Find out what is actually being sold.
An outreach campaign, a sponsored article and an editorial link are different things. A proposal should make it possible to tell which service you are paying for. Ask whether the fee covers research, writing, outreach activity, a publisher charge or some combination.
If the scope is only “ten links,” the agency still lacks the information needed to judge relevance, quality, process and commercial risk.
Ask why the publisher would care.
A relevant resource, useful expert contribution or a mention that needs a source gives outreach a reason to exist. Ask what the campaign will offer and who is responsible for creating it.
A prospect list should be explainable in ordinary language. Why does this publisher’s audience need the client’s contribution? What topic connects them? A third-party authority score alone does not answer those questions.
Separate activity from editorial outcomes.
A provider can commit to researching a defined number of prospects, preparing an approved pitch, sending an outreach round and recording responses. An independent publisher decides whether to accept, edit or reject that pitch.
Your client proposal should preserve that distinction. If you sell outreach activity, report the activity and outcome honestly. Do not quietly turn a declined pitch into an unrelated paid placement just to meet a count.
Be explicit about payment and link attributes.
Google identifies buying or selling links for ranking manipulation as link spam. Its guidance also explains that paid or sponsored links should be qualified with appropriate attributes.
Ask the provider to disclose publisher charges and the expected treatment of sponsored placements before the agency approves the work. Do not let a promise of a particular link attribute substitute for a sound campaign rationale.
Request a useful campaign record.
At minimum, you should be able to see the approved asset, the relevant prospects, outreach dates, responses and any published destinations. If a link appears, record its context and attributes.
That record helps your agency explain what happened without leaning on inflated claims. It also makes the next decision easier: improve the asset, refine the angle, change the prospect set or stop a campaign that is not a good fit.