Short answer: The best way to find a good marketing agency is to ask businesses slightly ahead of you who they use, then look at who runs marketing for brands you admire, check official partner directories and niche communities, and use search and LinkedIn last. Collect six to ten names, filter them on a few quick checks, and end with a shortlist of three.
Key takeaways
- Referrals from founders or marketers 12 to 18 months ahead of you are the strongest source of agency candidates, because they have already paid for the lessons.
- Looking at who runs the marketing of non-competing brands you admire often surfaces specialist agencies that never advertise.
- Official partner directories from Google, Meta, Shopify or Klaviyo confirm basic competence, while paid review sites mostly tell you who exists, not who is good.
- A long list of six to ten names, filtered on fit, proof and who does the work, should leave you with three agencies to brief.
- Finding candidates and choosing between them are separate jobs: this stage is about a good shortlist, not a final decision.
This post is for business owners and marketing leads who know they want an agency but do not yet have names. It covers where to look, how much weight to give each source and how to turn a messy list into three serious candidates.
It stops before the final decision. Once you have your three, our guide on how to choose a marketing agency for a small business covers fit, and how to compare marketing agency proposals covers the side-by-side decision.
Where can you find a good marketing agency?
Look in five places, roughly in this order: peer referrals, the agencies behind brands you admire, official partner directories, specialist communities, and finally search engines and LinkedIn. The earlier sources take more effort but give you far better information about what working with an agency is actually like.
Why the order matters
Each source gives you a different kind of evidence. A referral tells you what it is like to be a client: how fast they reply, whether the people are senior, whether results held up after month three. The agency's own website and rankings tell you how good it is at marketing itself. Those are related skills, but they are not the same skill.
So the order is about evidence quality, not convenience. Start where the information is closest to the actual client experience, and use the easier sources to fill gaps. In practice, many people do the opposite: they search "marketing agency", contact the top five results, and judge them on the sales call. That tends to favour agencies with large sales teams rather than agencies that suit you.
Decide what you are looking for before you look
Before you collect a single name, write down three things: the channel or problem you need help with, your rough monthly budget, and the kind of business you are (for example "Shopify brand selling in Germany and Austria" or "B2B software with a sales team"). Without this, every agency looks plausible and the list grows without getting better. With it, you can reject most names in seconds.
How do you get useful agency referrals?
Ask specific people a specific question. "Do you know a good agency?" gets vague answers. "Who runs your paid search, what does a normal month with them look like, and what frustrates you?" gets useful ones.
The best people to ask are founders or marketing leads at businesses 12 to 18 months ahead of you, in a similar model but not a direct competitor. They faced your problems recently and have already hired, and sometimes fired, agencies. Ask about disappointments as well as wins. Every agency has weaknesses, and how a client describes them tells you more than a glowing summary.
Also ask people around the agency world: your accountant, your web developer, your Shopify or CRM consultant. They see which agencies their clients keep and which ones get replaced.
A referral request that gets real answers
Short, specific messages get replies. Something like this works well by email or LinkedIn:
"Hi Sam, we're looking for outside help with paid search for our online shop, budget roughly €3k a month plus ads. I noticed you've grown that channel a lot. Who runs it for you, and would you recommend them? Happy to hear what doesn't work as well as what does."
It names the channel and budget, so the person can judge whether their agency would suit you. It makes it easy to say something critical. And it is quick to answer, which matters when you are asking a favour.
How to read what people tell you
Listen for specifics rather than enthusiasm. "They're great" is weak evidence. "They found a tracking problem in the first two weeks and told us our best campaign was overstated" is strong evidence, because it describes behaviour you can test for later.
Also note how long the relationship has lasted and whether the same person still runs the account. An agency that kept a client for two years with the same specialist is telling you something about retention and team stability.
The common mistake is hiring a friend's agency without checking whether your situation matches theirs. An agency that is excellent for a funded software company with a large ad budget may be wrong for a bootstrapped shop, even if your friend is delighted with it. Treat a referral as a strong candidate for your list, not as a decision.
How do you find the agency behind a brand you admire?
Pick five to ten non-competing brands with marketing you like, look at their public footprint, and ask their marketing lead directly. People are usually happy to share who they work with when asked politely and specifically.
Useful free tools help you see what is going on behind a brand: the Meta Ad Library shows their current ads, the Google Ads Transparency Center shows their search and display ads, and tools such as BuiltWith or Wappalyzer reveal their analytics and email stack. Agencies are also sometimes credited in case studies, award entries or job posts. If the work looks strong across channels, send the marketing lead a short LinkedIn message saying what you liked and asking who runs it.
What to look for in a brand's ads
You are not trying to copy the ads. You are looking for signs of a disciplined team behind them. A few things are visible from the outside:
- Many variations of the same idea. Several versions of an ad with different hooks or images usually means someone is testing systematically.
- Ads that have run for months. The Meta Ad Library shows start dates. Ads that keep running are likely ones that work, because unprofitable ads tend to be switched off.
- Consistency between ad and landing page. Click through. If the page matches the promise in the ad, someone is thinking about conversion, not just clicks.
- Presence across channels. Search ads, shopping ads and email sign-up flows that feel connected suggest joined-up planning.
Two cautions. Strong work is sometimes done in-house, so the answer to "who runs this?" may be "our own team". That is still useful, because it shows what good looks like. And avoid approaching the agency of a direct competitor. Many agencies will not take on a competing client, and those that do may face a conflict of interest.
Build a long list of agencies in one hour.
- Write down five non-competing brands in adjacent markets whose marketing you would like to copy.
- Look up their ads in the Meta Ad Library and the Google Ads Transparency Center, and note which channels they clearly invest in.
- Find their head of marketing or growth on LinkedIn and send a short, specific message asking who runs that channel.
- Post one question in two founder or marketing communities you belong to, naming your channel, business type and rough monthly budget.
- Add three names from the relevant partner directory for your main channel. Stop when you have six to ten names.
Keep the list in a simple sheet with one column for where each name came from. It helps you weigh the evidence later.
Are partner directories and agency review sites worth using?
Official platform partner directories are worth a look, while general agency review and ranking sites are best used only to see who exists. Neither should decide your shortlist on its own.
Platform programmes such as Google Partners, Meta Business Partners, the Shopify Partner Directory and Klaviyo's partner listings require some combination of certification, managed spend or client activity. A badge tells you the agency knows the tools. It does not tell you whether they will understand your margins or think strategically. Use these directories when you already know your main channel, for example when you need someone for Google Ads or for Klaviyo email flows.
To get more out of a directory, use its filters rather than its default ranking. Most let you filter by location, language, industry or service. Then open each agency's own website and check whether the work they describe matches your type of business. A badge plus three relevant examples is a much better signal than a higher badge tier with no visible work in your niche.
Why should you treat agency ranking sites with caution?
Most "top agencies" directories and review platforms earn money from agencies, typically through sponsored placements, premium profiles or paid verification. That is a legitimate business, but it means the top of a list often reflects what an agency spends on visibility as much as the quality of its work.
Reviews are also usually collected by the agency from clients it chooses, so ratings cluster near the top and rarely separate good from average.
A simple test: compare the same category, such as "Google Ads agency Berlin", across two or three sites. If each site ranks completely different firms first, the rankings are not measuring one shared idea of quality.
These sites are still useful for discovering names in a niche or city. Take the names, then check each one independently through referrals and their own work.
Specialist communities are a different case. Founder groups, ecommerce operator communities and paid membership networks such as Pavilion or Demand Curve often have threads where members recommend agencies they have worked with. The signal is strong because nobody is paid for the recommendation. The catch is capacity: the agencies people love are often busy, so reach out earlier than you think you need to.
A founder-led digital marketing agency, worth a place on the list.
Perfometrics is a performance marketing agency in Berlin working with brands across DACH, the UK, France, North America and the Middle East. Senior people do the work, accounts stay in your name, and we will tell you if another agency would suit you better.
See our digital marketing agencyHow do you use Google and LinkedIn to find an agency?
Search for the specific service and context you need, not just "marketing agency", and judge agencies on the substance of what you find rather than on where they rank. Use LinkedIn to see how the people behind the agency think and who actually works there.
Specific searches work better: "Shopify SEO agency", "B2B Google Ads agency" or a local query such as "SEO agency Berlin" if you want people you can meet in person. A strong ranking for a competitive term does show some skill in that channel, but it says nothing about client service or results in other channels. Read their articles and case studies. Are they specific, with real numbers and honest trade-offs, or generic?
How to read an agency website in five minutes
You can learn a lot quickly if you know what to look at:
- Open one case study. Does it give a starting point, a timeframe, what was done and a business outcome? Or only a big percentage with no baseline?
- Read one article. Does it contain an opinion or a trade-off you could disagree with, or could it have been written by anyone?
- Find the team page. Are there real names and roles, and do they match the services offered?
- Look for who they work with. Most agencies say which industries or client sizes they focus on. If they claim to serve everyone, they probably specialise in no one.
- Check how to start. A clear first step, such as an audit or a scoping call, usually means a defined process behind it.
On LinkedIn, look at the agency's people, not the company page. Check whether the specialists have real hands-on experience in your channel, how long they have stayed and whether the founders post useful thinking or only promotion. A small team where you can see exactly who would work on your account is often a good sign.
Also decide early whether you want a specialist in one channel or a broader partner that covers several digital marketing services. That choice changes where you look. Specialists show up in partner directories and niche communities. Broader agencies show up more in referrals and search.
How do you narrow a long list down to three agencies?
Run every name through the same quick filters, drop anyone who fails one, and keep the three that clearly fit best. You should be able to do this from public information and a short email exchange, before any long sales calls.
Why three? Two gives you too little to compare. Four or more and you will not have time to brief and vet each one properly. If more than three pass, keep the ones with the strongest evidence from the top sources: a referral beats a ranking every time.
The pre-qualification email
Before any call, send each remaining agency a short email with your business type, channel, rough budget and timing, and ask three things: whether they work with businesses like yours, what their minimum engagement looks like, and who would run the account. This one email removes most of the remaining poor fits. Agencies without capacity or with a much higher minimum will usually say so, which saves both sides an hour.
Long list of nine
Three from referrals, two from brands admired, two from the Google Partners directory, one from a founder community, one from search.
Filters applied
Two work mainly with large corporates. One has no paid search focus. One never replies. One has a minimum well above budget. Five names removed.
Shortlist
Four pass. The two referrals and the agency behind an admired brand are kept. The directory agency is held in reserve in case one drops out.
Notice what happened in that example: the sources that took most effort produced most of the final shortlist. That pattern is common, and it is why the legwork early on is worth it.
Frequently asked questions
Building a shortlist of three usually takes one to two weeks if you work on it a few hours a week. Calls and proposals add another two to three weeks. Good agencies often have a waiting list, so start a month or two before you need work to begin.
Local helps if you value meeting in person or need someone who knows your local market and language well, which matters for local SEO. For most digital work, a remote agency with overlapping hours works just as well. Fit and expertise matter more than distance.
They can save time if you are a larger company with a formal procurement process. Most are paid by agencies or take a fee, so ask how they earn money and how agencies get onto their list. For smaller businesses, direct referrals usually produce a better shortlist.
Send a short brief: what you sell, who you sell to, the channels you need help with, current numbers if you have them, your rough budget and timeline. Send the same brief to every agency. It makes their answers comparable and filters out agencies that are clearly not a fit.
Yes. Saying you are speaking to two or three agencies is normal and professional, and good agencies expect it. You do not need to name the others. Being open about it also lets agencies decide early whether to invest time in a proposal.
No. Many strong specialist agencies grow almost entirely through referrals and rarely run ads or chase rankings. That is why referrals and looking behind brands you admire matter so much. Judge an agency on its work and its people, not on how visible it is.
What to do next
Finding good agencies is mostly legwork: asking the right people, looking behind work you admire and filtering hard. A shortlist of three strong candidates makes the decision that follows much easier.
- Send three referral requests this week to people a little ahead of you.
- Run the one-hour exercise above and fill your long list to six to ten names.
- If you would like an outside view of your current setup before briefing agencies, ask us for a free written audit, delivered within 48 hours.