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How to Choose an Amazon Agency: 12 Questions to Ask Before You Sign

The sales call is the wrong place to decide. By then someone has already told you they are different, and the agreement in your inbox is where the actual job is defined. These 12 questions are for that document, and for the call you have after you have read it. They are not a second copy of the interview list.

If you are still picking who to talk to, start with how to choose an Amazon agency. If you want the questions to ask on the first call, with examples of a strong answer and a weak one, use questions to ask an Amazon marketing agency. This page is the step after both of those: what has to be true before you sign.

SellTru is an agency, and we publish this. Weigh it the way you would weigh any firm writing about how to hire a firm. The company figures we will cite are the ones already on the site: $150M+ in marketplace sales managed, 200+ brands, 90% retention, a 45% average ACOS reduction in the first 90 days, and membership in the Amazon Ads Partner Network. None of those is a forecast for your catalog.

What you are actually buying

Most bad agreements start with a fuzzy noun. "Amazon management" can mean a weekly pass on Sponsored Products, or it can mean listings, inventory, account health, and ads under one team. Those are different jobs, different weeks, and different ways to waste a retainer.

Ads only is Amazon PPC management: search terms, negatives, bids, and budgets. The whole channel is Amazon account management: listings, ads, inventory, and account health together. A project, such as a listing rewrite or a suspended account, is not the same retainer with a new label. If the proposal uses one phrase for all three, ask which one the signature covers.

Brands in the $1M to $20M range usually need the whole channel, then discover on the audit that one piece is the fire. Say that out loud before the scope is written. An agency that will not narrow the job is selling a bundle. An agency that will only talk about bids, while your listing is suppressed, is selling the easy half.

The 12 questions

1. Which scope is in the agreement: ads only, or the whole account?

Read the services list, not the cover email. If listings, A+ Content, the Brand Store, FBA, or account health are named, they are in. If they are absent, they are not included because the introduction said "full service." Ask them to point at the sentence. A useful answer is a list you could hand to your operator. A weak answer is "we handle Amazon."

2. What is named as out of scope?

A serious scope says what it will not do. Prep centers, trademark filings, photography, DSP at a scale the team does not run, and a guarantee of rank are common exclusions. If nothing is excluded, the exclusions will show up later as change orders. Ask for the no list in the same section as the yes list.

3. Who owns Seller Central, Vendor Central, and the ad accounts?

You should. The agency is a user you can remove. Campaign history, keyword data, and the catalog stay on your login if you leave. If the proposal creates the ad account in their name, or asks you to hand over the primary user, do not sign. Ownership is not a courtesy. It is how you keep the work you paid for.

4. If we also sell on Walmart, is that this contract?

Amazon and Walmart are different catalogs, different ads, and different fulfillment. Some firms bolt Walmart on after the Amazon retainer is signed and discover they do not have a team for it. Ask whether Walmart is in this agreement, a second agreement, or not offered. If it is in, the operating page to compare against is Walmart marketplace agency work: approval, listings, WFS, Connect, then reviews. "We can do Walmart too" is not a scope.

5. If Amazon suspends the account, is reinstatement included?

A monitoring retainer and an appeal are different projects. The weekly read of Account Health is prevention. A performance notification that has already stopped you from selling is a Plan of Action, evidence, and follow-up, and Amazon decides the outcome. Ask whether a live suspension is inside the monthly fee, billed as its own project, or turned away. Walk away from any firm that guarantees reinstatement or quotes a success rate in the proposal. They cannot control Amazon's decision, and the number is a sales tool.

6. Which metric is the retainer judged on?

ACOS grades ad-attributed sales. TACoS grades ad spend against total sales, including organic. A contract that promises an ACOS drop, and says nothing about total sales, can be "won" by cutting the campaigns that were feeding rank. Ask which number is in the review: ACOS, TACoS, contribution, or total sales. Ask to see it defined. The 45% average ACOS reduction we publish is a company figure for the first 90 days on the accounts behind that stat. It is not a clause you should let anyone paste into your agreement as a promise.

7. What is the onboarding window, and what happens after it?

Marketplace results need time. SellTru uses a 90-day onboarding period, then month to month. Retention after that window is 90%, which is a company figure, not a lock-in. Ask any firm you are comparing: how long is the first term, what notice do you owe, and can you leave if the work is not there? A 12-month contract with no performance exit is a different product from a 90-day start. The fee itself belongs on the Amazon agency pricing guide, not in a verbal range on the call.

8. Can we see change history, not only a slide?

Amazon Ads keeps a change history. Seller Central shows who edited a listing. A monthly PDF of charts does not tell you whether anyone worked the account. Ask to see a redacted change history from a current client, or a sample of the weekly note tied to edits you could verify. If the only artifact is a dashboard the agency hosts, you cannot audit the work when the relationship sours.

9. What stays if we leave?

Listings, A+ Content, the Brand Store, and campaigns should remain on the accounts you own. Ask what they will export, what they will revoke, and how many days that takes. Ask whether negatives, campaign structure, and the listing versions are documented anywhere you can open without them. A clean exit is part of the job you are buying. It should be a paragraph in the agreement, not a promise made after you have already cancelled.

10. Do you guarantee a rank, a reinstatement, or a savings number?

No honest operator can. Rank depends on the offer, the price, the inventory, and competitors. Reinstatement depends on Amazon. A savings number depends on the account you have not shown them yet. The acceptable answer is what they will do every week, and which company-level results they are willing to stand behind with a source. The unacceptable answer is a percentage in the proposal that does not appear anywhere you can check.

11. Which proof is a company figure, and which is one account?

A single brand that grew is a story. A company figure is a defined set of accounts over a defined window. Ask which one you are looking at, and ask for the window. We do not publish client names on this page, and we will not invent one to make the question feel answered. If a proposal leads with a testimonial you cannot trace, treat it as decoration.

12. What will you not change until we approve it?

Budgets, price, and a new product launch should not move because a stranger had a good week. Ask for the list of actions that need a yes from you: budget increases past a cap, price changes, deals, and anything that spends money outside the ad account. The first week should still be allowed to fix obvious waste, such as a search term that is spending and not converting. That is different from rebuilding the catalog on day two.

How to use the answers

Put the 12 answers in writing before you compare price. Two proposals with the same monthly fee are not the same bid if one of them owns your ad account and the other does not. If a firm will not answer in the agreement, they have answered. You do not need a longer call to hear it again.

Bring the draft to someone who runs the channel, not only to counsel. A lawyer will see the term and the liability. They will not see that "optimization" left FBA, account health, and Walmart outside the fee. If you want that read from us, the call is 30 minutes and the audit is free. We will tell you if the scope should be smaller.

One more filter. Ask whether the person on the sales call is the person who will log in. The interview guide covers how many accounts that manager holds. This question is simpler: will you meet them before you sign, and is their name in the agreement? If the name is "the team," you are buying a queue.

FAQ

How is this different from the other agency questions page?

That page is the first-call interview: who manages the account, what onboarding looks like, and what a sample report contains. This page is the scope you confirm in the agreement before you sign: what is included, who owns the logins, how you leave, and which promises do not belong in the contract.

Should a $1M to $20M brand hire full account management or PPC only?

Hire PPC only when the listings, inventory, and account health are already in good shape and the gap is the auction. Hire full account management when those pieces fail in the same week and you do not want two vendors blaming each other. The audit is where that call gets made. A blog post cannot see your account.

What does SellTru put in the first agreement?

You keep Seller Central and the ad accounts. We are added as a user. There is a 90-day onboarding period, then the agreement is month to month. Fees are the flat retainer described on the pricing guide. We do not guarantee rank, reinstatement, or a success rate.

What if the account is already suspended?

Say so before you book a management retainer. A live suspension is its own project: read the notice, build the Plan of Action and the evidence, and follow Amazon's replies. Amazon decides. It should not be folded into a weekly ads scope, and it should not come with a guarantee.

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Sign the scope you can point at. If the agreement cannot answer these 12 questions, you are not choosing an agency yet. You are choosing a pitch.