How to Choose a Meta Ads Agency for Ecommerce in India: A 6-Point Checklist

By the Monastic Media teamUpdated 9 Oct 20267 min read

The checklist at a glance

No honest guide can name one best Meta Ads agency for every brand. Your category, average order value, margin and creative needs decide what fits. What you can do is run every agency on your shortlist through the same six checks. The ones that pass all six are worth a trial.

Use this table in your first call. Ask each question as it is written and note the answer word for word.

1. Check Meta partner status the right way

A Meta partner has been reviewed by Meta and meets its standards for how it runs ads. It is a useful filter, but it is a floor, not proof of results. Meta also reviews eligibility over time, so status can change.

Do not accept a logo on a deck. Ask the agency to show its status inside Meta's tools on a screen share, or show its listing in Meta's partner directory if that is open at the time. Then ask what the status means for you in practice: faster support routes, early access to features, better help when an ad account is restricted.

Monastic Media is a Meta partner. We will show it on a call, and we would expect any agency you shortlist to do the same.

2. Ask for case studies in your category

Meta Ads for a jewellery brand and Meta Ads for a protein snack brand are different jobs. The buyer, the price, the hook, the time to purchase and the return rate all change. An agency that has done your category already knows which ad formats get the click and which audiences waste money.

When you look at a case study, read past the headline number. Ask these questions:

• What was the starting point, and what changed: the ads, the account structure, the offer or the landing page?
• Which ads won, and why do they think they won?
• Was the result held for months, or was it one strong sale period?
• Is ROAS measured in Meta Ads Manager or against your store's real orders after returns and RTO?
• Can they walk you through it live, without reading from the slide?

3. Find out who actually runs your account

This is the check most founders skip, and it matters most. The person on the sales call is often not the person who opens your Ads Manager every morning. Ask by name who will plan the campaigns, who sets the budgets and who makes the ads.

On Meta the ad is the targeting. The platform decides who sees an ad largely from the ad itself, so your results depend on how many good new ads go live each week. If the media buyer and the video team sit in different companies, each round of new ads gets slower. Ask whether ads videos are scripted, shot and edited in-house, or passed to a production house or freelancers.

Ask about reporting too. You should see the numbers often, not just in a monthly deck. Every brand we work with gets seven KPIs in its own Slack channel at 6:30 PM every evening: spend, revenue, ROAS, cost per purchase, CTR, CPC and purchases. Whatever an agency offers, make sure it is daily or close to it, and in a place your team already reads.

• Who is my day-to-day media buyer, and how many years have they run Meta Ads?
• Who writes, shoots and edits the ads, and are they on your team?
• How many new ads can you put live in a normal week?
• Where and how often will I see spend, revenue and ROAS?

4. Judge them on margin, not just ROAS

ROAS on its own can mislead. A brand with a thin margin can lose money at a ROAS that would be very profitable for a brand with a fat one. Cash on delivery orders that are refused, and returns, cut real revenue further.

A good agency starts with your numbers before it talks about targets. It should ask for your product margin, average order value, return and RTO rate and repeat purchase rate. From those it works out the break-even ROAS and the cost per purchase you can afford. Be wary of any agency that quotes a ROAS figure before it has seen them.

Ask how they will report true revenue. Meta Ads Manager counts purchases its own way. Check that tracking is set up with the pixel and the Conversions API, and that the agency compares Meta's numbers with the orders in your store's backend. Our guide on Meta CAPI tracking setup covers what a correct setup looks like.

5. Start with a trial and keep the exit clean

You do not need to commit for a year to find out whether an agency is right. Ask for a defined first phase with clear goals: the tracking fixed, a set number of new ads tested and an agreed cost per purchase target. Agree up front what a pass looks like.

Ownership matters more than contract length. Before you start, check these points:

• The Business Manager, ad account, pixel and catalogue are in your company's name, and the agency is added as a partner.
• Your card or your company pays Meta directly, so you always see the real spend.
• The raw video files and ad copy are handed over if you part ways.
• The notice period is short and written down.
• Nothing is held back as leverage when the relationship ends.

6. Speak to a brand they work with now

Testimonials on a website are chosen by the agency. A call with a current brand tells you how the agency behaves on an ordinary week, not just in its best case. Ask the agency to introduce you to a brand it works with today, ideally of similar size or category.

On that call, ask the founder or marketing head:

• How quickly do they reply when sales dip?
• Who do you actually speak to each week?
• How often do new ads go live, and are they good?
• Have the numbers in their reports ever disagreed with your own store data?
• Would you sign again today?

How to use this checklist

Shortlist three agencies at most. Run all six checks on each, in the same order, and score them on what they showed you, not what they said. An agency that fails check 3 or check 5 should drop off even if its case studies look strong.

If you are still deciding whether to hire an agency at all, read in-house team vs performance marketing agency first. If you want to know what the first few months with a Meta agency look like, see Meta Ads agency for ecommerce in India: what to expect.

How Monastic Media helps

One in-house team in Surat scripts, shoots and edits the ads videos and runs the Meta and Google campaigns they go into, so the people who see the numbers make the next ad. See our performance marketing

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