How to Choose an AEO and Paid Media Agency in 2026: A Buyer's Checklist

Most "best agency" lists are written by agencies ranking themselves first. This is a checklist instead: the questions I'd ask any AEO (AI search) or paid media agency before signing, based on 13 years at Google, including leading the Google Ads lead-gen vertical. It applies to us too.

The short answer

Choose the agency that will be measured on cost per customer in your CRM, can show you how it feeds offline outcomes back to the ad platforms, and treats AI search and paid media as one program, not two retainers. Everything else is secondary.

10 questions to ask before you sign

1. "What number will you be judged on?" Good answer: cost per signed customer, booked consult or funded loan, pulled from your CRM. Weak answer: impressions, rankings, traffic or cost per lead.
2. "How will you get our CRM outcomes back into Google, Microsoft and Meta?" They should describe offline conversion imports or a conversions API, which stages they'd send, and how often. If they can't, the platforms will keep optimizing to form fills.
3. "What do you do when real sales take weeks to close?" Look for lead scoring: an early-quality signal built from your first-party data.
4. "How do you measure AI search visibility?" A real AEO program tracks a fixed set of buyer questions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, plus AI referral traffic and AI-referred revenue. Be wary of a single proprietary "visibility score".
5. "Where do AI answers in our category get their sources?" A strong agency will already know whether your category is decided by listicles, review sites, Reddit, directories or your own pages, because the plan is different for each.
6. "How do AEO and paid media share data?" Paid search terms should feed content, and AI-referred buyers should be tracked through the same CRM stages as paid leads. Separate agencies rarely do this.
7. "Who actually works on our account?" Ask for names and experience. Senior people set strategy; make sure they also do the work.
8. "Can we see results from a business like ours?" Ask for a specific outcome (for example, cost per signed case or cost per sale) in your industry, with the timeframe.
9. "What will you change in the first 30 days?" Expect tracking and conversion fixes first. An agency that starts by launching new campaigns on broken tracking is guessing.
10. "How will we see what's happening between reports?" Live dashboards and alerts beat a monthly deck. You should know within days when a market stops converting.

Red flags

• Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed AI mentions.
• Paid links or mass-produced AI content "for AEO". Both can hurt you, and AI engines increasingly discount them.
• Reporting that stops at cost per lead.
• No access to your own ad accounts and data, or long lock-in contracts.
• One team for SEO, another for PPC, and no shared CRM view.

What should an AEO and paid media agency cost?

Pricing varies widely. Most agencies charge a monthly management fee or a percentage of ad spend, and AEO is usually a flat monthly retainer. Compare total cost against the outcome: if one agency costs more but lowers your cost per customer by 20%, it's the cheaper choice. Ask every agency to model that math on your own numbers.

How to compare agencies fairly

Where FrogFish fits

FrogFish is built around this checklist: AEO and paid media as one program, offline conversions and lead scoring from the first month, and senior people on every account. We work with lead-gen businesses spending $10K or more a month, including law firms, solar and home services, clinical trials and real estate. If we're not the right fit, the questions above will help you find who is.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between AEO, GEO and SEO?

SEO aims for a ranked link in search results. AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) are two names for the same goal: being named and cited inside AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.

Should I hire one agency for AEO and paid media or two?

One, if it can measure both on the same CRM outcomes. The channels reach the same buyer minutes apart, and paid search data tells AEO what to write. Two agencies usually means two reports that each claim the same customer.

How long does AEO take to work?

Specific, niche questions can move in 30 to 90 days. Broad category questions ("best agency in the US") take 6 to 12 months, because AI answers lean on third-party lists and reviews that take time to earn.