Before you sign with a meat marketing agency, ask for real client sales numbers with dates and a source, a campaign that failed, whether the people raise or sell meat themselves, how they handle deposits and hanging weight, what they report each month (shares, orders, customers and revenue, not clicks), who owns your store and customer list (you, always), what happens in month one, a written scope and price before work starts, and how you leave. An agency that cannot answer all twelve plainly is not ready for your ranch.

Reading time: about 8 minutes.

At a glance

• Twelve questions, each with why it matters, the weak answer you will often hear, and the answer you should get.
• Numbers to ask for: sales, beef shares, new customers and orders, with the dates compared and the system they came from. Clicks and followers are not results.
• The one non-negotiable: the rancher owns the store, the domain, the ad account and the customer list. All of them, from day one.
• The one honest answer every agency should give: nobody can guarantee a ranking or a sale.
• Our own answers to all twelve are below, including the campaign of ours that sold nothing.

This guide is part of our meat e-commerce hub. If you are still deciding whether to sell direct at all, start with the complete guide to selling beef direct to consumer.

The 12 questions to ask a meat marketing agency

A ranch sells a perishable product on a calendar it does not fully control: a steer booked at the processor months ahead, a share sold on a deposit and priced on a weight nobody knows until the animal hangs. Most agencies have never sold one. These questions find that out before money changes hands.

1. Can you show me a client’s real sales numbers, with dates and a source?

Why it matters. Sales are the only result that pays a feed bill. An agency that has moved beef will have the numbers and know which dates they cover.

Weak answer. “We doubled a client’s revenue.” No name, no dates, no source, no before number. Or a page of logos with nothing beside them.

The answer you should get. A named client, before and after periods with dates, the figures for sales, shares, orders and new customers, the system they came from (the store’s own reporting), and what the comparison does not prove.

2. Tell me about a campaign that failed.

Why it matters. Every agency has one. The ones that admit it are the ones that will tell you when your money is going the wrong way.

Weak answer. “We have not really had one,” or a story where the failure was the client’s fault.

The answer you should get. A specific campaign, the number that showed it was not working, how long it took them to see it, what it cost, and what they ran instead.

3. Do you raise or sell meat yourselves?

Why it matters. Someone who has waited on a processor date or explained hanging weight at pickup already knows the questions your customers will ask. Someone who has not will learn them on your budget.

Weak answer. “We have worked with food brands,” or “we are big fans of local meat.”

The answer you should get. Yes or no, plainly. If yes, what they raise and how they sell it. If no, that is not disqualifying, but the answers to questions 4, 5 and 6 need to be very good.

4. How do you handle deposits, hanging weight and variable-weight pricing?

Why it matters. Shares are the highest-value product a ranch sells and the hardest to put on a web page: a deposit up front, a price on a weight the buyer has never heard of, and a balance due later.

Weak answer. “The platform handles that,” or “we would just list the half beef at a set price.”

The answer you should get. They walk you from live weight to hanging weight to take-home pounds, say which one your price is on, and show how the page will state the deposit, the estimated final price and the balance bill. If they cannot, hand them our guide on hanging weight versus take-home weight, the hanging weight calculator, and how to sell whole, half and quarter beef shares online.

5. What will you report every month, and where do the numbers come from?

Why it matters. You will judge the work by the report. If the report is built from clicks and followers, you will never know whether beef moved.

Weak answer. A dashboard of impressions, reach, clicks, follower growth and “engagement.” All of those can rise while sales sit still.

The answer you should get. Shares sold, orders, new customers and revenue, pulled from your store’s own reporting, with last month and last year beside them. Clicks, rankings and opens belong underneath, as the explanation.

6. Do you build the plan around my processing calendar?

Why it matters. Inventory arrives on processor dates, not marketing dates. A share campaign that peaks the week after the animals hang is a campaign for cuts you now sell one package at a time.

Weak answer. “We run an always-on content calendar,” or a plan with no harvest dates on it.

The answer you should get. They ask for your processor dates in the first meeting and build the reservation push, balance-due emails and pickup reminders backward from them. Those emails are in email sequences that sell the next beef share.

7. Who owns the store, the domain, the ad account and the customer list?

Why it matters. This decides whether you can ever leave. An agency that holds your accounts holds your business.

Weak answer. “We set everything up under our agency account, it is simpler.” “The list lives in our system.”

The answer you should get. The rancher, always. The store is in your name on your card, the domain is registered to you, the ad account sits under your business with the agency added as a user, and the customer list lives where you can log in and export it. The pieces and what they cost are in the direct-to-consumer ranch tech stack.

8. What happens in month one?

Why it matters. Month one shows whether the agency has a method or a menu. A method has an order of operations.

Weak answer. “Discovery and strategy,” with nothing a rancher could point to on day 30.

The answer you should get. A short list of jobs with dates: what they will pull, what they will fix, what will be live by day 30, and which number they expect to move first.

9. How do you price, and is there a written scope before work starts?

Why it matters. A retainer without a scope is an argument waiting to happen over what was included.

Weak answer. A monthly number and a handshake, or a proposal so broad it covers anything and promises nothing.

The answer you should get. A written scope naming the pages, systems, reports and meetings, a price, the term, and what is not included, signed before the first hour of work.

10. How long until results, and what does “results” mean?

Why it matters. The honest answer and the sales answer are different. You need the honest one to set your cash flow.

Weak answer. “You will see results in 30 days,” with “results” left undefined.

The answer you should get. A definition first: shares reserved, orders placed, customers gained. Then a timeframe with a reason behind it.

11. What will you not do?

Why it matters. The limits an agency states out loud are the promises it will keep.

Weak answer. “We can do anything you need,” or a guaranteed ranking. Google’s own guidance on hiring search help says to be wary of anyone who guarantees a top ranking (Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO?).

The answer you should get. No guaranteed rankings, no guaranteed sales, no product claims they cannot verify against your animals and processing, and no changes to your inventory or operations without you.

12. How do I leave?

Why it matters. You decide this before you sign, when you have the most say and the clearest head.

Weak answer. A twelve-month term with a termination fee, and a vague answer about what you keep.

The answer you should get. A notice period in days, no fee after that notice, and a written list of what transfers back. Since you own all of it (question 7), leaving is a handoff, not a negotiation.

Worked example: what should a monthly report show?

Assumptions, labeled as placeholders for illustration, not AMA pricing or market data.

• Retainer: $2,500 a month
• Quarter share price: $1,100 (deposit plus balance)
• Average box order: $180

Report A (traffic): 3,800 store visits, 420 new followers, 22 percent email open rate. No sales line.

Report B (sales): 3 quarter shares reserved, 14 box orders, 9 new customers, revenue from the store.

The math on Report B:

Revenue = (shares × share price) + (box orders × average box order) Revenue = (3 × $1,100) + (14 × $180) = $3,300 + $2,520 = $5,820

Revenue ÷ retainer = $5,820 ÷ $2,500 = 2.33

The month returned about 2.3 dollars of sales per retainer dollar, before product cost, and you know it because the report said what sold. Report A cannot tell you whether one visitor bought. The tactics that moved sales at a real ranch, ranked, are in 21 ways to sell more beef online.

How AMA answers the same 12 questions

1. Real numbers. Diamond R Cattle, a fourth-generation Black Angus ranch in Independence, Kansas, store on Shopify. Comparing March 20 to April 18 against August 17 to September 15, 2026: sales $5,110 to $35,812 (7x), beef shares 0 to 11, new customers 19 to 53, orders 27 to 75, from Shopify. Selected-period comparison: slowest 30 days before vs. best 30 days after. It does not isolate the effect of marketing. The change took about three months.
2. A failure. Our first Facebook campaign set for Diamond R recorded 4,695 visits and zero attributed purchases. Selected-period comparison: slowest 30 days before vs. best 30 days after. It does not isolate the effect of marketing. We rebuilt the ads for warm audiences; the full account is in the Facebook ad campaign that got 4,695 visits and zero sales.
3. Do we raise or sell meat? Not under our name. We work every day alongside the ranchers and processors who do, which is where our answers to questions 4, 5 and 6 come from.
4. Deposits and hanging weight. The deposit, the weight basis and the balance bill go on the share page in plain words, and we publish the math in the hanging weight guide and calculator linked above.
5. Monthly report. The numbers we publish for Diamond R: sales, shares, new customers and orders, from the store’s own reporting.
6. Processing calendar. The plan starts from the ranch’s harvest dates.
7. Ownership. The rancher owns every account: store, domain, ad account, email and customer list.
8. Month one. Classify every search the site gets by intent, launch email follow-up, rewrite product titles to say what the customer gets, and start the city and state pages. That is the order it went at Diamond R.
9. Pricing. Written scope, price and terms before work starts. We work best with brands that have inventory to sell and can handle around $60,000 a year in sales to start.
10. Results. Shares, orders and customers. At Diamond R the change took about three months.
11. What we will not do. Guarantee a ranking or a sale, make a product claim we cannot verify against your animals, or change your inventory or operations.
12. Leaving. Every account is already yours, so leaving is a handoff.

How AMA handles this

Agriculture Marketing Agency is an agriculture-only agency. Joseph Timpson handles SEO and technical marketing. Herbert Timpson handles client coordination and implementation, so the rancher has one person to call. The work at Diamond R, which we call the CROP Framework, went in this order: every search classified by intent, recipe pages routed to the cuts they use, six city and state landing pages, product titles rewritten, email launched, ads rebuilt for warm audiences. The first conversation is a free 30-minute call, nothing is billed until a written scope, price and terms are signed, and every account the work touches is opened in the rancher’s name.

The work runs on the store the ranch already has, whether that is Shopify, where the Diamond R program runs, or a farm platform. Our platform comparison covers where each one fits.

Proof: what the answers looked like at Diamond R Cattle

Before AMA, two prior agencies (one email, one Facebook ads) had not moved shares at Diamond R. The biggest page on the site was a burger doneness guide with thousands of readers a month and no beef sales. Marty Reichenberger, who runs the ranch: “Back in May, I was concerned about what we were going to do with the cattle we had in the feed yard.”

The numbers are in answer 1 above: sales $5,110 to $35,812 (7x), beef shares 0 to 11, new customers 19 to 53, orders 27 to 75, comparing March 20 to April 18 against August 17 to September 15, 2026, in Shopify. Selected-period comparison: slowest 30 days before vs. best 30 days after. It does not isolate the effect of marketing. The full story is in the Diamond R Cattle case study.

What doesn’t work

Choosing on the lowest retainer. The cheapest proposal is usually the one with the least in it: no month-one plan, no sales reporting, no one who has sold a share. Compare scopes and reports, then price.

Signing a 12-month contract before month one is defined. If the agency cannot say what will be live by day 30, a year-long term only locks in the not knowing.

An agency that will not name a client. An agency that has moved meat for a ranch will have one ranch glad to say so. No named client and no numbers means you are the case study.

Frequently asked questions

What should a meat marketing agency show me before I sign? Real client sales numbers with dates and a source, a campaign that failed, a written scope and price, and a plain statement that you own the store, domain, ad account and customer list.

Should a marketing agency own my ranch’s ad account or customer list? No. The rancher owns every account. The agency is added as a user and removed when the work ends.

Is it a bad sign if an agency will not name a client? Yes, usually. One named ranch with dated numbers is worth more than a page of logos. If there is none, you are the first.

How long should it take a meat marketing agency to show results? Define results as shares, orders and customers first. At Diamond R Cattle the change took about three months. Selected-period comparison: slowest 30 days before vs. best 30 days after. It does not isolate the effect of marketing.

Can a marketing agency guarantee rankings or sales? No. Nobody can. Google’s own guidance on hiring search help says to be wary of anyone who guarantees a top ranking.

Ask us the twelve questions

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About the author. Herbert Timpson is a co-founder of Agriculture Marketing Agency, an agriculture-only agency, where he handles client coordination and implementation. He grew up raising sheep in Centennial Park, Arizona, worked sheep, cattle and crops in Mt. Pleasant, Utah, and keeps animals on his homestead.

Last updated: September 26, 2026

Sources

• Google Search Central, “Do you need an SEO?”: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo
• Diamond R Cattle case study (AMA case study page and EIN Presswire release, September 17, 2026): /case-studies/diamond-r-cattle/