Key takeaways
- Ask who will actually do the work, and meet them before you sign.
- Judge evidence by how specific it is: sector, starting point, what changed and over what period.
- Agree what will be reported, and how it connects to enquiries and revenue, before work starts.
Why this decision is different for international teams
Many companies in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven run in English: international founders, multinational teams, or businesses selling across Europe. They need a partner who can plan, write and report in English and who understands that their buyers may sit in several countries.
Working in English is the starting requirement, not the differentiator. What separates partners is expertise, execution, reporting and evidence.
1. Expertise: does it match your market?
Ask which markets and buyer types the partner has worked with, and how they would approach yours. A B2B company with a long sales cycle needs a different plan from an e-commerce brand selling into several EU countries.
- Can they explain how your buyers search and decide, in your terms?
- Do they cover the channels you need (search, paid media, landing pages, tracking) or only one?
- Can they plan for several target countries without creating duplicate pages?
2. Execution: who does the work?
In many agencies, a senior person runs the pitch and a junior team runs the account. That can work, but you should know in advance. Ask to meet the person who will set strategy and review your account each week.
Also ask how changes are made: who writes the content, who implements technical fixes, and what they need from your team. Projects stall more often for lack of approvals and developer time than for lack of ideas.
3. Reporting: what will you see each month?
Ask for an example report. A useful one explains what changed, what it produced in enquiries or sales, and what happens next. A report built on impressions, clicks and rankings alone makes it hard to judge whether the work is paying off.
- Which conversions are tracked, and how lead quality is fed back from sales.
- How channel results are separated, so SEO and paid media are not credited for the same enquiry twice.
- How often you meet, and who attends.
4. Evidence: how specific is it?
Case studies vary widely in what they prove. Strong evidence names the sector, the starting problem, what changed, the period and the result, and is honest about what was outside the partner's control. Vague percentages without context are weak evidence.
Where a client cannot be named, the partner should still be able to describe the situation in enough detail for you to judge relevance, and explain how they verified the result.
Questions to ask in the first call
Use these to compare partners on the same terms.
- Who will set strategy and who will do the day-to-day work?
- What would you do in the first month, and what should we expect by month six?
- What access and input do you need from us?
- How will we know, before revenue shows up, whether the work is on track?
- Who owns the ad accounts, analytics and content if we stop working together?
Illustrative example: comparing two proposals
This is an illustrative scenario, not a client result. An Amsterdam SaaS company compares two English-language proposals. One offers a fixed number of blog posts and backlinks each month. The other starts with a tracking and search review, proposes five commercial pages and a paid-search test, and reports on demo requests.
The second proposal is harder to compare on deliverables, but easier to judge on outcomes. The company asks both partners the questions above and chooses the one whose answers it can hold to account.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a Netherlands-based partner?
Not necessarily. What matters is whether the partner understands your buyers and markets and can work in your time zone and language. Many teams work remotely with scheduled calls.
Should we hire one partner for all channels?
If your channels need to work together, one partner who plans across search, paid media and landing pages avoids gaps. Specialists can still be added for specific tasks.
How long before we can judge a new partner?
Tracking and paid-media changes usually show an effect within 30 to 60 days. SEO takes longer. Agree leading indicators up front so you can judge progress early.
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