What Every Marketing VP in McLean Should Be Asking Their Agency—But Isn’t

In a town like McLean, where the zip code says prestige and the expectations scream performance, Marketing VPs carry a unique pressure. They’re expected to drive revenue, build brand equity, outshine competitors, and keep internal stakeholders aligned. But what separates a good VP from a great one in this region isn’t just execution—it’s interrogation. Specifically, knowing the right questions to ask their agency partners.

Unfortunately, many Marketing VPs are asking the wrong ones. Or worse, none at all.

Here’s the unspoken truth: the agency world is full of smoke and mirrors. Pretty reports. Jargon-heavy decks. Click-through-rates dressed up as ROI. So, if you’re not asking the hard questions, you might be getting hustled—politely.

Let’s flip the script.

Below are the real questions every Marketing VP in McLean should be asking their agency—but probably isn’t.

Bonus Warm-Up: The Question Behind All Questions

Before diving into the top 10, there's one foundational question that underlies every interaction:

"Do you understand our revenue model like a CFO would?"

If your agency doesn’t understand how your company actually makes money—your cost structure, margins, LTV, churn risk, and expansion opportunities—then every tactic is just guesswork.

Great agencies don’t just align with the CMO. They speak fluently with Sales, Finance, and Product too.

1. "What’s the One KPI You’d Bet Your Contract On?"

Most agencies will bury you in metrics. Impressions. Clicks. Followers. But none of that matters if it doesn’t ladder up to business outcomes. So cut through the fluff. Ask them what single KPI they’d be willing to stake their retainer on.

Is it SQLs? Pipeline velocity? MQL-to-Customer conversion rate? CAC payback period?

The answer reveals whether your agency actually understands your business model or is just riding the vanity metric merry-go-round. If they dodge the question, your ROI is already in trouble.

And once they name it, ask this: "If you miss it, what changes will you make?" Because accountability is only real when there's a Plan B.

2. "How Are You Aligning Paid, Organic, and Sales Conversations?"

McLean is full of B2B companies with long sales cycles. That means your SEO, LinkedIn ads, and lead nurture emails must be synchronized with sales touchpoints.

If your agency is treating SEO like a blog factory and Paid Media like a volume game, they’re missing the plot. Each touchpoint must reinforce brand authority, not fragment it.

Great agencies create cross-channel cohesion, turning every piece of content into an accelerant for sales enablement. Ask to see proof of that alignment—not just a content calendar.

Ask them: Are sales teams using your content on calls? Are marketing-qualified leads showing up more educated? Is there message unity from ad to asset to SDR pitch?

Also consider: are your keywords, visuals, and CTAs consistent across paid and organic? If not, your funnel might be leaking.

Are you segmenting based on intent levels? Are LinkedIn ads targeting the same buyer profiles as your SEO content speaks to?

3. "Which Campaigns Failed—And Why?"

If your agency claims they’ve never had a campaign fail, they’re lying. Period.

Growth involves experimentation. And experimentation means failure. But here’s what you want to hear: what did they learn from it? How fast did they pivot? Did the post-mortem lead to stronger outcomes?

Ask about:

• Their fastest failed test

  
  

• The costliest mistake they learned from

  
  

• A bold strategy they pulled back from

Their answer will tell you if you hired a vendor or a growth partner.

Great partners document what doesn’t work as rigorously as what does. Because that’s where the real gold is buried.

Also ask: Did they share that failure with you before you asked?

4. "How Are You Engineering Buying Triggers?"

Great marketing isn’t reactive—it’s psychological.

In McLean, where executives are bombarded with whitepapers and webinars, you need campaigns that create urgency, not just awareness.

Is your agency using behavioral triggers like:

• Fear of missing out (FOMO)

  
  

• Change in legislation

  
  

• Budget use-it-or-lose-it cycles

  
  

• Competitor movement

Ask them how they’re manipulating market conditions to move your prospects faster through the funnel.

Better yet, ask: Are your campaigns passive or provocative?

Are they creating tension? Scarcity? Social proof?

Do they know how to manufacture “now-or-never” moments?

Have they ever engineered a campaign around a breaking news cycle? Industry shakeup? Regulatory deadline?

5. "Are You Reverse-Engineering Customer Anxiety?"

Forget personas. You want pain maps.

Ask your agency: What are the three nightmares keeping our ICP up at night? Not demographics. Not industry labels. But real, visceral, business-damaging fears.

Then ask how they’re translating those fears into landing pages, ads, subject lines, and sales scripts.

Do they use real call data? Review sites? Sales enablement tools like Gong?

Have they ever conducted an empathy interview with your customers or churned clients?

Can they identify your audience's most common objections—and proactively neutralize them in the funnel?

If they can’t give a clear answer, they don’t know your customer. Which means they’re guessing.

6. "How Will You Prove ROI Without Hiding Behind Attribution?"

Attribution models are helpful. But they’re also slippery. Agencies love to take credit for everything:

That deal that closed after 3 years? "Oh, they saw a banner ad in Q1 2022."

A $500K inbound lead? "They read a blog post once."

Cut through the fiction. Ask your agency to show how their work moves revenue, even if it’s not perfectly trackable.

Challenge them to measure impact through:

• Lift in branded search

  
  

• Shortened sales cycle

  
  

• Increase in high-quality inbound

  
  

• Direct lift in close rates

Also, request monthly business insights—not just dashboards. What did they learn this month that should shift next month’s strategy?

• Can they show incremental lift in high-intent behavior?

• Can they track velocity through the funnel?

• Can they tie efforts to sales productivity?

Ask how they measure influence, not just last-touch. If they struggle with this, they’re measuring the wrong things.

7. "What Are You Doing That No Other Agency Would Dare Do?"

This is the litmus test for creative courage.

If your agency is playing it safe, your brand is invisible.

Ask for examples of unorthodox campaigns. Non-traditional channels. Unexpected partnerships. Controversial copy.

• Have they used negative keywords to attract contrarians?

  
  

• Run ad campaigns targeting your competitor’s job applicants?

  
  

• Created a dark-funnel content series that wasn't indexable?

  
  

• Launched a campaign with zero paid spend as a proof point?

McLean is home to decision-makers who can smell safe marketing from a mile away. If you want attention, you need audacity.

The best agencies don’t just follow trends. They invent them.

8. "What Do You Think We Should Stop Doing?"

Every agency wants to tell you what to add. Few have the guts to tell you what to kill.

Should you:

• Stop posting to LinkedIn three times a day?

  
  

• Kill that underperforming podcast?

  
  

• Drop that niche product campaign?

  
  

• Eliminate a redundant sales nurture sequence?

A great agency is as focused on subtraction as they are on addition. This question separates the yes-men from the real partners.

And when they answer, follow up with: Why do you think we kept doing it in the first place?

Are they willing to diagnose your sunk-cost bias?

Are they bold enough to challenge sacred cows?

Do they understand how to help you streamline and reallocate resources—not just spend more?

9. "If I Gave You Our Competitor’s Brand, How Would You Beat Us?"

This forces your agency to reveal their playbook.

If they can’t tell you how they’d outmaneuver your brand from the outside, they definitely can’t protect you from being leapfrogged in the market.

Watch how they answer:

• What pain points would they exploit?

  
  

• What market wedge would they use?

  
  

• How would they position against you?

  
  

• What gaps in your customer experience would they attack?

  
  

You’re not just testing their creativity—you’re testing their situational awareness.

If their answer surprises you, good. That means they’re thinking like a strategist.

10. "What Are You Not Telling Me?"

This is the final gut check.

It’s also the most important question you can ask. Because it cuts to the real dynamics of your relationship.

Do they:

• Tell you when they disagree with your direction?

  
  

• Challenge your assumptions?

  
  

• Flag issues early?

Or do they nod, invoice, and execute?

The best agencies are proactive, not reactive. If there’s something they know that you don’t—and they’re hiding it to preserve the relationship—you lose.

When you ask this, you’re testing their integrity.

Then ask yourself: When was the last time they told me something uncomfortable but necessary?

Final Word: The Agency You Need Isn’t Always the One You Hired

McLean is a power hub. Proximity to capital, federal contracts, defense clients, and tech startups means competition is sharp and timelines are short. You don’t have the luxury of guessing or "letting the agency do their thing."

Marketing today isn’t about media buys or monthly reports. It’s about strategic pressure. You need an agency that can operate at the level of a growth strategist, not a task rabbit.

Start by changing the questions. That alone shifts the power dynamic. It forces the agency to earn the next phase of your trust.

And if your current agency stumbles through even three of these questions?

You might already have your answer.

Bonus: 5 Red Flags Your Agency Is Playing You

• They confuse traffic growth with revenue growth.

  
  

• They show vanity metrics, but can’t trace lead quality.

  
  

• They can’t clearly articulate your competitive differentiators.

  
  

• Every campaign looks templated.

  
  

• They avoid hard conversations until you bring them up.

Bonus #2: Smart Follow-Ups to Each Question

• "Show me a dashboard where this KPI is winning."

  
  

• "Can I sit in on one of your strategy sessions with our account team?"

  
  

• "What’s something you wanted to try but didn’t think we’d approve?"

  
  

• "Where are we wasting time, effort, or money right now?"

  
  

• "Which of our competitors would love to know what we’re doing—and why?"

  
  

• "If you had to cut 30% of our marketing budget, what would stay? What would go?"