How to Choose a Marketing Agency in Sacramento: What to Ask, What to Avoid, What to Demand

By Stan Tscherenkow | Founder, Stan Consulting LLC, Roseville CA MBA, Universität Trier (Germany) · Marketing, Loughborough University (UK) · 15+ years across US, Europe & Asia LinkedIn · stantscherenkow.com

There are more than 200 marketing agencies and consultants operating in the Sacramento metro area — Roseville, Folsom, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, and the city itself. Some are excellent. Most are competent at some things and weak at others. A meaningful number will take your money, produce activity, and leave you wondering six months later why revenue didn't move.

Choosing the wrong agency is an expensive mistake that goes beyond the wasted retainer. It costs you the months you spent while results failed to materialize. It costs you the opportunity of working with someone better. And in the case of PPC and ecommerce specifically, it can cost you the data integrity and account history that a poorly managed Google Ads account leaves behind — misattributed conversions, inflated ROAS numbers, and a learning phase that has to restart every time a new agency inherits the account.

I'm writing this as the founder of a Sacramento-area marketing consultancy — which means you should weigh what I say with that context in mind. I have a perspective here. What I can offer is that I've also been on the client side, worked with agencies across the US, Europe, and Asia, and watched the same hiring mistakes repeat across markets with enough consistency to identify the patterns clearly.

This guide gives you the specific questions to ask, the specific answers that reveal competence versus performance theater, and the red flags that are easy to miss when an agency's sales process is polished.

Why Most Sacramento Marketing Agency Searches Go Wrong

The typical Sacramento business owner searching for a marketing agency follows a predictable path: Google search → agency website review → introductory call → proposal → decision. The problem with this path is that it evaluates the agency's marketing skill — how well they present themselves — rather than their operational skill, which is what you're actually paying for.

An agency that writes excellent website copy and runs a smooth sales process may produce mediocre campaign results. An agency that presents with rough edges and an unpolished deck may have the most disciplined Google Ads account management in the region. The standard evaluation process systematically rewards presentation over performance.

Here's what the evaluation process should look like instead.

The Three Categories of Questions That Matter

Category 1: Questions That Reveal How They Actually Work

Most agencies will answer "we do PPC, SEO, social media, and content" to a question about what they do. That tells you nothing. These questions reveal how they work — the specific practices that determine whether your campaigns are managed with discipline or managed to keep you renewing.

"Show me the account structure you'd recommend for a Shopify store at our revenue level. Walk me through it."

A competent PPC agency can describe a specific three-layer account structure on demand: branded Search campaign, standard Shopping for top products, Performance Max for catalog expansion. They can explain why each layer exists, what it protects against, and how the layers interact. An agency that responds with vague language about "a customized strategy" without specifics either doesn't know the answer or is avoiding commitment to anything they can be held accountable to.

For reference — our own account architecture framework is published publicly in our complete Shopify PPC guide →and our Performance Max guide →. A competent agency should be able to articulate something comparable without looking it up.

"How do you handle Google Merchant Center feed optimization for Shopify stores?"

The answer that reveals competence: a discussion of product title structure, GTIN requirements, custom labels by margin tier, supplemental feeds via Google Sheets for title optimization without disrupting store navigation, and Price Competitiveness reporting. The answer that reveals a gap: "we connect the store to the feed and optimize bids." Feed quality is upstream of bid optimization. An agency that treats the feed as a setup task rather than an ongoing performance lever is leaving significant optimization on the table.

"How do you set ROAS targets for clients? What's your process?"

The correct answer involves your gross margin and full cost structure — not an industry benchmark. A margin-based ROAS calculation produces a specific, defensible number: Break-even ROAS equals one divided by gross margin; profitable target accounts for fulfillment, fees, overhead, and desired net margin. An agency that says "we aim for 4x because that's typical for ecommerce" is working from a benchmark, not your business. The difference matters — as covered in detail in our ROAS target calculator guide →.

"Can you walk me through how you'd handle a Performance Max campaign for a new Shopify client with no conversion history?"

The competent answer: do not launch PMax on a cold account. Build conversion history first with standard Shopping and Search. Set minimum thresholds — 30+ purchases in 30 days — before launching PMax. When PMax does launch, segment asset groups by product category, add audience signals from the customer list, exclude branded terms via brand exclusion, and run a branded Search campaign alongside it. An agency that says "we'd launch Performance Max because it covers everything" is optimizing for simplicity, not performance.

Category 2: Questions That Reveal Accountability and Transparency

These questions don't test technical knowledge. They test whether you can trust this agency with your business.

"What does your reporting look like, and what metrics will you show me each month?"

The answer that builds trust: reports structured around business outcomes — revenue attributed to campaigns, cost per acquisition relative to margin, ROAS relative to target, conversion rate by landing page. The answer that should concern you: reports centered on impressions, clicks, and engagement — the metrics that show activity regardless of whether that activity produces results. An agency that leads reporting with impression share and CTR without anchoring those numbers to revenue and profitability is managing optics, not outcomes.

"Who specifically will manage our account day-to-day, and what is their experience level?"

This question matters more for larger agencies than small ones, but it matters everywhere. Many agencies sell with senior strategists and deliver with junior account managers who handle 25 clients simultaneously. Ask directly: who will be our day-to-day contact? How many accounts does that person manage? What is their background? A senior strategist who appears at pitch and onboarding and then hands the account to a less experienced team member is not an uncommon arrangement — and it's worth surfacing before you sign.

"What happens to the ad account if we decide to stop working together?"

The right answer: the account is yours. You retain ownership of your Google Ads account, your Merchant Center account, your campaign history, your conversion data, and your audience lists — regardless of how the engagement ends. An agency that creates accounts under their own MCC (manager account) and retains ownership when the relationship ends is building lock-in at your expense. Insist on documented account ownership in the contract before signing anything.

"Can you show me a client account — anonymized if necessary — and explain the decisions you made?"

Not every agency will do this due to confidentiality. But asking reveals a great deal. An agency confident in their work will walk you through anonymized screenshots of an account structure, explain why it was built that way, what results it produced, and what they'd do differently. An agency that deflects this question entirely and offers only case study PDFs with curated metrics has something to hide, or nothing specific enough to show.

"What is your contract structure and what are the exit terms?"

Month-to-month contracts are available from good agencies. Long-term contracts are not inherently wrong, but they need clear exit provisions — what happens if performance benchmarks aren't met, what notice is required to cancel, what you retain when you leave. Any agency that can't explain exit terms clearly before you sign should be asked to add them to the contract explicitly.

Category 3: Questions That Reveal Local Market Knowledge

For Sacramento-area businesses specifically, your marketing agency should understand the local market — not just apply national playbooks to a California address.

"How do Sacramento and Bay Area markets differ from a PPC perspective, and how does that affect your approach?"

The answer a Sacramento-specialist should give: Bay Area CPCs in competitive categories run 30–60% above Sacramento averages; Bay Area buyers are more sophisticated and comparison-intensive, requiring stronger trust signals and offer differentiation; Sacramento's suburban markets — Roseville, Folsom, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova — have distinct buyer behavior from the city itself and from Bay Area markets. An agency that responds to this question with generic California marketing observations without specific data points probably handles Sacramento accounts as part of a national portfolio rather than with genuine local expertise.

"Have you worked with Sacramento-area ecommerce or retail clients? What did you learn about this market specifically?"

Local case knowledge — even anonymized — is a signal. An agency that has run campaigns for Sacramento-area Shopify stores understands the seasonal patterns of Northern California consumer spending, the local competition dynamics, the geographic bid adjustments worth making for Sacramento versus Bay Area delivery zones, and the specific trust signals that resonate with Northern California buyers. An agency that has never worked in this market is learning on your budget.

"How would you approach Google My Business and local SEO for a Roseville-based business that also serves Sacramento and the Bay Area?"

For service businesses and retailers with physical locations, this question reveals whether the agency understands the multi-geography local search challenge — ranking in Roseville's local pack while also appearing for Sacramento searches while also capturing Bay Area buyers who search for California-based specialists. The correct answer involves a combination of GMB optimization for the Roseville location, on-page geo-targeting signals for Sacramento and Bay Area keywords, and a content strategy that establishes topical authority for Northern California searches.

The Red Flags That Are Easy to Miss

These are the warning signals that appear during the sales process but are easy to rationalize away when an agency presents well.

They guarantee rankings or specific ROAS outcomes. Google Ads performance is a function of your account structure, your store readiness, your offer quality, your market competition, and Google's algorithm — none of which any agency fully controls. An agency that guarantees a specific ROAS or a number-one ranking is telling you what you want to hear, not what's true. The correct answer to "can you guarantee results?" is: "We can guarantee a disciplined process, transparent reporting, and accountability to agreed targets. We cannot guarantee specific outcomes because we don't control all the variables."

Their proposal is ready before they've asked about your margins. A proposal that includes a recommended ad budget, a projected ROAS, and a management fee — delivered within 48 hours of a first call — was not built around your business. It was built around a template. A proposal that genuinely serves your store requires knowing your gross margins, your AOV, your current conversion rate, your existing account history, and your specific business goals before recommending a single budget number. If they haven't asked, they don't know.

They manage your accounts but don't discuss your landing pages. As covered in our guide to why California Shopify stores fail at Google Ads →, campaign failure and page failure are equally common causes of poor PPC results. An agency that manages your campaigns in isolation — without any conversation about whether your landing pages are conversion-ready — is managing half the equation. The best agencies either assess your pages as part of the engagement or clearly define landing page optimization as a separate scope item that needs to be addressed.

They talk about "managing your ads" but never mention your product feed. For Shopify ecommerce specifically, feed quality is upstream of campaign performance. An agency that manages Google Shopping campaigns without discussing Merchant Center feed optimization — product title structure, GTIN completeness, custom labels, price competitiveness — is managing the gas pedal while ignoring the engine. Feed quality affects every Shopping and PMax campaign you run, and it's one of the highest-leverage optimizations available without spending more on ads.

They show you screenshots of ROAS numbers without explaining the attribution model. A 7x ROAS screenshot means nothing without knowing whether it includes view-through conversions, whether it accounts for branded traffic cannibalization, whether it uses last-click or data-driven attribution, and what the conversion window was. An agency that shows impressive ROAS numbers in their pitch deck without explaining how those numbers are calculated is showing you their best-looking metrics, not their most accurate ones.

Their social proof consists entirely of logo collections and percentage improvements. "Increased ROAS by 340%!" tells you nothing. From what baseline? Over what time period? For what type of store? In what market? For what product category? Real case studies describe a specific client situation, the specific problem, the specific solution, and the specific, verifiable outcome — ideally with enough detail that you can evaluate whether the situation is comparable to yours. Logo collections tell you the agency has clients. They tell you nothing about what those clients actually experienced.

What a Transparent Agency Should Be Willing to Show You

This is the standard I hold myself to and the one I'd encourage you to hold any agency to before hiring them.

Their methodology, published. We publish our Shopify PPC framework, our ROAS calculation methodology, our landing page audit framework, and our conversion checklist publicly — on this website, in these articles. If an agency's entire methodology is proprietary and unpublishable, ask why. Genuine expertise doesn't become less valuable when shared. Agencies that treat their process as a trade secret are often protecting mediocrity rather than competitive advantage.

Real account structure examples. Anonymized screenshots of actual account structures, with the reasoning explained. Not case study PDFs with curated metrics — actual account architecture documentation.

Honest communication about what they don't do well. Every agency has areas of strength and areas of weakness. An agency that presents as excellent at everything is either genuinely exceptional or not being honest. Ask directly: "What types of clients or projects do you turn away, and why?" The answer reveals both self-awareness and the integrity to say no to bad fits.

References from clients in comparable situations. Not three cherry-picked references — the option to speak with a range of clients, including some who stayed and some who moved on. What a former client says is often more revealing than what a current client says.

A clear scope of work before any money changes hands. What specifically will they do? What will they not do? What do you need to provide? What are the deliverables each month? What are the escalation paths if performance falls short? All of this should be in writing, in plain language, before you sign.

Why Local Often Beats National for Sacramento Ecommerce

One consideration worth naming directly: for Sacramento-area Shopify stores, a national agency with Sacramento clients is not the same as a Sacramento-area agency with national capability.

National agencies bring scale, broader case knowledge, and sometimes lower per-client cost. They also bring geographic distance, account managers who may have never visited Sacramento, and a generic California strategy applied to a market with specific local dynamics.

A Sacramento-based agency — or a Roseville-based consultant serving the Sacramento-Bay Area corridor — brings local market knowledge baked into every strategic recommendation. They understand the difference between Roseville's suburban consumer base and the Bay Area's tech-adjacent buyer profile. They can speak to Northern California seasonal patterns, local competitor landscapes, and the specific trust signals that resonate with California buyers from lived experience, not market research summaries.

The right question isn't "local or national?" It's "does this agency have specific, demonstrable knowledge of the market I operate in?" For Sacramento-area businesses, local expertise is a genuine advantage when it's present — and a genuine gap when the agency is applying national templates to a local market.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much should a Sacramento marketing agency charge for Shopify PPC management? For a Shopify ecommerce account at $1,500–$5,000/month in ad spend, management fees in the Sacramento market typically range from $700–$1,500/month depending on account complexity and the agency's experience level. Flat fee arrangements are preferable to percentage-of-spend for ecommerce at this scale — percentage-of-spend creates an incentive to increase budget regardless of profitability. For accounts above $10,000/month in spend, percentage-of-spend arrangements become more standard and more appropriate, typically ranging from 10–15% of managed spend.

Should I choose a specialist ecommerce PPC agency or a full-service marketing agency for my Shopify store? For Shopify PPC specifically, a specialist is almost always preferable to a generalist. Shopify ecommerce PPC — Shopping feeds, Performance Max architecture, dynamic remarketing, margin-based ROAS targets — is a specific discipline with a steep learning curve. An agency that also does brand strategy, social media management, event marketing, and print collateral is unlikely to have the same depth in Shopify PPC as one that focuses on it. For stores where PPC is the primary growth lever, depth beats breadth.

What should a marketing agency contract include at minimum? At minimum: a clear scope of work with specific deliverables, the account ownership clause specifying you retain all accounts, a reporting schedule and format, performance review milestones, cancellation terms with notice period and exit provisions, and clarity on who specifically manages the account day-to-day. Have a lawyer review before signing anything above $2,000/month in combined fees and ad spend management.

How long should I give a new agency before evaluating results? For Google Ads specifically: 60 days to complete setup and exit the learning phase, 90 days for a meaningful performance evaluation. Evaluating PPC results at 30 days is premature — the account is still in learning phase for most automated bidding strategies. If the agency hasn't provided a clear account structure document and a baseline performance report by day 30, that's a process concern worth raising directly.

We hired an agency 4 months ago and results haven't improved. Should we switch? Before switching, ask for a formal account audit — a documented explanation of every campaign's structure, every bid strategy, every optimization made in the last 90 days, and the performance data for each. Compare what was delivered against what was promised in the original scope. If the scope was delivered and performance still hasn't improved, the problem may be your store's conversion readiness rather than the agency's campaign management — check our pre-launch conversion checklist →against your current setup. If the scope wasn't delivered, that's a different conversation.

The Case for Asking Hard Questions Before Signing

The Sacramento marketing agency market, like every marketing agency market, rewards confident presentation. The agencies that grow fastest are often the best at selling themselves — which is not the same as being the best at growing your business.

The questions in this guide are designed to surface the difference. An agency that answers them specifically, with examples, with documented methodology, and with honest acknowledgment of limitations, is demonstrating the same thing you're trying to buy: the ability to produce real outcomes rather than the appearance of them.

Ask the hard questions before signing. Demand the specifics. Hold out for an agency that shows its work rather than just claiming results.

If you want to see how we approach this at Stan Consulting — our methodology, our account structure frameworks, our conversion audit process — everything is published on this site. Start with the Shopify PPC guide for Sacramento and Bay Area stores →, work through the cluster of posts around it, and you'll have a clear picture of how we think before you spend a minute on a call.

When you're ready to talk: book a 15-minute fit check →

We serve Shopify stores and California businesses across Sacramento, the Bay Area, Roseville, Folsom, Elk Grove, and beyond.

Stan Tscherenkow is the founder of Stan Consulting LLC, based in Roseville, CA. He holds an MBA from Universität Trier (Germany) and a marketing degree from Loughborough University (UK), and has 15+ years of experience in marketing consulting across the US, Europe, and Asia. Connect on LinkedIn or visit stantscherenkow.com.