You send the same brief to three agencies. One quotes AED 4,000 a month. One quotes AED 12,000. The third will not give you a number until the third meeting. All three show you beautiful slides. None of that tells you which one will actually help. Here is what does.
First, Name the Problem
Most people start by asking for a service. “We need social media.” “We need SEO.” The agency sells you exactly that, and six months later you have a folder full of posts and the same number of customers.
So start somewhere else. Ask what is actually going wrong. There are really only three answers, and they look the same from the outside.
- Nobody knows you exist. A new gym opens and the street walks past it. This is a reach problem.
- People visit and leave. Your site gets 2,000 visits a month and five phone calls. This is a website problem.
- Calls come in but nobody buys. Fifty enquiries, two bookings. This is a targeting problem.
Each one needs a different fix. Spending more on ads will not help the gym whose website confuses people. We wrote about that third case in why cheap Meta leads are often bad leads , because it is the one people get wrong most often.
What the Monthly Price Actually Buys
Agency prices in Dubai spread out a long way. That spread is mostly not about quality. It is about what sits inside the number.
That last point is the one that catches people. The fee and the ad budget are two different things. An agency can quote you AED 5,000 and then spend AED 25,000 of your money on Meta and Google. Always ask which number you are looking at before you compare anything.
| Ask this | Because |
|---|---|
| Is my ad budget included? | It changes the real cost, often by more than the fee itself. |
| How many hours a month do I get? | Turns a vague price into something you can compare. |
| Who will actually do the work? | The person in the meeting is often not the person on your account. |
| What happens in the first month? | If they cannot answer clearly, there is no plan yet. |
| Who owns the ad accounts? | If the agency owns them, leaving gets expensive. |
That last one matters more than it sounds. If your Google and Meta accounts are built under the agency's login, they leave with the agency. Years of data goes with them. Ask for the accounts, the website and the analytics to be in your name, with the agency given access.
Listen to Their Questions, Not Their Slides
Every agency has a portfolio, and every portfolio shows the work that went well. It tells you what they can do on a good day. It does not tell you what working with them is like.
What tells you far more is what they ask you. Do they want to know your profit margin? How long a sale takes? Which customers are worth the most? Who picks up the phone when a lead comes in? An agency asking those is thinking about your business. One that only presents is thinking about the sale.
If nobody has asked what a customer is worth to you, nobody can tell you what a lead should cost.
It is also the quickest way to test whether they know your industry. Ask something only an insider would know. Run a restaurant? Ask how Friday brunch differs from a Tuesday. Sell property? Ask what happens to enquiries after a handover is announced. People who have done it answer straight away. People who have not change the subject.
One Specialist or One Team for Everything?
There is no single right answer, but there is a right answer for you.
If it is the first case, our campaign management and web & SEO pages explain how we scope single-channel work. If it is the second, start with the full list of what we do instead.
When to Walk Away
- “We guarantee page one on Google.” Nobody can promise this. The ones who do usually rank you for words nobody searches.
- No plan for measuring anything. If success is not defined now, it gets defined later as whatever happened to occur.
- Reports that stop at views and likes. Fine in month one. Meaningless as a result.
- They will not name who works on your account. There is usually a reason.
- A twelve-month contract with no way out. Confidence does not need a cage.
None of this means they are dishonest. It usually means their business works better if you do not look too closely — which comes to the same thing after a year.
Comparing Three Quotes Fairly
Quotes are hard to compare because every agency writes them differently. Put all three on the same footing first.
Once they line up, the differences left are the real ones: who does the work, how fast they move, and whether they understood your problem. Those are worth paying more for. A better-looking deck is not.
What a Good First Month Looks Like
Whoever you pick, the first month should give you answers, not just files. Expect four things. A review of what you already have. Tracking you can check yourself. A short list of what they will test first. And one clear sentence about what should look different by month three.
If month one arrives as a folder of social posts and nothing else, the work has started as a production line rather than a plan. Production lines are very hard to steer once they are running.
- Work out what is broken before you shop for a service.
- Compare quotes on the same basis, with ad budget kept separate from the fee.
- Judge an agency by what it asks you, not by what it shows you.
- Keep your own ad accounts, always.
- Expect answers in month one, not just output.
If you would rather just talk it through, get in touch and we will tell you honestly whether your problem is one we are the right people to fix.
Discussion & Insights
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