# How to check an agency's case studies before you hire it

> Pick one number from an agency's case study and ask where it came from. Five checks a buyer can run, and three corrections our own record made.

Source: https://lastdoorsolutions.com/blog/check-an-agencys-case-studies

**To check an agency's case studies, pick one number and ask where it came from and when it was last checked.** Ask for the source itself, or a description of it if the record is confidential.

Agency case studies are written to win work, so read each as a claim. We keep a dated source for every year, count and claim on ours. **In October 2026 that record corrected three of our own pages.**

## Five checks a buyer can run

1. **Pick one number and ask for its source.** A task list, an invoice count, a report, an analytics export. Any real answer names a thing.
2. **Check a date against the Web Archive.** Paste the client's site into web.archive.org and look at the year the agency says it launched.
3. **Ask what the agency did not do.** A case study that claims the whole project, when other teams were involved, is the one to question.
4. **Ask who on the client's side would confirm it.** A role is enough, even if a name cannot be shared.
5. **Ask when the page was last checked.** Case studies go stale; a date tells you whether anyone looks.

![Three boxes. The claim: about 200 tasks; ask where the number comes from. The source: the two projects' task lists; ask whether it can be shown or named. Checked in October 2026: more than 230; the page now says so.](/images/blog/claim-source-date.png)

*A claim, its source, and the date it was checked.*

## The three corrections our record made

| Case study | The page said | The source | It now says |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [WOW Sight and Sound](/work/wow-sight-and-sound) | A new owner brought the brand back in 2014 | A trade report dated 22 May 2012 | The name was bought in May 2012 and relaunched online in 2014 |
| [TreatOA](/work/treatoa) | 19 wireframes | The project's file list: 19 uploads, two of them the same file | 17 wireframes |
| [DynamicXX](/work/dynamicxx) | About 200 tasks | The two projects' task lists | More than 230 tasks |

**The corrections kept the story and made its details accurate.**

## What a dated capture shows

The Web Archive keeps copies of public websites with the date each was taken. **It is the simplest check a buyer has,** and it needs no help from the agency.

![The WOW Sight and Sound home page: the logo and the line Things that make you go WOW, departments from Computers and Home Office to Photography, a WOW Deals button, and the bar at the top switching between the Sight and Sound, Gaming and Movies shops.](/images/wow-sight-and-sound/home-2015.webp)

*The Sight and Sound shop in February 2015, from the Web Archive.*

Our WOW case study says the shops ran from June 2014 to February 2017. **The archive holds 27 captures across those dates,** and anyone can open them.

## How our record works

**Each page on our site has a record for its rationale and evidence:** the links, the captures, the files and the dates. When a page's words change, a check on our site flags the changed source until its record is updated. The reviewer still has to check that the evidence supports the words. The record also identifies claims still waiting for evidence.

[Our work page](/work) lists every public case study, and each one can be checked this way.

A case study is the agency's own account of the work. The source behind one number tells you how much of the rest to believe.

## Checking a shortlist of agencies?

Pick any number on our case studies and ask us where it came from. We will answer with the source and the date we last checked it.

[Ask us about a case study](https://lastdoorsolutions.com/contact?service=consulting)