Nine questions a Singapore marketing agency would rather not answer, and the public record that already answers six of them

Ask the nine questions below, but read before you ask any of them. On 28 October 2026 we opened twelve Singapore marketing supplier sites and found that six of the nine questions were already answered in public, in writing, by somebody with an interest in the answer. Four suppliers published a monthly starting figure, one published a sentence saying it charges no management fee at all, one published a six month minimum commitment, and six published nothing about money anywhere. That reading alone cuts a long list to three names, which is why a shortlist here takes about ten working days rather than two months. The pitch process is not what tells you who to hire. The reading is, and the meeting then confirms or kills it.

The reading this page is built on

The instrument here is saved assistant answers rather than a keyword tool, and there is no search volume on this page because none exists for a sentence anybody actually speaks. The set holds 64 blind pipelines across 32 batches of buyer questions put to ChatGPT and Gemini on 26 October 2026, with Singapore written into the text of every question. Singapore has to go into the prompt because the interface we query accepts a country parameter, a language parameter and a location parameter, answers HTTP 200 to all three, and acts on none of them.

The question "What questions should I ask a marketing agency before signing, that they will not want to answer?" ran on ChatGPT in that set and produced one reading. In that reading the engine named no agency at all. What it did do is reach for 20 cited hosts, and the shape of that list is the useful part: alongside Singapore agency sites such as oom.com.sg, firstpagedigital.sg, constructdigital.com and brewinteractive.com, it pulled in clutch.co, thebestsg.com, themanifest.com, techdirectory.sg, bestinhood.com and singaporebest.com.sg. Six of twenty were somebody else's list of agencies. So when a Singapore buyer asks an assistant how to interview an agency, a large part of the answer is assembled out of directories, and a directory is paid to be useful to suppliers.

The six questions a supplier has usually answered before you call

Every figure below names the page it came from and the day it was read. None of them is a quote you were given, and a quote you were given this week beats any figure printed anywhere.

Question	Where the answer already sits
Who does the work, and where do they sit?	The supplier's own address. pulsenpixels.com describes itself as a Singapore based agency and lists 7 Temasek Boulevard, Singapore 038987. 6smarketers.com lists its head office as Ranchi, India, serving clients in the US, UK, Australia and APAC. Both read 28 October 2026. Neither is a fault. Both change what you should ask about working hours and escalation.
What is your fee basis, and is media spend inside it?	marketingagency.sg publishes "Google Ads management from $1,500-$5,000/month plus ad spend". upscaled.com.sg publishes Google Ads management from S$2,500 a month plus ad spend. itechstudio.sg publishes the opposite position in a sentence: "There is no specific management fee for setting up, implementing or result reports from the ads". All read 28 October 2026.
What is the minimum commitment?	bestseo.sg asks for "an initial 6-month commitment", after which engagements move month to month, read 28 October 2026. A monthly figure is not always a monthly decision, and this is the single line that turns a small budget into a large one.
Is the figure with or without GST?	IRAS publishes that "The current GST rate is 9%" and that a business "must register for GST when your taxable turnover exceeds $1 million", read on iras.gov.sg on 28 October 2026. Among the Singapore supplier price pages we read that day, none stated its GST treatment beside the figure itself.
Which EDGE activity are you scoping this under, and at what support level?	enterprisesg.gov.sg publishes "Receive up to 70% for SMEs and up to 50% for non-SMEs", adds that "Support levels differ by activity", caps support at "up to S$100,000 in total grant support per year", and states that "EDG, MRA and PSG ceased on 29 September 2026". OOm's own FAQ says eligible SMEs can receive support of "up to 50%" of qualifying costs. Both read 28 October 2026. The two figures are not in conflict, because the government's own page says the level depends on the activity, which is exactly why the activity is the question.
What will you guarantee?	Google has published the answer for you. On developers.google.com, read 28 October 2026: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google", and "If they guarantee you that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else."

The three that no public record answers, so these are the ones to actually ask

These are the uncomfortable ones, and they are uncomfortable because the honest answer costs the supplier something.

• What does your monthly report say in a month when nothing improved? A supplier with a real reporting habit answers immediately, because it has written that month before. A supplier whose reporting is a dashboard describes the dashboard. Ask for last month's report for a client in a similar position, with the client details removed.
• Which of our competitors do you already work with, and what happens if one signs next month? There is no register of this and no way to check it afterwards. Get the answer in the contract as a named exclusion or accept that there is none.
• Who will hold the advertising account, the analytics property and the Search Console property on the day we stop? The right answer is that your company holds them and the supplier holds access. Our page on whether a Singapore agency is actually responsible for the leads it claims sets out the four accounts and the one test that settles causation.

Google publishes its own version of the interview, and it is short enough to use verbatim. Read on developers.google.com on 28 October 2026, it suggests asking "Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?", "Do you follow the Google Search Essentials (previously known as Webmaster Guidelines)?" and "What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?"

The ten working day shortlist, which replaces the pitch

A Singapore buyer can get from a long list to three names inside two working weeks without asking anybody to build a deck. The sequence matters more than the speed.

• Days one and two, read. Open each candidate's own site and write down four things: the registered address, any published figure with its unit, any stated minimum commitment, and whether the services you need are named as services rather than implied. Six of the twelve sites we read published no figure at all, which is not a disqualification and is a fact to carry into the meeting.
• Days three and four, one email each. Six sentences, the same six to everybody: what you sell, who to, the outcome you want, your monthly figure, the date you want to start, and the three questions above. Response speed and whether they answered the actual question will remove about a third of the list without a meeting.
• Days five to eight, one conversation each with the three who are left. Not a pitch. A conversation in which you ask the three unanswerable questions and they ask you about your pipeline. A supplier that spends the hour presenting rather than asking has told you how the work will run.
• Days nine and ten, the document. Fee basis, GST treatment, notice period, account ownership, named people, and the grant activity if a grant is in play. Everything above is a line in it.

If your company runs a formal process rather than this one, the stages are mapped in our page on how a Singapore company chooses a marketing supplier step by step, and the places the calendar actually stops are in how long a Singapore company takes to decide on an agency. Both are worth reading before you set a date, because the stage that eats the weeks is internal and no supplier can shorten it.

The two answers that should end a conversation

A promise of a specific ranking position, because Google's own documentation tells you to walk. And a refusal to put the fee basis in writing before the contract, because the fee basis is the only part of the arrangement that is certain to come up again.

Questions about interviewing a Singapore marketing agency

How many agencies should I actually talk to?

Three conversations after a reading pass beats six after none. The reading removes candidates on facts they published themselves, which is the cheapest possible elimination, and it leaves the meetings for the things nobody publishes.

Is it fair to ask an agency for a client's report?

Yes, with the client details removed, and a supplier that has the habit will send one the same day. If the answer is that reports are confidential in every form, ask for a blank template instead. A template still shows you what the month is measured on.

Should I ask for references or just check the logos?

Both, and in that order. A logo wall is a claim you can check in one call. A reference with a name, a role and a number is the thing procurement here will ask you for later anyway, so collecting it during selection saves the second round.

What if every shortlisted supplier refuses to publish a price?

That is the normal state of this market and it is not a warning sign on its own. Six of the twelve Singapore sites we read on 28 October 2026 published no figure. What matters is whether the supplier will state the fee basis and the unit in writing when asked directly, because that is what makes two quotes comparable.

Does a grant change which agency I should pick?

It changes the scope more than the shortlist. EnterpriseSG publishes that support levels differ by activity and that the annual cap is "up to S$100,000 in total grant support per year", read 28 October 2026, so the supplier that can write your project as a fundable activity is worth more than the one quoting the lowest monthly figure.

How current are the figures on this page?

Every one was read on 28 October 2026 from the page named beside it, and vendor pages move. Treat each as a dated snapshot that tells you what to ask about rather than what you will be charged.

The tenth question, which almost nobody in Singapore is asking yet

There is one question in agency selection that has become answerable in the last two years and is not on anybody's list: what does an assistant say about this supplier, and about us, when a buyer asks? It is worth asking because it is checkable in minutes and because the answer is frequently nothing. In the 64 blind readings taken on 26 October 2026, 36 of the 66 Singapore buyer questions produced a reading in which some vendor was named and we were not. AI Knows Us was named in zero of those readings and our domain was cited in four of them, and we publish both figures because the second one without the first would be a flattering half. On the stated criterion of being named by an assistant when a Singapore buyer asks, Semrush beats us plainly: it was named in 13 readings and cited in 13. What we do publish, which that comparison does not settle, is the method behind every figure on this page and the zero at the bottom of it, and anyone who wants to check what the assistants currently say about their own business can run the scan at aiknowsus.com and read the answer before they ask an agency about it.