Questions to ask before hiring a TikTok Shop agency

Signing a TikTok Shop agency is a bet on a specific team's execution, not on a pitch deck. The questions below are the ones that surface the difference — asked in roughly the order we'd expect a serious agency to welcome them, because the answers tell you whether they actually run accounts like yours or are learning on your budget.

1. What proof of results can you show from accounts you run right now?

Ask for recent Gross Merchandise Value, ROAS, and creator-affiliate revenue from live accounts — not view counts, follower growth, or year-old case studies.

Views and follower counts don't pay invoices; Shop GMV does. A credible agency can walk you through a current dashboard or recent export within reason (NDAs are normal, total silence isn't). If every example they offer is "we can't share specifics," that's either a permissions problem or a results problem, and you won't know which until you've already signed. For how we structure and report on this ourselves, see AI Audits & Market Research.

2. Who, specifically, will run my account — and how many others do they run?

Get a named point of contact and a real number of concurrent accounts, not a generic "our team" answer.

The person who impressed you on the sales call is often not the person who will touch your account day to day. Ask directly who that will be, what their TikTok Shop experience looks like, and how many other brands they're juggling at the same time — an operator spread across too many accounts will not run your creator pipeline or LIVE sessions with real attention. This matters most for the creator side of the business, where sourcing, sampling, and briefing are hands-on work; see our US & UK Creator Engine for what that looks like run properly.

3. What exactly is included, and what gets billed separately?

Ask for a line-item breakdown of what the monthly fee covers versus what's extra — ad spend, creator commissions, samples, and content production are commonly billed outside the retainer.

The headline number in a pitch is rarely the full cost. Get specifics on compliant setup and category approval (see Setup & API Onboarding), listing work (see Listing Optimisation), and whether paid amplification is bundled or add-on. Adeptecom publishes flat monthly pricing instead of a custom quote — $499/mo (Launch), $999/mo (Growth), and $1499/mo (Scale) — precisely so this question has a simple answer. For the broader landscape of retainer, commission, and hybrid pricing models, see our full cost breakdown.

4. How do you decide when to stop a paid campaign that isn't working?

A credible agency names a specific CPA or ROAS threshold and a timeline for pulling spend — not "we monitor it closely."

Spark Ads and GMV Max should only amplify content that has already proven itself organically, scaled against true business-level return rather than clicks or reach. Ask for an example of a campaign they killed and why. If they can't name a stop rule, they likely don't have one, and that's how budget quietly disappears into underperforming spend. More on how this should work in Ads, Spark & GMV Max.

5. How is LIVE selling actually staffed and run?

Ask who hosts, who moderates, and how often sessions run — "we help with strategy" usually means they don't run LIVE themselves.

LIVE is one of the highest-intent surfaces on TikTok Shop, but it's also the most operationally demanding: a trained host, a run-of-show, real-time moderation, and offer pacing that's reviewed and improved session over session. An agency that treats LIVE as an afterthought will leave real GMV on the table. See LIVE Selling & Growth for what a properly staffed cadence looks like.

6. What would make you walk away from working with a brand like mine?

A straight answer here — naming specific deal-breakers — usually signals a team that's selective about fit rather than one that will take any retainer.

Listen for whether they ask about your catalog size, fulfillment capacity, and ability to handle a sudden order spike before they talk strategy. An agency that skips straight to a proposal without asking these questions is pricing you the same as every other brand, which is a sign they haven't actually thought about your account specifically. Our buyer's checklist for ecommerce brands covers the fuller set of fit criteria, including partner status and GMV Max fluency.

Frequently asked questions