out whether it was right.
This playbook is five steps. It takes two to three weeks, and it is designed so that whichever agency you choose, you know what you bought and how you will judge it.
Step 1: Decide what you are buying
Before any call, write down what the account actually needs. Most sellers skip this and let the agency define it, which means every proposal sounds right.
The useful split is judgment versus execution. Judgment is structure, strategy, and knowing what should change. Execution is making the changes, every day, on time. Accounts short on judgment need an expert. Accounts short on execution need hours or software. The agency versus software decision covers this in depth, and it is worth reading before you talk to anyone, because some sellers discover at this step that a full agency is not what they need.
If an agency is the answer, write three to five sentences: what is broken, what you want in six months, what you are not willing to give up (owner access, a margin floor, a specific product's positioning). That paragraph is your brief, and every agency gets the same one.
Step 2: Build a short list
Three to five agencies. Sources, in order of usefulness:
Referrals from sellers in your category or a neighboring one. A seller who has worked with an agency for a year knows things no website will tell you.
Agencies whose content is specific. If their blog or podcast discusses placement modifiers, search term harvesting and attribution windows in concrete terms, they probably think in those terms.
Category experience. An agency that has run accounts in your category knows its seasonality, its CPC levels and its competitors.
Be skeptical of ranked lists, which are often paid, and of agencies whose site leads with revenue multiples rather than method. What sets the best agencies apart describes the four types of agency and what good looks like in each.
Step 3: Run a structured first call
Send the brief ahead. On the call, let them talk about your account for the first half, then ask the same questions of each agency:
Who specifically will work on my account, and how many other accounts do they manage?
What tools do you run, and what do your people spend their time on? The answer tells you whether the daily execution is automated or done by hand in a weekly session.
How do you handle the hours and days between reviews? Overnight spend, event ramps and restores, campaigns that run out of budget by noon. An agency that reviews on Thursdays has to have an answer for the other six days.
What would you change in the first 30 days, based on what you can see now?
Can you show me a change log from a current account, with the client's details removed?
Score each agency on the same five points right after the call. Memory of good conversations fades into sameness within a week.
Step 4: Ask for a paid audit
Narrow to two. Offer each a fixed-price audit of your account: read-only access for a defined period, a written report at the end. Pay for it.
A paid audit changes the incentive. A free audit is a sales tool and tends to find exactly the problems the agency sells solutions for. A paid one is a deliverable, and you can judge it as one. Does it find specific, quantified issues in your account, or general ones that would apply to anyone? Does it say anything about your listings, or only your ads? Does it tell you something you did not know?
You also keep the report regardless. Even if you sign with neither, you now have two expert reads of your account. The audit process post lists what a thorough one covers, which is a useful check on what you receive.
Step 5: Set the first 90 days in writing
Before signing, agree on what the first 90 days will produce. Not ACoS promises, which no honest agency makes on an account it has not run. Instead: the structural changes they will make, the reporting cadence, the change log access, the metrics you will review together at day 30, 60 and 90, and what happens if the day-90 review is not where both of you expected.
Then check the contract for three terms. Notice period: 30 days is reasonable, 90 is a lock-in. Account ownership: you keep owner-level access to the console at all times, and every campaign lives in your account. Scope: which ad types, which marketplaces, and what costs extra. The agency pricing post covers the fee structures and what sits outside them.
Warning signs during the process
A guaranteed ACoS figure before they have seen the account. Reluctance to name who will do the work. No answer, or a vague one, to the change log question. A proposal that never mentions your listings. Pressure to sign before the audit. Each of these is covered in the red flags post, and any one of them is reason enough to move to the next name on the list.
After you sign
Keep the brief and the 90-day plan somewhere you will see them. At day 30, read the change log and compare it to the plan. The most common way agency relationships drift is not bad work; it is the plan being forgotten by both sides, and the monthly report becoming the only thing anyone looks at.
Frequently asked questions
How many Amazon PPC agencies should I talk to before choosing?
Three to five. Fewer and you have nothing to compare against. More and the calls blur together and the process stalls. A short list built from referrals and category-specific searches is better than a long list from a directory.
Should I pay for an agency audit before signing?
Yes, if it is offered as a fixed-price project. A paid audit shows you how the agency thinks about your specific account, gives you something useful even if you do not sign, and separates agencies that do real analysis from those whose audit is a sales deck.
What contract terms matter most with a PPC agency?
Notice period, account ownership, and what is included in the fee. Short notice periods (30 days) protect you. You should keep owner-level access to the advertising console at all times. And the scope should say which ad types, marketplaces and services the fee covers.
If step one points to execution rather than judgment, Off Hours is the alternative: the daily bid, budget and schedule work on rules you set, with a change log and a flat fee. Start a free 14-day trial.