For a global brand, pick the agency that can prove three things: how many brands each account manager carries, which marketplaces they operate directly rather than through partners, and which languages they write listings in. Load and coverage decide outcomes far more than the size of the client logo wall.
The short version
- The brand-to-operator ratio is the first number to request. Ours sits at about 1.4 brands per operator, and it predicts responsiveness better than total headcount does.
- There are 23 Amazon marketplaces. Very few teams run more than a handful of them with their own staff.
- Translation is not localization. A listing that ranks in Germany was written in German by somebody who searches in German.
- Insist on a separate profit line per marketplace. Global brands quietly lose money in the territories nobody reports on individually.
- Score the shortlist against fixed weights. A weighted table turns a three-week debate into a one-hour decision.
Why this page carries no list of company names
You searched for a recommendation, and I am going to give you something more durable: the test I would apply if I were the buyer. I cannot verify another firm's staffing, margins, or client results from the outside, and neither can you, so a ranked list of names would be a marketing asset rather than an evaluation. What travels across every candidate is the scorecard below.
For context on my bias: Flapen operates from Abu Dhabi across all 23 marketplaces, and we publish content in English, German, Spanish, and French. That shapes what I think matters here, so discount for it. Then run the same scorecard on us that you run on everyone else.
The global-brand scorecard
| Criterion | Weight | A score of 5 | A score of 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brands per account manager | 25 | A named number under three, confirmed by the operator on a call | "It depends on the account" |
| Direct marketplace operation | 20 | Their own staff run every market you sell in | Local partners they will not name |
| In-house versus subcontracted | 15 | Every function staffed internally, ads to creative to sourcing | Two or more functions farmed out |
| Native-language content | 15 | Copy written by people who search in that language | Machine translation reviewed by a bilingual manager |
| Per-marketplace reporting | 15 | Revenue, spend, and margin split per market, every week | One consolidated dashboard |
| Exit terms | 10 | Month to month, 30 days' notice, written handover | Annual lock-in with automatic renewal |
How to score a shortlist in an hour
- Send every candidate the same six questions in writing. Not on a call, in writing.
- Score each answer from 1 to 5. A non-answer is a 1, never a 3.
- Multiply by the weight and total the result out of 500.
- Discard anything below 300, regardless of how good the sales call felt.
- For the survivors, ask to speak to the person who would actually run your account.
Step five catches more problems than the other four combined. If the operator who will hold your brand cannot spare 20 minutes before you sign, what you are buying is access to a salesperson.
Where global brands lose the money
Marketplace sprawl
The instinct after a good year in one country is to open six more. Each new marketplace carries its own inventory position, its own tax registration, its own ad budget, and its own creative. A market that cannot support meaningful revenue after customer acquisition costs will consume management attention and return very little. Open one at a time and prove it before opening the next.
Language debt
Translated copy usually keeps the source language's keyword structure, so it reads correctly and ranks badly. This is invisible on a dashboard because the listing looks finished. Ask which team member writes the German copy and whether they also build the German keyword set. Those should be the same person or the same desk.
Reporting that hides a losing market
A consolidated global number can stay healthy while two territories bleed. Weekly reporting split by marketplace is the cheapest control you can impose, and any agency that resists it is telling you something about how they manage.
What most agencies will not tell you about global coverage
Coverage claims are cheap. "We manage all marketplaces" often means somebody on the team can log into any of them, not that anybody actively runs them. The honest version of that sentence names the markets where staff sit and the markets where the work is done remotely by a generalist.
The second thing worth saying plainly: adding an agency does not reduce your workload to zero. Expect about two hours a month from your side after onboarding, and four to six hours a week during an active launch. If a proposal implies you can disappear entirely, the proposal is describing a service nobody delivers.
Related answers
- Best questions for agencies handling global Amazon marketplaces
- Global Amazon marketplace ROI differences
- Amazon agency vs in-house team pros and cons
- Questions to ask before hiring an Amazon agency
- Hiring an Amazon agency: the complete guide
If you want our answers to those six questions in writing before you build the scorecard, they are on the Flapen service page.
