Questions to ask before an agency markets your tax practice

Late August is when tax practice owners start taking calls from marketing agencies again. Extensions are not due until October 15, but the fall is when next season gets planned, and every agency with a “professional services” package knows it.

Most of those agencies will pitch the same thing they pitch a dentist or a roofer: more leads, a new website, a monthly report. A tax practice is different in ways that matter to the agency’s own work, and a few questions will tell you quickly whether the people across the table know it.

Will your tools touch our client data, and are you on our security plan?

Start here, because the IRS made it timely this week. On August 18 the IRS and its Security Summit partners reminded tax professionals that federal law requires them to create and maintain a Written Information Security Plan, and that firms should choose service providers that can maintain appropriate safeguards and require it in their contracts. The FTC’s Safeguards Rule, which names tax preparation firms as covered, requires multi-factor authentication for anyone accessing customer information and encryption of that information on your systems and in transit. Breaches involving the unencrypted information of at least 500 consumers must be reported to the FTC within 30 days of discovery.

A marketing agency is a service provider the moment its forms, CRM or call recordings hold client information. A good answer sounds like this: marketing forms collect a name, a phone number and the kind of help needed; documents go to your own portal; and any tool that does hold client details is named so you can add it to your plan. A vague answer about “industry standard security” is a reason to keep looking.

What will you do with our client list?

Every agency wants your list for email campaigns and lookalike audiences. The federal rules on tax return information, at 26 CFR 301.7216-2, let a preparer use a client list to send tax information and to offer more tax return preparation. The list may not be used to solicit any other service or product without the consent process the rules describe.

So an agency that plans to email your tax-only clients about bookkeeping, or upload the list to an ad platform, needs to talk about consent first. The right plan puts a consent step into your engagement letter or onboarding and leaves the wording to your counsel. An agency that has never heard of section 7216 will build the campaign anyway.

Do you know what we are allowed to say in an ad?

Ask to see sample ads, then read them against the rules.

• Circular 230. The IRS’s rule on solicitation bars false or misleading claims about IRS matters. Enrolled agents may not use the word “certified” or imply they work for the IRS; “enrolled to practice before the Internal Revenue Service” is acceptable. A published fee binds you for at least 30 calendar days, and copies of direct mail and e-commerce communications, with a list of recipients, are kept for at least 36 months.
• Refund claims. The same 7216 rules allow an ad to say how many returns of a kind a firm prepared, but not statistics on refund, credit or deduction amounts. “Our clients averaged a bigger refund” is out.
• Your state board. Texas bars self-laudatory statements and testimonials that are not based on verifiable facts. Florida bars appeals to a reader’s fears about money, and requires a CPA calling itself a specialist to say the term is a self-designation not sanctioned by the state or federal government. California prohibits false, fraudulent or misleading advertising. Florida’s rule also counts a website and email as advertising, so this covers more than paid ads.

An agency that knows its business here will show you its review process before you ask.

How will you handle the season and the eleven months around it?

A tax practice has two calendars: the deadlines that pack January to April 15, then the extension and estimated-tax dates through October, plus the monthly bookkeeping and payroll work that barely moves all year. A plan that switches everything on in January and off on April 16 misses most of the year-round revenue.

Ask the agency to walk you through its first 90 days in months, not weeks. If it is starting in the fall, the order we would expect to hear is tracking first, then the profile, credentials and reviews, then search campaigns ready before the season opens, then rebooking and extension follow-up. If it starts with a website redesign in November, ask what happens to January.

It is also fair to ask how the agency would narrow your offer. The Journal of Accountancy’s August column for small firms, drawing on the 2026 PCPS Top Issues Survey, put tax complexity at the top of owners’ concerns and warned that trying to be everything to everyone is one of the fastest paths to burnout. A marketing plan that sells every service to every filer works against that advice.

Can you tell us what Local Services Ads will and will not do?

Google started moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads this month, beginning with home services. Tax services was not in that first group; Google’s timetable moves the remaining categories next year. So for this coming season the Tax services ads will look much as they did last winter.

That makes the old limits the ones to ask about. Google’s help pages state that tax specialists get phone leads only, with no message leads, call recordings, direct booking or lead credits, and the firm must pass license checks for each tax specialist and show professional liability insurance to carry the Google Verified badge. An agency that promises to “dispute bad leads” in that category has not read the page.

What will the monthly report show?

A good report for a tax practice follows the lead to a signed engagement, not just a phone call:

• New clients by source and by type, with individual returns, business returns, IRS notice work and monthly bookkeeping counted separately.
• Calls answered and missed in the peak weeks, from your own call tracking, since the Tax services ads keep no recordings.
• Cost per signed client by half of the year, January to April 15 and the months after, because one blended figure hides both.
• Reviews added and their dates. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey found 74% of consumers only care about reviews written in the last three months, which in a tax practice means the reviews from this season.

What to do this month

• Pull out your Written Information Security Plan and list every marketing tool that could hold client information.
• Check your engagement letter or onboarding for a consent step before any non-tax offer reaches tax clients.
• Reread your current ads, profile and site for “certified”, refund claims and fee lines that leave out what changes the fee.
• Ask each agency you meet for sample ads, a 90-day plan in months and a sample monthly report.
• Decide which niche you want to grow, so the plan has something specific to sell after April 15.

An agency worth hiring will welcome every one of these questions. Our page for accountants and tax preparers shows the plan we would run, and our Google Business Profile work covers the profile a new filer checks first.