How to choose a performance marketing agency in Dubai: 10 questions to ask first

Key takeaways

• Measurement first: an agency should reconcile platform-reported conversions with your back-end orders every month.
• Incrementality: ask which tests it runs (branded-search pauses, geo holdouts, lift studies) and how often.
• Ownership: ad accounts, pixels, GA4 and data belong to you, in your name, from day one.
• Fees: media is paid by you directly to the platforms, never marked up; fees are fixed or a capped percentage.
• Red flags: guaranteed ROAS, rankings or follower numbers, and reports with no revenue in them.

Why is choosing an agency harder than it looks?

Because the numbers agencies show can be inflated by design. Each ad platform credits itself with every sale it touched, so totals often exceed real orders. In large-scale experiments at eBay, researchers found paid-search returns were a fraction of standard estimates, published as NBER Working Paper 20171.

“…returns from paid search are a fraction of conventional non-experimental estimates.”

Blake, Nosko & Tadelis, NBER Working Paper 20171

Reach is not the constraint in the UAE: Facebook’s ad reach was 9.70 million people, 85.0% of the population, and Instagram’s 8.05 million in late 2025, according to DataReportal. Any agency can spend your budget. The question is whether it can prove what the spend earned.

The 10 questions to ask

1. How do you reconcile platform conversions with our real orders?

The right answer is a monthly comparison of what Meta, Google and TikTok report against orders or qualified leads in your back end or CRM. A gap of more than about 15% means double counting. See the ROAS that lies.

2. Which incrementality tests will you run, and when?

Look for branded-search pause tests, geo holdouts and platform lift studies on a regular cycle. See incrementality testing.

3. Who owns the ad accounts, pixels and data?

You should. Accounts, Business Manager, GA4, Tag Manager and the CRM must be in your company’s name, with the agency added as a user. Agencies that keep accounts make leaving expensive.

4. How are your fees set, and is media marked up?

Media should be paid by you directly to the platforms. Fees should be fixed, or a percentage of spend with a cap. Percentage-only fees reward spending more, not spending better.

5. What does a report contain?

Revenue, cost per qualified lead or order, and what changed and why. Impressions and clicks are inputs, not results.

6. How do you set up tracking under consent rules?

Expect server-side conversions (Meta Conversions API, Google enhanced conversions) and consent mode for EU visitors. See consent mode.

7. How do you handle Arabic and English creative?

Ask for examples in both, and how creative is tested to significance rather than judged by taste.

8. What happens in the first 90 days?

A credible answer: audit and baseline in month one, restructure in month two, scale what is proven in month three, with platform numbers possibly dipping before revenue improves.

9. How do you think about AI search?

Fewer searches end in a click: Pew Research found users clicked a traditional result on 8% of Google visits with an AI summary, against 15% without. An agency should have a plan for being cited in AI answers too. See SEO for AI search.

10. Can you guarantee results?

The honest answer is no. Guarantees of ROAS, rankings or followers are a red flag. What can be guaranteed is method, transparency and a decision log.

What does a good proposal look like?

A written diagnosis of your current tracking and spend, a ranked list of fixes, the tests planned, the reporting format and the fee, all before a long contract. If an agency cannot tell you what it would test first, it is selling activity.