How to Choose a Marketing Agency in Lebanon

Updated October 2026

3D illustration of a checklist clipboard with three blue ticks, a blue question mark and a pencil

Choose the marketing agency in Lebanon that puts your ad accounts, pixel and data in your name, reports on sales and leads rather than likes, and can tell you exactly who runs your account. Portfolio, awards and a good pitch deck come second. Below are the 12 questions we would ask any agency, ourselves included, before signing, plus the red flags and pricing models to know.

Key takeaways

Ownership comes first: on Meta, an ad account created in the agency’s business portfolio can’t be moved to yours later.
Ask who runs the account day to day, how they test, and how much new creative is included each month.
Judge reports on cost per lead or sale, ROAS and revenue, not reach and follower counts.
Red flags: guaranteed results, bought followers, agency-owned accounts, long lock-ins with no exit.
Know your breakeven CPA before the first call, so you can tell a good proposal from an expensive one.

Why picking the right agency matters

There is no shortage of choice: DesignRush alone lists 36 digital marketing companies in Lebanon, and that is one directory. The agencies differ far more than their websites suggest, from Google Ads specialists to full-service studios to regional network agencies. Our list of marketing companies in Lebanon shows the range.

When budgets are modest, a few months with the wrong partner hurts twice: once in wasted spend, and again if you leave without your ad accounts, audiences and conversion history. Most of that second loss is avoidable with the right questions up front.

12 questions to ask a marketing agency in Lebanon

1. Whose business portfolio will the ad accounts sit in?

Yours. Meta’s help center states that once an ad account is created in a business portfolio, it can’t be transferred to another business’s portfolio. If the agency opens your account inside its own portfolio, the history, audiences and learning stay with the agency when you leave. The clean set-up: the account lives in your portfolio and you add the agency as a partner.

For Google Ads the principle is the same: the account should be yours, the agency links its manager account, and only an Admin can manage users or unlink manager accounts. Make sure that Admin is you.

2. Will we keep full control of Business Manager, the Page and Instagram?

Only people with full control of a business portfolio can give a partner access, and a partner with full control of an asset still can’t share it onward; only the owning business can. Flip it around and you see the risk: if an agency shares an asset with you, you are limited to the permissions it assigned. Keep at least two people from your own team with full control.

3. Who owns the pixel and analytics?

Your Meta pixel (dataset), Conversions API set-up and Google Analytics property hold your conversion history. They should be created in your accounts, with the agency given access. In Google Analytics, the Administrator role is the one that can add and remove users, so it belongs to someone on your payroll.

4. Who pays the platforms, and will we see the invoices?

Some agencies put ad spend on their own card and re-bill you, which some businesses find easier. That is fine if you can see the platform’s own receipts and any markup or handling fee is written into the contract. What you want to avoid is a single monthly number that mixes spend and fees.

5. Who will actually run our account?

Ask for the name and seniority of the person building and adjusting campaigns day to day, not just the founder on the sales call, and how many other accounts they handle. If the answer is “the team”, ask to meet the team.

6. What results have you had in our category and market?

Google’s own checklist for hiring an SEO asks about experience in your industry and in your country or city; the same goes for paid media. Ask for case studies with a baseline, a time frame and the metric that moved. “Cost per lead from X to Y in Z months” beats a wall of logos.

7. What is your testing process?

A good answer names what gets tested (audiences, offers, hooks, landing pages), how much budget goes to tests, how long a test runs and what decides a winner. “We optimize daily” is not a process.

8. Who produces the creative, and how much is included?

In our experience, new creative moves results on Meta and TikTok more than any targeting setting. Pin down how many new ads you get per month, in which formats (static, video, UGC-style), who shoots them and how many revision rounds are included. If the agency only runs media, budget for production separately.

9. What do you need from us?

Margins, average order value, sales or CRM data, and quick approvals. An agency that never asks what a customer is worth to you can’t tell you what it is safe to pay for one. Expect this question, and have the answer ready.

Worked example. Your average order is $60, the product costs you $25 and shipping $5. Your breakeven CPA is $30 and your breakeven ROAS is 2.0 ($60 ÷ $30), so an agency targeting $35 per purchase is planning to lose $5 on every first order unless repeat purchases cover it. Our free Target CPA Calculator does this math for e-commerce and lead generation, with a 6-month profit projection; the formulas are explained in our breakeven CPA and ROAS guide.

10. Which metrics will you report, and how often?

Agree on the few numbers that tie to money: spend, cost per lead or purchase, ROAS, revenue, and lead quality if you sell through a sales team. A weekly check-in and a monthly review is a sensible rhythm. Whatever you choose, you should also have live access to Ads Manager and analytics instead of waiting for a PDF.

11. How long is the contract, and what is the notice period?

Month-to-month, or a short first term with a 30-day notice period, keeps both sides honest. A longer minimum can be fair when it covers set-up or production work, but there should be an exit if agreed targets are missed for a set period.

12. What happens to our assets if we leave?

Get it in writing: you keep the ad accounts, pixel, audiences, creative files (raw footage included), landing pages and reports, and the agency removes its own access after a handover. If the answer involves a fee to “transfer” accounts that should have been yours from day one, see the red flags below.

Red flags

Guaranteed results. Google says it plainly: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” (Google Search Central). Ad auctions are no different; nobody controls what a click or a sale will cost next month.
Bought followers or engagement. Meta’s spam policy prohibits selling, buying or exchanging engagement such as likes, shares, views and follows. Fake followers also pollute the audiences your ads learn from.
Vanity-metric reports. Reach, impressions and follower growth at the top of the report, and no cost per sale or lead anywhere.
Agency-owned ad accounts or pixels. See questions 1 to 3. Convenient on day one, expensive on the day you leave.
Badges as the whole pitch. A Google Partner badge means the agency meets Google’s thresholds: $10,000 in ad spend across managed accounts over 90 days, a 70% optimization score and at least half its strategists certified (Google). That is a sign of activity, not a forecast for your account.
Screenshots instead of access. If you can’t log in and see the numbers yourself, you are trusting a slide.

How agencies price their work

Agency fees usually follow one of four models, or a mix. None is better in itself; what matters is whether the incentives line up with your goal. Ad spend paid to Meta, Google or TikTok is separate in every model.

Model	How it works	Works well when	Watch for
Monthly retainer	Fixed fee for an agreed scope of work	Scope is stable and clearly written down	Vague deliverables; scope creep in both directions
Percentage of ad spend	Fee is a share of the media budget, often with a minimum	Budgets grow and management work grows with them	An incentive to raise spend whether or not returns follow
Project fee	One price for a launch, website, audit or campaign	The deliverable has a clear end	No ongoing optimization after delivery
Performance-based	Pay per lead or sale, or a revenue share, often on top of a base fee	Tracking is clean and the agency influences most of the funnel	Disputes over attribution and lead quality; risk priced into the rate

General description of common agency pricing models; not Small Patterns’ price list.

Whichever model you pick, ask what is included (creative, landing pages, reporting, calls), what costs extra, and how the fee changes if your budget doubles or halves.

Where Small Patterns fits

We are a performance-driven agency in Beirut: paid social and search on Meta, Google and TikTok, e-commerce growth, funnels and fast A/B testing, for brands in Lebanon and the GCC. If you mainly need a brand identity or a regional TV campaign, another agency from our list will serve you better. Our Lebanon page sums up our services and results.

If you need sales or leads at a cost that makes sense, that is our work. Peugeot’s cost per lead in Lebanon went from $44 to $1.60, and Better Life Market grew sales 2,400% year on year with a 24x return per dollar of ad spend. Across 160+ clients we have managed $9M+ in ad spend. Here is how we work, and you are welcome to put these 12 questions to us on WhatsApp.

FAQ

How much does a marketing agency in Lebanon cost?

Directory listings give a rough floor. On Clutch, Lebanese agencies list minimum project sizes from $1,000+ to $10,000+, and on DesignRush most list minimum budgets of $1,000 to $10,000. The real number depends on scope, how much creative you need and the pricing model, and ad spend comes on top.

Should the agency or my business own the Facebook ad account?

Your business. Create the ad account in your own business portfolio and give the agency partner access. Meta does not allow an ad account to be moved from one business portfolio to another, so an account opened by the agency stays with the agency.

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

Agree on it before you start: a defined testing phase, then a review against targets set from your breakeven numbers. Judging a paid account after a week mostly measures noise; judging it after six months with no review mostly measures patience.

Is an agency in Lebanon a good choice if I also sell in the Gulf?

It can be, as long as it has run campaigns in those markets. Several agencies on our Lebanon list state offices in the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar, and we run campaigns for brands in Lebanon and the GCC. Ask for results from the specific country you are targeting.

What should a monthly marketing report include?

Spend, results (purchases or qualified leads), cost per result, ROAS or revenue, what was tested, what won, and what changes next month. Engagement numbers can sit at the bottom as context.