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An honest guide to hiring a marketing agency in Seattle: how pricing works, what to check in a portfolio, contract and ownership traps, and red flags.
Worth reading the source rather than the summaries: what Google says it actually rewards.
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Choose based on fit and transparency, not size or awards. Shortlist three agencies that have solved a problem like yours, ask each for a written scope with named deliverables, and confirm you own every account and asset. Compare how they measure results, not how polished the pitch looks. In Seattle, verify they understand your actual customers, whether that is local homeowners or national software buyers.
Most agencies sell some mix of five things: websites, search visibility, paid advertising, content, and creative or brand work. The label on the door tells you little. A shop that calls itself full service may build sites well and outsource ads to a contractor. A specialist may be excellent at Google Ads and useless at technical SEO. Ask which services are delivered by people on payroll and which are subcontracted, then judge each service separately. Seattle has a wide spread, from one person studios to teams built around enterprise software clients. Neither is better in the abstract. What matters is whether the work you need most is the work that agency does every week rather than occasionally.
Three pricing models dominate. Project fees suit defined work such as a website build. Monthly retainers suit ongoing work such as SEO, content, and ad management, because the effort repeats. Hourly billing is common for maintenance and small changes. Ad management is often priced as a flat monthly fee or a percentage of ad spend, and the percentage model quietly rewards spending more, so ask which applies. Media budget is separate from agency fees; confirm in writing which is which. Published starting points help you calibrate. Kihan Marketing, for example, starts website design at $5,000, SEO at $1,500 per month, and growth packages at $3,000 per month. Cheaper quotes usually mean fewer hours, not better efficiency.
| Model | How it works | Best for | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | Fixed monthly fee for ongoing work | SEO, content, paid media | Ask what it buys in hours and deliverables, not adjectives |
| Fixed project fee | One price for a defined build | Websites and one off builds | Agree what counts as a revision before you start |
| Hourly | Billed for time spent | Small or unpredictable work | Costs are hard to forecast month to month |
| Performance based | Fee tied to an agreed result | Mature funnels with clean tracking | Define the metric and who verifies it up front |
REFERENCE POINT
Kihan Marketing lists website design scoped to your project, SEO scoped to your goals, and growth packages scoped to your goals, month to month with no long term contract.
A portfolio shows what an agency can produce, not what it can produce for you. Look past the visuals. Open the live sites, check them on a phone, and see whether the work is still online years later. Ask which parts that agency actually did, since many portfolios include projects where the agency handled only a redesign of someone else’s build. References matter more. Ask to speak with a client who left, or a project that went sideways, and listen to how the agency describes it. Then ask current clients three plain questions: how long until you saw movement, how often do they communicate, and what would you change. Vague enthusiasm is not a reference.
Everything built for you should be owned by you. That means the domain, hosting account, website files, Google Analytics and Search Console properties, Google Ads and Meta accounts, Google Business Profile, and any content produced. The safest structure is simple: accounts are created under your business email, and the agency is granted access as a user. If an agency runs your ads inside its own account, you cannot take the conversion history with you. Read the exit terms before you read the pricing. Look for notice period, what gets handed over, in what format, and whether there is a termination fee. Month to month arrangements are increasingly common, and they keep both sides honest because the agency has to earn the next invoice.
| Asset | Who should own it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | You, in your company name | Losing it can take your site and email offline |
| Hosting account | You | Controls where the site lives |
| Website files | You, transferred in writing | Includes design files and custom code |
| Google Analytics | You | History does not transfer from an agency account |
| Google Ads | You, agency added as a user | Campaign learning stays with you |
| Google Business Profile | You | Reviews and local presence are yours |
Agree on the scoreboard before work starts. Traffic, impressions, and rankings are inputs. The numbers that decide whether this was worth it are qualified leads, booked calls, quotes sent, and closed revenue. Ask for a single dashboard you can open yourself at any time, not a monthly slide deck. Set honest timelines by channel. Paid ads produce data within days but need a few weeks of spend before decisions are sound. SEO typically shows traction in 60 to 90 days, with meaningful compounding later. A website rebuild should be judged on conversion rate and speed, not applause. Also track lead quality with your sales team, because an agency can double form fills and halve your close rate.
Sometimes the honest answer is do not hire one. If you cannot handle more customers today, fix delivery first. If nobody at your company can answer questions or approve work within a week, an agency will stall and you will still pay. If your budget only covers a few hours of senior attention each month, a trusted freelancer usually buys you more real work per dollar. If marketing is central to how you grow and you can afford a salary, an in house hire builds knowledge that stays. Agencies earn their keep when you need several skills at once, need them faster than you can hire, or want an outside view of a market you are too close to.
Score each agency from 0 to 2 on every line, then compare totals. Anything under 10 out of 18 is a pass, however good the pitch felt.
| What to score | What a 2 looks like | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Names one primary metric | They state the business outcome they will be judged on, and your baseline | 0 1 2 |
| Shows comparable work | Case studies from your size and industry, with what they actually did | 0 1 2 |
| Gives a former client | Not only current clients still under contract | 0 1 2 |
| You own every account | Domain, hosting, analytics, ads and profile are yours from day one, in writing | 0 1 2 |
| Scope is quantified | Deliverables with quantities and review cycles, not a list of channels | 0 1 2 |
| Names the actual team | Who works your account day to day, and what is subcontracted | 0 1 2 |
| Reporting connects to pipeline | A sample report that ties activity to leads or revenue | 0 1 2 |
| Short exit | A notice period you can live with, and no year long lock in | 0 1 2 |
| Honest about timing | Says when to expect signal per channel, refuses to promise fast organic results | 0 1 2 |
Take this list into the call. The answers matter less than whether they can answer at all.
Expect project fees for builds and monthly retainers for ongoing work. Website projects are usually quoted as one fee with a payment schedule, while SEO, content, and ad management are billed monthly because the work repeats. Published starting points in this market include website design from $5,000 and SEO from $1,500 per month. Ad budget is always separate from fees.
SEO typically shows traction in 60 to 90 days, meaning early ranking movement and rising qualified traffic, with larger gains compounding after that. Sites with existing authority move faster; brand new domains move slower. If an agency promises page one in weeks, it is either buying ads, chasing keywords nobody searches, or telling you what you want to hear.
Remote is fine for most work. Location matters when you serve a local market and want someone who knows neighborhood level search, the local competitors you actually lose deals to, and seasonal demand swings. It also helps during a rebrand or a photo and video shoot. Otherwise judge on the work itself, the reporting, and how quickly they answer questions.
Sometimes. A fixed term can be fair when the agency fronts significant build work or hires staff against your account. It is not fair when it exists only to protect revenue. If a term is required, ask for a performance out, a clear notice period, and a written handover clause. Many agencies now work month to month, which is worth asking about.
You should, always. Create the accounts under your own business email, then invite the agency as an administrator. If the agency owns the account, you lose conversion history, audience lists, and machine learning signal the day you leave, and rebuilding that costs real money. This applies equally to your domain, hosting, Search Console, Google Business Profile, and website files.
Start with a paid discovery or a small defined project before committing to a retainer. Ask for a written proposal that names deliverables, owners, and reporting cadence. Prefer month to month terms so performance keeps earning the work. As one example, Kihan Marketing works month to month with no long term contract and provides a free proposal to start, reachable at (425) 954-3452.
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