Hiring a marketing agency is usually decided in the first two meetings, by whoever presents most confidently. Our agency search replaces that with a written brief, a fair shortlist, structured interviews and a scorecard, so the agency you hire is the one that fits your goals, not the one with the most polished slides.
What agency selection is
Agency selection is a buying process for marketing services, run on your behalf. It turns a fuzzy need ("we need more leads") into a brief that any good agency can respond to, and then compares the responses on equal terms.
The process has five stages:
- Discovery. We learn your numbers: customer value, close rate, capacity, seasonality and current spend.
- Brief. We write a two-to-three page brief covering goals, budget range, the channels in scope, what you already own, and how success will be measured.
- Longlist and shortlist. We identify candidates that fit your size, industry and region, then narrow to three.
- Structured interviews. Every candidate gets the same questions and the same scoring sheet. You attend; we take notes and probe.
- Recommendation and contract questions. You receive scores, reasons and the points to settle before signing.
Who it's for
This service fits owners in three situations. First-time buyers who have never hired an agency and don't know what normal looks like. Owners leaving a bad relationship who want to avoid repeating it. And growing companies moving from a single freelancer to a team, where the cost and complexity jump at once.
It's less useful if you already have a strong candidate and simply want a sanity check. In that case a proposal review is quicker and cheaper.
What's included
- A written brief you own and can reuse for future hires
- A shortlist of three candidates, with notes on why each made the cut
- An interview guide with scoring criteria weighted to your priorities
- Our attendance at each interview, in person, by video call or by phone
- A written scorecard comparing all candidates side by side
- A list of contract and onboarding questions: account ownership, notice periods, reporting format, who does the work
- A short onboarding checklist for the first 30 days with the winning agency
The scorecard typically weighs six areas: relevant experience, clarity of approach, who will actually do the work, measurement and reporting, commercial terms, and fit with how you like to communicate.
Timeline
Most searches take three to five weeks from discovery to recommendation. Discovery and the brief take about a week. Shortlisting takes another. Interviews depend on agency calendars and usually fill one to two weeks. The final scorecard follows within a few business days of the last interview.
If you have a hard deadline, such as a seasonal peak, tell us early. We can compress the process by running interviews in a single week, at the cost of a smaller longlist.
How results are measured
The immediate result is a decision you can explain to a partner, a board or a lender. The real test comes later: does the agency you hired hit the targets in the brief within the first two quarters?
That's why the brief sets measurable goals before anyone is hired, for example a target cost per qualified lead, a minimum number of booked appointments per month, or a share of leads tracked back to their source. Six months later, the same numbers tell you whether the choice was right. Many owners keep us on for ongoing oversight during that period.
Mistakes to avoid when choosing an agency
- Hiring on case studies from a different business model. A strong result for an online store says little about lead generation for a service company.
- Meeting the founder and getting the junior. Ask by name who will run your account and how many other accounts that person handles.
- Signing before access is settled. Your ad accounts, analytics, domain and website should be in your name from day one.
- Comparing prices without comparing scope. A cheaper retainer that excludes ad management or content is not cheaper.
- Skipping the budget step. Without a target cost per customer, you can't tell a good proposal from an expensive one. Our budget planning service fixes that first.
Our guide on how to choose a marketing agency covers the interview questions in more depth, and the pricing page shows how a search is usually priced as a project.
Frequently asked questions
How many agencies should be on a shortlist?
Three is usually right. Two gives you no real comparison, and more than four eats weeks of your time in calls without improving the decision.
Should I ask agencies for free strategy work during the pitch?
Ask for their thinking, not free work. A short written answer to two or three real problems from your brief shows how they reason, without expecting them to give away a full plan.
Will you only recommend agencies from your own group?
No. If an agency in our group is on a shortlist, we disclose it at the start and score it on exactly the same criteria as everyone else. You see every score and the reasons behind it.
What if none of the candidates is right?
Then we tell you and widen the search, or suggest a smaller first step such as a paid trial project. Hiring nobody is better than hiring the least-bad option on a long contract.