A link building sales call is an unusual negotiation, because the buyer almost always knows less about the product than the seller and the product is difficult to inspect. These questions are designed to close that gap quickly. They are grouped by what they expose rather than by conversational order.
One piece of advice before the list: ask the hard ones early. An agency that becomes evasive at question three has saved you forty minutes.
Group one — where the links come from
This is the group that matters most and the one most calls skip.
1. Where does your inventory come from?
Good: a described method — manual outreach, an in-house prospect index, relationships built over years. Bad: a price list, or "we have partnerships with thousands of sites".
2. Do you own, part-own or control any of the sites you place on?
A direct question about private blog networks. The answer should be an unambiguous no. Hesitation, or a distinction drawn between "owning" and "having an arrangement with", is the answer.
3. What is your minimum verified organic traffic on a referring domain?
Good: a specific number, verified in a third-party index rather than self-reported by the publisher. Bad: a domain-rating threshold instead. DR is modelled and inflatable; traffic is harder to fake.
4. How do you score topical relevance?
Listen for whether relevance is assessed on the publication's existing topic history, or simply on whether it will accept an article about your subject for money. Those are very different tests.
5. What percentage of prospected domains do you reject, and can I see last month's log?
Almost nobody keeps a rejection log. The ones who do are usually worth continuing with. A rate somewhere around two thirds is normal for a disciplined operation.
Group two — process
6. Who writes the content, and can I see two pieces in my category?
Your name goes on these. You should know whether they were written by a staff editor with software marketing experience or a marketplace with a 48-hour turnaround.
7. Do I approve drafts before submission?
The answer should be yes, unconditionally. If approval is described as optional or as something that slows things down, the drafts are not being written for you.
8. How do you pitch — individually, or with sequences?
Sequenced outreach at volume burns sender reputation and irritates the editors you need. One pitch, one editor, one angle is slower and works.
9. How did you calculate the monthly link volume in this proposal?
Good: from a referring-domain gap against the URLs currently outranking us. Bad: from a package tier.
10. What is my anchor text profile supposed to look like in twelve months?
A competent agency has modelled this before the first pitch. If the answer is that anchors are decided per placement, the profile is being assembled by accident.
11. How do you handle round-ups, alternatives pages and integration directories?
The SaaS-specific question. A generalist will not have a process for these. They are frequently the fastest route to actual demo requests.
12. What happens in month one?
Listen for whether acquisition starts immediately. On a site carrying previous agency work, the correct first move is often an audit and a disavow file rather than new links.
Group three — accountability
13. What exactly is in the reporting, and how often?
You want one row per placement with live URL, anchor text, surrounding paragraph, do-follow status, referring-page traffic and first index date. A monthly summary PDF is a narrative, not a record.
14. Can I check a placement on the day it goes live, or do I wait for month end?
A live shared sheet answers this well. Anything else is a delay with a reason attached.
15. What happens if a link is removed, no-followed or de-indexed in month eight?
Good: a written replacement warranty with a defined monitoring window. Bad: "that doesn't really happen."
16. When is a placement billable?
The answer you want: once it is live, indexed and verified. Some agencies bill on outreach sent, which transfers all execution risk to you.
17. Do you disclose paid inclusions?
Some placements — particularly in round-ups — involve payment. That is normal. Concealing which ones is not.
Group four — the relationship and the exit
18. Do you currently work with any of my direct competitors?
Both answers are legitimate. Hearing it on call one rather than call four is the point. Ask whether exclusivity can be written into the contract.
19. Who will I actually be talking to each month?
If the answer is an account manager who is not doing the work, expect a translation layer between your questions and the people who can answer them.
20. What do I keep if I leave?
Gap analyses, prospect lists and content you paid for should transfer to you. If they do not, you have been renting your own strategy.
If you only have five minutes
Questions 1, 5, 13 and 15. Inventory source, rejection log, reporting format, replacement warranty. In our experience those four sort a ten-agency shortlist into two piles with unusual reliability.
Two questions not to bother asking
"Can you guarantee a position?" Anyone who says yes is either lying or planning to target keywords nobody searches. A refusal to guarantee rankings is the correct answer and should not count against them.
"How many links will it take?" Not until they have run the subtraction. Asking before the gap analysis invites a number pulled from a package tier, and once a number has been said out loud it becomes difficult to revise downward.
The best sales calls we have been on ended with the client asking something we had not prepared for. The worst ended with them asking for a discount, which is the question that reveals the least about anything.