If you're spending money on marketing and still not sure what you're getting back, you're not alone.
Many practice owners reach a point where the reports look fine but the new patient numbers don't reflect it. The disconnect usually isn't about effort. It's about not having a clear, honest conversation about what's actually being measured and why.
These seven questions give you a practical framework for that conversation. Use them in your next agency review, before you sign a renewal, or whenever something feels off.
We share these with dental owners regularly, because most agencies don't get asked them, and the answers reveal a lot.
Question 1: What Are You Tracking, and How Does It Connect to New Patients?
This is the most important question on the list.
Many agencies default to reporting impressions, reach, or website sessions. Those numbers aren't useless, but they don't pay your staff. What you need to see is how marketing activity connects to booked appointments, phone calls, and form submissions.
Ask your agency to walk you through the direct line between what they're doing and the patients showing up at your front desk. If they can't do that clearly, the reporting needs to change.
A well-structured dental marketing report should include traffic by source, lead volume by channel, call tracking data, and conversion rates over time. To see what that actually looks like in practice, view our sample dental marketing report here.
Question 2: Do You Have Experience Specifically With Dental Practices?
General marketing knowledge doesn't automatically transfer to dental.
Patient acquisition in this space has its own search behaviour, seasonal patterns, and compliance considerations. An agency with real dental experience will understand why "emergency dentist near me" performs differently than a general service query. They'll know how to structure a Google Business Profile for a multi-location clinic, how to position implants versus hygiene care in paid ads, and how to write content that earns patient trust rather than just ranking for a keyword.
Question 3: Who Is Actually Working on My Account?
It's common to be sold by a senior strategist and handed off to a junior team. That isn't necessarily a problem if the team is strong and well-supervised. But you should know who manages your campaigns day to day, how experienced they are, and how often a senior person reviews the work.
A simple test: ask your agency, "If I had a concern next Tuesday, who would I contact, and what's the expected response time?" That answer tells you more about accountability than any onboarding document.
Question 4: How Do You Handle Underperformance?
Every campaign has soft periods. The real question is what your agency does about it.
A strong agency will notice the dip before you do. They'll have a hypothesis about why, and they'll propose a specific fix. A weaker agency will point to external factors and wait for you to follow up.
Listen carefully to how they answer this. "We optimize continuously" is not an answer. "When cost-per-lead rises above our benchmark, we pause that ad set and test new creative within 72 hours" is an answer. Concrete over vague, every time.
For context, Google's own guidance on Performance Max campaigns highlights the importance of regular asset and audience review, which is exactly the kind of active management you should expect from any agency running paid ads.
Question 5: What Does Success Look Like at 90 Days?
If success hasn't been defined upfront, it can't be measured, and it can't be held accountable.
Before any campaign launches, there should be a mutual agreement on targets. For a dental practice in a competitive market (we work with clinics across Canada, and the benchmarks can shift meaningfully between markets), that might mean a specific number of new patient inquiries per month, a cost-per-lead target by service type, or a ranking goal for core treatment pages.
The specific numbers will vary. What matters is that the targets are written down. If they aren't, ask for that conversation now rather than six months from now when you're trying to decide whether the partnership worked.
Question 6: Can I See a Real Example of Your Reporting?
Ask your agency for a sample report, either from your own account or a redacted example from a comparable client.
