25 Questions to Ask a PR Agency Before You Sign

Why Most Agency Pitches Fail to Reveal the Truth

A PR agency pitch is a sales exercise. The agency's goal in a pitch meeting is to present itself as the most capable option, and the materials it brings, the case studies it selects, the metrics it highlights, are chosen to support that goal. This is not dishonest, but it is selective. The case studies that appear in a pitch deck are the strongest examples from the agency's entire client history. The publications listed in a capabilities presentation may have been placements from several years ago, at a different agency, by a team member who no longer works there. The testimonials have been chosen by the agency, not by you.

The purpose of a structured evaluation process is to create conditions in which the agency has to answer questions it did not prepare, about situations that are relevant to your specific brief rather than to the stories the agency wants to tell about itself. Well-prepared questions also signal to the agency that you are a sophisticated buyer, which changes the dynamic of the conversation. Agencies that respond well to rigorous questions are generally worth taking seriously. Agencies that become defensive, pivot to their credentials, or respond with vague generalities to specific questions are telling you something important about how they will respond when a campaign is not working. Before entering this process, read our guide on how to write a PR brief to ensure you have a brief that agencies can respond to specifically.

Questions About Media Relationships

The quality of an agency's journalist relationships is often the single most important factor in campaign performance. Relationships in this context means something specific: regular, recent, direct communication with journalists who cover the beats relevant to your industry. It does not mean that the agency has the journalist's email address in a database.

1. Name a journalist at [specific target outlet] that you have placed a story with in the last 90 days. What is their beat and what was the story about? If the agency cannot answer this question with a specific name and a specific story, the relationship does not exist at the level they are implying.
2. How many of your journalist contacts are people you have worked with directly on placements versus contacts in a media database? There is a significant difference between a relationship and a database entry. Both exist, but only one of them produces calls returned on deadline.
3. When did you last speak to a journalist at [target publication] about a story that was not about one of your clients? Agencies with genuine relationships speak to journalists regularly, not only when they are pitching. Journalists remember and value contacts who are useful over time, not only when they need something.
4. How do you maintain journalist relationships between campaigns? The answer to this question reveals whether the agency thinks about journalist relations as an ongoing programme or as a transactional activity that starts when a client is signed and stops when they leave.
5. What percentage of your placements in the past 12 months came from cold outreach versus existing journalist relationships? Neither answer is wrong, but the ratio tells you something about how the agency's coverage results are produced and whether that model suits your situation.
6. Are there journalists at your priority publications for our campaign who you cannot currently reach with a direct call? Honesty about gaps in coverage is a positive signal. Every agency has limits; the agencies worth hiring know where theirs are.
7. Have you placed a story in [specific publication] in the last six months? What was it about, and who was the journalist? This is a verifiable question. The journalist the agency names can be found online, their published work can be reviewed, and the story can be confirmed. Agencies that have genuinely placed stories in the publications they are claiming as target outlets will answer this without hesitation.
8. What happens to the journalist relationships your team has built if the account manager assigned to us leaves the agency? Journalist relationships are held by individuals, not by agencies. Understanding how an agency manages this risk tells you how your campaign continuity is protected.

Questions About Strategy and Process

The pitch presentation describes what an agency plans to do. The questions below reveal whether the agency has the process discipline to deliver it consistently over the duration of an engagement, not just in the first month when attention is highest.

9. What is your pitch process from brief to first outreach? A well-defined process includes angle development, journalist research, approval of pitch language by the client, and a targeting decision before a single email is sent. Agencies without a clear answer to this question are likely to move from brief to sending without the intermediate steps that produce quality pitches.
10. How do you decide which story angles to pursue for a given client? The answer should involve research: what journalists in the sector are currently writing about, what editorial gaps exist, and what the client's authentic story is. Angles that are generated purely from what the client wants to say rather than from what journalists are looking to cover rarely produce coverage.
11. How many active clients does the account manager who will run our campaign currently manage? The honest answer varies by agency model, but if the number is high, the amount of time being spent on any single client is low. This is especially relevant for clients with regular news flow who need consistent, attentive outreach rather than periodic campaign bursts.
12. How often will we have formal calls and what format do you use for reporting? Monthly reporting is standard, but the format of the report matters as much as its frequency. A report that lists activities without measuring outcomes is not a useful management tool.
13. What do you do in months when there is no natural news hook to pitch? Every campaign has slow periods. How an agency answers this question reveals whether it has a genuine content and thought leadership capability or whether its value is entirely dependent on you providing news for it to distribute.
14. What is your process for developing thought leadership content, and can you show us an example from a current client? Thought leadership in PR is often described but rarely delivered well. Asking for a specific example that is verifiable sets a higher bar than accepting a general description of capability.

Questions About Results and Measurement

How an agency defines and measures results tells you a great deal about how it will report to you during the engagement. Agencies that measure activity rather than outcomes will report on emails sent, pitches made, and calls taken. Agencies that measure outcomes will report on editorial coverage achieved, the quality of the publications it appeared in, and the audience reached.

15. What does success look like at the end of month three for a client in our sector? Month three is specific enough to reveal whether the agency has a realistic timeline in mind or is deferring results indefinitely into the future.
16. What metrics do you report on, and how do you distinguish between activity metrics and outcome metrics? Activity metrics include pitches sent and calls made. Outcome metrics include editorial placements, quality of publications, and audience reach. A report that contains only activity metrics is not a results report.
17. Can you show us a monthly report from an anonymised current client? The format and content of a real report reveals far more about how the agency thinks about accountability than any description of its reporting process.
18. What do you do when a campaign is not producing the results that were projected? Every PR campaign encounters periods where coverage is lower than expected. The answer to this question reveals whether the agency has a diagnostic process or whether it defaults to asking the client for more budget, more time, or more news.
19. Have you ever ended a client engagement early because the campaign was not achieving its objectives, and what did you do? This is a question about professional honesty. Agencies that have good relationships with former clients, even those who ended engagements, tend to be agencies that operate with transparency rather than deferring problems.

Questions About the Contract

The contract governs the engagement when things do not go according to plan. Reading it carefully and asking direct questions about its terms before signing is the only way to know what protections you have and what obligations you are taking on.

20. What is the notice period to terminate the engagement, and does it run from the date of notice or the end of the current billing period? Notice periods vary widely. Understanding exactly what the exit timeline looks like protects you from being locked into a campaign that is not working for longer than necessary.
21. What services are included in the retainer, and what will be billed additionally? Some agencies include distribution, content production, and event coverage within the retainer. Others bill all of these separately. Understanding what is in scope before signing prevents surprises mid-campaign.
22. Who owns the media list that the agency builds for our campaign after the engagement ends? Media lists built during a client engagement have value beyond the engagement itself. Some agencies treat them as proprietary assets; others provide them to clients at the end of the contract. Understanding this in advance matters if you plan to bring PR work in-house later.
23. Is there a conflict of interest clause, and does the agency currently work with any direct competitors? Most agencies have policies on competitive conflicts, but the definitions and enforcement of those policies vary. Asking the question directly is more reliable than assuming the agency's policy aligns with your expectations.

Red Flags to Watch For

Some agency behaviours in the pitch process are signals that are worth weighting heavily. An agency that provides an immediate price quote without requesting a discovery call or asking meaningful questions about your brief has not done the work required to scope the engagement. The price it provides is either based on guesswork about the scope or is a standard package being applied regardless of fit. Either is a problem.

An agency that uses the phrase "we can get you coverage in" or equivalent language should be examined carefully. Editorial coverage is not a transaction that an agency can guarantee, and any agency that implies otherwise is either misunderstanding how editorial decisions work or is describing a commercial content arrangement rather than earned media. The distinction matters, and clients should understand exactly what type of coverage they are being offered before signing. An agency that cannot name a specific journalist when asked, or that deflects journalist-specific questions to claims about its media database, is signalling that its relationships are less substantive than the pitch suggests. A team that will consist entirely of junior account executives once the contract is signed is not the same team that presented in the pitch. Ask explicitly who will be assigned to the account and what their experience level is. Our PR strategy team at Quorum Media operates with senior involvement at every stage of a campaign, precisely because the quality of editorial relationships and strategic judgment is what determines whether coverage happens.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many agencies should I pitch before signing?

Three is the practical minimum for a meaningful comparison. Fewer than three gives you too little basis for comparison. More than five creates evaluation overhead that is rarely justified by the additional information gained. The goal is not to find the lowest price but to find the agency whose strategy, relationships, and working style best match what your campaign requires. Sending the same written brief to all agencies before any pitch meetings ensures that the proposals you receive are responding to the same brief, which makes comparison significantly easier.

Should I ask for case studies, and how should I evaluate them?

Case studies are useful but should be evaluated carefully. Ask for case studies from clients in your sector or with comparable communications challenges, not the agency's most impressive historical result. The most useful case studies describe what the agency did specifically, what coverage it produced, in which publications, and what the client context was. Generic case studies that describe the activity but not the specific coverage achieved are less useful for evaluation. If a case study describes coverage in publications you can verify, do the verification: look up the article, check when it was published, and confirm that it describes the client's story in the way the agency says it does.

What is a reasonable retainer length for a first engagement?

A three-month trial engagement is the minimum useful period for evaluating whether a PR programme is working. Coverage takes time to develop because pitches need to be placed in editorial cycles, and those cycles vary by publication. A six-month initial engagement gives a more realistic picture of sustainable performance, including how the agency handles both active news periods and quieter intervals. Twelve-month contracts at the outset, before any working relationship has been established, give the client limited leverage if the campaign underperforms. A reasonable agency will accept a shorter initial period if its confidence in the programme is genuine.

Before you reach the agency evaluation stage, make sure you have a clear brief. Our guide on how to write a PR brief covers all eight components in detail, including a template you can adapt immediately. If you would prefer to speak directly with our team about your communications objectives, our PR strategy service is the starting point for all new client engagements at Quorum Media.