The 20-Minute Background Check That Exposes a Dodgy Marketing Agency

Most “how to check an agency” articles stop at a vague list of red flags. This one is the actual checking procedure, with the free tools and what each one tells you.

1. Check the business is real, and as old as it claims

Start at ABN Lookup (abr.business.gov.au). It's free, no login, and it shows the entity name, whether the ABN is active, GST registration, and the date the ABN was registered. That last one is quietly powerful. A six-month-old ABN sitting behind a claim of “15 years of experience” is a contradiction worth a hard question. If they're a company, ASIC Connect shows the ACN and the company's registration details. I once ran this kind of check on an agency and found three different founding years across its own pages in a single pass. The truth is usually in the records, not the marketing.

2. Read their reviews everywhere except their own site

A wall of five-star reviews on an agency's own website proves nothing, it costs nothing to display. Go and find the same reviews somewhere they don't control: Google, ProductReview.com.au, Trustpilot. You're not chasing a perfect score, you're checking for consistency across platforms and real, dated reviews from real people. And know that faking reviews is illegal in Australia, so a glowing wall that exists nowhere else is a warning, not a reassurance.

3. See if the “ads experts” actually run ads

This one is brilliant and almost nobody knows it. The Meta Ad Library shows every active ad any page is running, free, no login. The Google Ads Transparency Centre does the same for Google. If an agency sells advertising but runs none of its own, that's a fair thing to ask about.

4. Verify the case-study numbers

Impressive results should be specific and checkable. When an agency claims it grew a client's leads by some big number, ask which client, over what period, and whether you can confirm it with them. A real example survives the question. A vague claim about “businesses just like yours” that they can't actually name is decoration, not proof.

5. Treat partner badges as a floor, not a gold star

A Google Partner badge sounds official, so here's what it actually means: the agency spent at least $10,000 on Google Ads over 90 days, kept a 70% optimisation score, and has half its team certified. A Meta Business Partner badge is similar, built on spend and certifications. Useful as a baseline that they're not brand new. But Google itself says the badge isn't an endorsement and doesn't guarantee results, and neither badge says a single thing about whether the agency is honest or right for your business.

6. Ask the two questions that cut through everything

Two questions do more than any badge. Ask to see their real ad accounts, live. And ask to speak to a past client directly, with nobody from the agency on the call. An honest agency says yes to both without hesitation. Watch closely what happens when you ask, because the reaction tells you as much as the answer.

After you've checked

If the records, the reviews and the answers all line up and stay consistent, you've probably found someone worth talking to. If they turn vague or defensive under a simple check, you've just saved yourself a very expensive year. None of this takes long, and all of it is free.

I built the way I work to pass every one of these without blinking, because they're the same checks I'd run if I were the one hiring. If you'd like, bring your shortlist to a free teardown and I'll help you read what you find, whether or not you ever work with me. No pitch, and you keep what we work out.