8 Red Flags Every Bespoke Tailor Must Know Before Hiring a Marketing Agency or Freelancer

Choosing the right marketing agency can be the difference between scaling your suit business and burning through your budget with nothing to show for it.

After managing over €24 million in advertising budgets specifically in the suit industry, working with 50+ tailoring businesses, and inheriting projects over from previous agencies, we've seen it all: the good, the bad, and the downright terrible.

Here's the problem: Most suit business owners don't know what questions to ask until it's too late. They sign a contract, pay the retainer, and three months later realize they've been working with an agency that doesn't understand luxury products, can't deliver results, and is more focused on their own profit than yours.

This guide will help you identify red flags before you sign anything.

Red Flag #1: You're Sold by the CEO, Serviced by an Intern

The Setup:

You reach out to one of the biggest, most well-known marketing agencies in your area. They have impressive offices, polished websites, and advertise heavily.

You get on a call with their CEO or Senior Project Manager. A well-spoken, savvy professional who sells you miracles. They are friendly and full of empathy. They've worked with luxury brands. They guarantee results.

You sign the contract feeling confident.

The Reality:

Few weeks later, you realize your campaigns are actually being managed by an unpaid intern or junior employee who:

• Can barely allocate a few hours per month to your project

• Is simultaneously managing hundreds of different clients

• Spends most of their time creating reports and attending internal meetings

• Has no real experience in luxury marketing or the suit industry

What to Ask:

Before signing anything, ask directly:

"Who will be the actual person managing my advertising day-to-day? Can I meet them before we start? What is their experience level, and how many other clients are they managing?"

If they dodge this question or refuse to introduce you to the person who'll actually do the work, walk away.

Red Flag #2: They Give You Guarantees and Promises

The Pitch:

"We guarantee you'll get 50 leads in the first month."

"We promise a 300% ROI within 60 days."

"You'll definitely see results or your money back."

Why This is a Problem:

If an agency is giving you specific guarantees and promises in the suit industry, it's already a red flag. They don't understand how the custom suit market works.

The strategies they use to sell cheap gadgets, cosmetics, commodities, or subscription services will not work in our industry.

Suit sales—especially MTM and bespoke—involve:

• High-ticket purchases (€1,000-€10,000+)

• Long consideration periods

• Multiple touchpoints before purchase

• Relationship-based selling

• Luxury positioning

This is fundamentally different from selling a €50 product on impulse.

What to Look For:

A good agency will be honest about:

• Realistic timelines for results

• The testing period required to optimize campaigns

• Market-specific challenges in your area

• Variables they can't control (your sales process, product quality, pricing)

They'll talk about probabilities and strategies, not guarantees, and will warn you about potential issues.

Red Flag #3: They Name Your Budget Before Understanding Your Business

The Scenario:

Within the first 15 minutes of your conversation, before you've explained your goals, market, or current situation in detail, they tell you:

"You need to spend at least €5,000/month on ads to see results."

Or they recommend a bunch of expensive "upsells" that cost money but deliver no actual value.

Why This Happens:

In large marketing companies, the person doing the work is not the person doing the selling. The salesperson is the one who gets the commission, and it's in their interest to make as much money as possible.

They're often over-incentivized to:

• Maximize your advertising budgets (higher spend = higher commission)

• Sell you additional services and software that may not actually be useful to you, but are very useful for maximizing their commission

• Lock you into contracts with inflated budgets before understanding if those numbers make sense for your business

They recommend budgets that are right for them, not budgets aligned with your goals.

What Should Happen Instead:

A quality agency will:

1. Ask detailed questions about your business, goals, and current performance

2. Research your local market and competition

3. Understand your sales process and average order value

4. Then recommend a budget based on what's actually required to achieve your specific objectives

The budget conversation should come after they understand your situation, not before.

What to Ask:

"How did you arrive at that budget recommendation? Can you walk me through the math based on my specific market and goals?"

If they can't justify it with data and logic, it's a red flag.

Red Flag #4: They're Selling You Clicks, Not a Strategy

The Pitch:

"We'll get you 10,000 impressions and 500 clicks per month!"

"Your ad will be seen by 50,000 people!"

The Problem:

Clicks and views mean nothing if they don't convert into appointments or sales—or at the very least, serve as a strategic tool for establishing your brand following a well-thought-out strategy.

Low-quality agencies focus on vanity metrics because they're easy to deliver and look impressive in reports. But they often overlook the most important part: actual strategy.

What Good Agencies Do:

The best marketing agencies spend significant time:

• Researching your market and competition

• Analyzing what's actually working in your specific area

• Understanding your ideal client's behavior and preferences

• Developing messaging that resonates with luxury buyers

• Creating a funnel that moves prospects from awareness to appointment to purchase

They focus on outcomes, not activity.

What to Ask:

"Can you walk me through your research process and strategy development before we launch campaigns? What specific approach would you take for my business and why?"

If they can't articulate a clear, customized strategy, they're just going to throw money at ads and hope something sticks.

Red Flag #5: They Only Optimize for Leads, Not Actual Buyers

The Technical Issue:

Setting up proper tracking and conversion optimization is becoming more difficult and confusing with privacy changes and platform updates.

Because of this, the vast majority of agencies take the easy route: they set up minimum required tracking and optimize their campaigns toward generating appointments regardless of quality.

The Result:

You often end up in a situation where you have too many low-intent leads:

• People who don't show up to appointments

• People who try to price shop during the appointment and leave without becoming a customer

• Tire-kickers with no real intention of buying just wasting your time

These low-quality leads eat into time slots that could otherwise be used for servicing high-value clients who:

• Are willing to spend more

• Have an actual need

• Are not price shoppers

• Actually value your craftsmanship

• Will bring you referrals later on

• Become repeat customers

Long-term, optimizing for quantity over quality is a losing strategy.

What Good Agencies Do:

They take the time to set up advanced tracking that distinguishes between:

• Tire-kickers and serious buyers

• Low-value inquiries and high-value prospects

• People who book appointments vs. people who actually purchase

Then they optimize your campaigns toward real buyers, not just form submissions.

What to Ask:

Wait until later in the discussion to ask this—you want to see if they bring it up themselves first. If they don't mention quality tracking and optimization, ask:

"How do you track and optimize for actual purchases, not just leads? Can you set up conversion tracking that distinguishes between qualified and unqualified inquiries?"

If you're desperate to find someone to handle your marketing and they don't mention this, still ask the question. There are millions of small technical and boring nuances where they might screw you up or confuse you with smart lingo, but having someone who at least understands the concept is better than nothing. If they provide some answers that feel off to you, feel free to ask this: "Will this setup to track buyers be enough to provide the data necessary for Google Ad Value bidding and satisfy CAPI requirements on meta?"

Since you do not understand the technicalities, they can still lie to you, but some might admit the fact that it won't, and you should either look elsewhere or take their honesty into consideration when comparing options.

Red Flag #6: They Don't Understand Your Market

The Test:

Before you start explaining your market and business in detail, ask them:

"How would you approach marketing for my suit business? Who do you think my ideal customer is?"

Pay close attention to their answer.

What to Listen For:

Do they understand:

• The luxury segment and how it differs from mass-market?

• Your potential customers' daily lives, values, and decision-making process?

• The difference between R2W, MTM, and bespoke?

• Why would someone pay €3,000 for a suit instead of €300?

Are they good ambassadors to deliver your message without losing it in translation?

The Reality:

If they don't understand your product or market, they can't possibly create effective marketing for it.

We've seen the nightmare cases where agencies don't understand the suit market at all. We've witnessed countless situations where individual clients were wasting tens of thousands of dollars a year in the past, showing their ads to people who were searching for:

• Suit alterations

• Used suits on eBay

• Swimsuits

• Borat suits

• And other completely irrelevant searches

Here's what happens when the agency does not understand your market:

If you're selling custom garments (MTM/Bespoke): They'll use the same approach, strategy, and bidding systems as those used for selling off-the-rack garments. Your high-ticket, relationship-based sales process gets treated like a commodity product.

If you're selling ready-to-wear: They might aggressively overbid or compete with €3,000+ custom suit brands, where you'll just get bled dry competing with brands that are willing to spend significantly more per customer acquisition.

Either way, you lose.

What to Look For:

An agency that either:

• Has specific experience in luxury goods or high-ticket services

• Asks intelligent questions that show they're trying to understand your unique positioning

• Admits what they don't know and commits to learning your industry

Avoid agencies that treat your €5,000 bespoke suit business the same way they'd market a pizza delivery service.

Red Flag #7: They Never Offer Suggestions Beyond Their Service

The Pattern:

You're working with an agency. Months go by. They run ads, send reports, and take your money.

But they never proactively reach out with suggestions. They never share insights about what they're seeing. They never recommend optimizations outside their specific scope of work.

Why This Matters:

Most agencies want to run a streamlined operation with minimum effort. They focus on doing one specific thing without being proactive about helping their clients get better results overall.

What Good Agencies Do:

A quality agency will proactively reach out, offering perspective on:

• Your website's conversion rate and how to improve it

• Your sales process and where prospects are dropping off

• Your offer structure and messaging

• Your pricing strategy

• Your booking process and customer experience

Sometimes, the thing that would make the biggest difference is outside their direct scope, and a good agency will tell you that honestly.

What to Look For:

An agency that acts like a strategic partner, not just a vendor executing tasks.

Red Flag #8: They Lock You Into Long-Term Contracts

The Contract:

You're excited about working with an agency. Then they send over the contract.

It requires you to:

• Commit to spending a certain amount on advertising each month

• Pay them a fixed management fee

• Stay locked in for an extended period—most commonly 3 months, sometimes even more hostile terms like 6-12 month contracts

You're committing to spending significant money without understanding how well it will actually turn out.

The Reality:

We've seen countless cases where clients were held hostage by these contracts. They were forced to keep spending on advertising and paying an agency that was going in a completely wrong direction, essentially being held captive through legal means.

Month after month, they watched their money disappear while the agency delivered poor results. But they couldn't leave without breaching the contract and facing penalties.

Why Agencies Do This:

Long-term contracts protect the agency, not you. They guarantee revenue regardless of performance. If they're confident in their ability to deliver results, why do they need to lock you in?

What Good Agencies Do:

The best agencies don't want to keep you hostage. They offer flexibility and should actually be the first ones to tell you when they're unable or unlikely to get you the results you need.

Instead of selling you the dream and promising to "keep optimizing" (which might take years of aggressive spending before you see profitability), they'll be honest about:

• Whether your market is viable for paid advertising

• If your budget is realistic for your goals

• When something isn't working, and it's time to pivot or stop

They earn your business every month through results, not through legal contracts.

What to Look For:

• Month-to-month agreements or maximum 30-day notice period

• No minimum ad spend commitments (beyond what's strategically necessary)

• Clear exit terms with no penalties

• Transparency about when things aren't working

What to Ask:

"What are your contract terms? Can I cancel with 30 days' notice if I'm not seeing results? Are there any penalties for ending the relationship early?"

If they push hard for long-term commitments before proving they can deliver, that's a major red flag. Sure, it will take a few months to get results in any case, but unless you have the freedom to walk away at any time, somethign is off.

Green Flag: The Right Pricing Model

Now let's talk about what you should look for in pricing structure.

Avoid These Extremes:

The €20 Fiverr Freelancer: They might be able to "technically" set up a campaign same way an amateur could alter his suit following YouTube tutorial, but if you wouldn't trust heart surgery to someone who can do it for €5, why are you letting someone with such a low level of confidence and experience operate on your business?

The Overpriced Agency: Agencies that charge extortionately high fixed monthly retainer fees are a problem unless they can back it up with specific results and reasoning. Otherwise, they're overcharging.

The issue with fixed fees: there's no incentive for them to work harder on your project. Their financial incentive stays the same whether you get good or bad results.

The Best Pricing Model:

A combination of a minimum fixed retainer + diminishing percentage of ad spend.

Example: €X/month base retainer which moves to Y% of the adspend if exceeded. Lower % at incrementally higher advertising budgets

Why This Works:

1. You're protected from overspending on management - There's a reasonable floor

2. The agency is incentivized to get you results - If you get better results, you're happy to spend more, and they earn more

3. You both grow together - Aligned incentives create partnership, not adversarial relationships

4. Diminishing percentage recognizes reality - If you spend two times more on advertising, it doesn't mean two times more work for the advertising agency. Yes, there's more work—more campaigns, more optimization, more focus and analysis—but it's not double. Economy of scale applies to marketing. Prioritize marketing companies that have a diminishing percentage of ad budget fees based on the amount spent. This shows they're not trying to squeeze every penny out of you and are willing to compromise to ensure your results.

This model ensures the agency is focused on your success, not just collecting a flat fee regardless of performance.

Your Action Plan: Questions to Ask Before Hiring

Before you sign with any marketing agency, ask these questions:

1. "Who specifically will manage my account day-to-day, and can I meet them?"

2. "What guarantees are you making, and how can you back them up?"

3. "How did you arrive at the recommended budget for my business specifically?"

4. "Walk me through your research and strategy process before launching campaigns."

5. "How do you track and optimize for actual buyers, not just leads?" (Ask this later in the conversation)

6. "What's your experience with luxury products or high-ticket services?"

7. "What can you recommend us to change/improve to ensure better results?"

8. "What are your contract terms? Can I cancel with 30 days notice if needed?"

9. "What's your pricing structure and why is it set up that way?"

Their answers will tell you everything you need to know.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right marketing agency is one of the most important decisions you'll make for your suit business.

The wrong agency will waste your money, damage your brand, and leave you more skeptical of marketing than when you started.

The right agency will become a strategic partner who understands your business, drives real results, and helps you scale profitably.

Take your time. Ask hard questions. Trust your instincts.

And remember: if something feels off during the sales process, it's probably not going to get better after you sign the contract.

A Personal Note:

If you've had bad experiences with marketing agencies in the past, haven't been able to find the right one, or you're in a position where you're starting to look for one, this might sound biased (it is)—but I'd highly recommend checking us out:

Sartorialdigital.eu

We are the world's only marketing/consulting company that exclusively works with businesses in the suit industry. We have a decade-long experience having managed over €24 million in advertising for 50+ suit businesses (RTW, MTM, Bespoke) worldwide, owned our own suit store, and were tailors putting in late-night orders at 2 am, fueled by coffee and anxiety of delivery deadlines for last-minute wedding clients....

While we can't guarantee you X leads in Y days, we can guarantee you the fact that we can give you the best shot at making your advertising efforts profitable in our industry.

If you're interested, schedule a free discovery session here: https://calendly.com/sartorialdigital/discovery-call where we'll learn more about your business and see if and how we can assist you in generating more appointments and in-store visitors in 2026.

To your success,

Andris