How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency in Harare

Start with the job, not the logo

“Digital marketing” covers search, social accounts, video, paid ads, email and reporting. An agency in Harare that offers all of them can still be a good fit. The test is whether each piece has an owner, a deliverable and a boundary. A proposal that uses every channel name in one paragraph, with no page or person responsible for any of them, is a proposal you cannot manage.

Questions worth asking

• Who owns the accounts? Google Ads, Meta Business Suite, Search Console and Analytics should be in an account the business can open after the contract ends. Access through the agency’s private login is a poor arrangement.
• What is the fee, and what is media spend? Management and the money paid to the ad platform are different. Ask which one the number covers. On Sonke’s social retainers, ad spend is separate and the page states a minimum of $100 a month for the Meta campaigns inside that retainer. That is one example of saying it plainly. Ask whoever you are considering to do the same.
• Is social management the same as Google Ads? A monthly social retainer that includes Meta ads is not a Google Ads engagement. If you need Search, Performance Max or YouTube, ask for that as its own scope. Mixing them into one line item makes both harder to judge.
• Is video production included, or only a count of videos? Some retainers include a set number of short videos. A one-off shoot is a different purchase. Ask which one is in the fee.
• What does the report show? A useful report names the enquiries, calls, purchases or profile views the work was meant to move. A report that only shows likes, with no definition of a lead, is not finished.
• Can they show the work? Ask for sites, accounts or films you can open. A case study that invents revenue is less useful than a page that shows the live project and stops there.
• Where are they? A Harare agency should be able to state its address and phone the same way on the website, the invoice and the Google listing. If those three disagree, believe the disagreement.

A reasonable way to compare proposals

Put the proposals in a sheet with one row per channel you actually need. For each row, write the deliverable, the owner, the fee, and whether media spend is extra. Empty cells are the negotiation. They are also the cells most likely to disappoint you in month three.

Sonke’s own split is published rather than implied. The overview is the digital marketing page. Search, social retainers, short-form video and Google Ads each have their own page, linked from there. Use those pages to see the boundaries. Use this guide to ask the same questions of anyone else.

The related service

This note explains the topic. The offer sits on Digital marketing.

Published by Sonke Digital. Questions about a project go through Get a quote, not through this guide.