Choose an AEO agency by the quality of its diagnosis, implementation capability, and measurement, rather than a claim to be universally the best. Ask for examples relevant to your business, a clear list of deliverables, and an explanation of how it selects questions and tracks results. Strong proposals connect technical work and content improvements with customer decisions and realistic commercial goals.
Compare the same scope across suppliers: platforms, markets, pages, expert input, development work, reporting, fees, and contract terms. Ask whether you can export the data and retain the content if the engagement ends. Treat guaranteed citations, invented proprietary ranking factors, and unexplained output quotas as reasons to investigate further. An agency should distinguish official platform requirements from its own hypotheses and show how those hypotheses are evaluated.