Choosing a daycare marketing agency is a hiring decision: a shortlist, the same questions for everyone, and comparable answers.

This page is the interview: twelve questions to ask a child care marketing agency, the red flags, and what to read before signing.

It sits under our child care marketing agency guide, which covers what agencies do and charge.

The conversion that pays for all of this is a family touring and enrolling a child; judge every answer against that.

Twelve questions to ask a child care marketing agency

Email the list before the first call; written answers are comparable answers.

Reporting and results

  • 1. What will you judge this engagement on? Tour requests, booked tours and enrolled children should be named without prompting; "traffic" and "reach" mean the agency optimizes what it can see, not what it converts.
  • 2. Can I see a sample monthly report, redacted? ChildcareDM publishes its categories in writing: "Inquiries by source, cost per lead by channel, tour rate, enrollment rate", the shape to ask for.
  • 3. How will you measure what happens after the form? Inquiry-to-tour and tour-to-enrollment rates come out of your CRM or waitlist numbers, so ask what access the agency needs and who measures.
  • 4. What did you test last month, and what did you learn? One controlled test a month with a result, positive or not, is the rhythm that improves a website; "we post and boost" is activity, not a test.

Whether they know child care

  • 5. Where do families in my area actually find a center? A strong answer names more than Google: child care resource and referral agencies give families referrals to local providers and give providers business support, according to Child Care Aware of America, so your CCR&R and state search listings belong in the plan (see child care resource and referral).
  • 6. What changed in the rules this year that affects how we talk about price? If subsidized families are part of your enrollment: an HHS final rule published May 12, 2026 and effective July 13, 2026 repealed the federal requirements to cap family co-payments at 7% of income and to pay providers by enrollment rather than attendance, and per HHS, 31 states, DC and 5 territories limited co-payments to 7% or less as of March 2026 and may keep doing so. KinderCare's fiscal 2025 Form 10-K reports 37% of revenue came from families partly or fully subsidized by government agencies, one company's mix, not an industry average. Confirm rule-shaped answers with your state licensing agency or a lawyer; detail in our subsidy marketing guide.
  • 7. How would you market my most state-specific program? Give one real example and listen for specifics: in Florida, a School Readiness provider must be a licensed child care facility or licensed or registered family child care home (or meet listed exemptions), sign the statewide provider contract, collect parent co-payments and take part in the state program assessment (Fla. Stat. §1002.88); in Texas, before- and after-school programs run directly by an accredited educational facility (or under contract with one), and certain municipal recreation programs for ages 5-13, are exempt from child care licensing (Tex. Hum. Res. Code §42.041). A generalist answers with adjectives.

Reviews and children's privacy

  • 8. How do you earn reviews, and what do you never do? Google's Maps policy treats reviews from current or former employees, relatives, contractors and competitors as conflict-of-interest content and removes them, and treats unusual volumes or patterns as rating manipulation (Google, as of October 2026). The FTC's endorsement guides at 16 CFR 255.1(f) state that advertising agencies, reputation management companies, review brokers and similar intermediaries may be liable for their role in creating or disseminating deceptive endorsements (as of October 2026), so an agency selling a review bundle is the kind of intermediary that section names.
  • 9. How do you source photos, names and stories about enrolled children? Written parent permission comes before any identifiable child appears anywhere; an agency that shrugs at that is showing how it treats families' trust. If a pitch leans on FERPA, check it: FERPA's regulations apply to educational agencies and institutions to which funds have been made available under a program administered by the US Secretary of Education (34 CFR 99.1(a)).

Money and terms

  • 10. What is in the fee, and what is billed separately? Ad spend should go to the platform, not through a markup: BCP Digital Marketing states it plainly, "Prices shown are for management fees only. Ad spend is billed separately and paid directly to Google or Meta." Ours are published on the pricing page.
  • 11. Who owns the ad account, the website and the data? Your center should hold the Meta Business Manager, pixel, domain, Google Business Profile and analytics from day one, keeping every landing page, test result and report if you leave.
  • 12. How do we end this? Get in writing the notice cancellation needs, whether the contract auto-renews and at what rate, and any cancellation fee. Month-to-month exists here (Childcare Marketing Services lists every plan with no contracts), so a long lock-in needs a reason; the clause-by-clause version is in what a child care marketing contract should say.

Score answers like references: specific and checkable beats polished.

Advice rather than execution is a child care marketing consultant, and whether to hire at all has its own page on daycare marketing in house vs agency.

Daycare marketing agency red flags

Most bad fits announce themselves early, if you read past the homepage.

Grow Your Center's services page headlines "Guaranteed Google Ads Results!", while its own fulfillment policy (last updated September 10, 2025) says fees are solely for providing services, with "no implied guarantee of success"; read the policy page, not the homepage.

The AI-search upsell gets the same test: Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet to be a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that indexing and serving aren't guaranteed (Google, as of October 2026), so nobody can place you there on request.

The ranking-promise version gets its own dissection in our piece on guaranteed daycare SEO.

Red flags

  • Rankings or enrollments promised.
  • Review bundles sold as a service.
  • Reports that end at clicks.
  • Prices revealed only on a call.
  • AI placements sold as a deliverable.

What good looks like

  • Goals named in tours and enrollments.
  • A sample report, with method, before signing.
  • Fees, spend handling, renewal rates written down.
  • Exit terms as clear as the pitch.
  • Children's photos behind written permission.

Hiring a preschool marketing company

The twelve questions are the same for a preschool; what changes is positioning and competition.

Positioning: a Montessori, faith-based or play-based program sells something specific; a generalist writes "quality early education" copy that could belong to anyone, so ask how they would word what your classroom does that the one down the street does not (our preschool marketing and Montessori school marketing pages go deeper).

Competition: free public pre-K changes the pitch for the four-year-old room, so ask how the agency answers a parent's fair question, "why pay for this?" (competing with free public pre-K).

The before-you-sign checklist

Run the list before the deposit, not after.

  • Same twelve questions to every candidate, answers in writing.
  • A sample report reaches tours and enrollments, not just form fills.
  • Management fee, ad spend and setup fee separated; spend goes straight to the platform.
  • Term, renewal rate, notice period and cancellation fee in the contract.
  • Ownership of the ad account, site, profiles and pages in writing.
  • No review bundles; staff and relatives are not the review source.
  • Every photo of an enrolled child waits for written parent permission.

Start with your own numbers: the free audit returns a prioritized findings document within 3 business days, no call required.

If you would rather see the field first, the best child care marketing companies is the roundup; these questions work on every firm in it.

Frequently asked questions

What questions should I ask before hiring a daycare marketing agency?

Start with what gets judged (tour requests, booked tours, enrolled children), what the monthly report contains, who does the work, how reviews get earned, and how the contract ends. Send the same list to every agency and compare written answers, not pitch decks.

What are red flags in a daycare marketing agency?

Promised rankings or enrollments, a review bundle offered as a service, reports that stop at clicks, prices that appear only on a call, and a homepage promise that contradicts the policy page. Grow Your Center's site headlines "Guaranteed Google Ads Results!" while its own fulfillment policy says there is "no implied guarantee of success".

Who should own the ad account and website when an agency runs my marketing?

Your center should, from day one: the Meta ad account and pixel in your own Business Manager, plus your website, domain, Google Business Profile, analytics, landing pages and reports. Put it in the contract, not in an email.

How long should I give a new agency before judging results?

Give it at least one full enrollment cycle, and judge the work monthly (is the test running, is the report arriving) separately from the outcome, which takes longer. Ranking and content work compounds over months, so keep the two verdicts separate.

What is the difference between a specialist child care agency and a generalist?

A specialist should already know your channels (the map pack, CCR&R referrals, waitlist word of mouth), your enrollment calendar and the rules that shape enrollment messaging without a briefing. Ask the state-specific question in this article and the gap usually shows in the first answer.