A standard marketing agency RFP runs something like this: a long brief goes to eight agencies, six respond with decks, three are shortlisted, each presents for ninety minutes, and a decision is made on the strength of a presentation. The process takes six weeks and selects for the thing it measures — presenting — which is not the job.
A better process is shorter, narrower, and tests the actual work.
Start the agency selection process with three, not eight
Eight responses is not more choice; it is more reading. Shortlist on two criteria before anyone writes anything: relevant category or model experience, and a size match. An agency whose smallest client spends ten times your budget will give you their smallest team, and one whose largest spends a tenth of yours will be learning on you. Three serious conversations beat eight polite ones.
What a marketing agency RFP brief should contain
Most briefs are too long and omit the three things an agency actually needs. Include:
- Your economics. Average order value or deal size, gross margin, and what an acceptable cost per acquisition would be. Without margin, every answer is a guess. The break-even ROAS calculator gives you the number to share.
- Current state. Spend, channels, what is tracked, what is broken. Hiding the mess only produces proposals for a business that does not exist.
- What you actually want. More volume at the same efficiency, the same volume more cheaply, or entry into a new market. These are three different jobs.
- Constraints. Compliance, brand rules, who signs off creative, how fast your team can turn things round.
- Your decision criteria and timeline. Agencies invest more in processes that look decided rather than exploratory.
Two pages is usually enough. If a brief needs twenty, the problem is upstream of media.
Replace the pitch with a task
This is the change that matters most. Instead of a presentation, give each shortlisted agency read-only access to your ad accounts and analytics and ask for a written audit: what is wrong, what they would do first, and what they would need from you. Pay a small fee for it. Three things happen.
You see how they think rather than how they present. You find out whether they can work with real data rather than a scenario. And paying for it changes the relationship from a free pitch — which rewards whoever can afford to give work away — into a small piece of actual work with accountability attached.
A free pitch selects for the agency with the most spare capacity. A paid audit selects for the one that is best at the first task they would actually do.
We do this as a free audit as standard, because for us it is also the only honest basis on which to quote. Either way, the output is the comparable artefact your process needs.
Three questions in the meeting
Keep the conversation short and ask the three that reveal the most: who will run the account and how many others they carry, what would make them tell you to stop spending, and what in your audit they were least sure about. The last one is the best question in any agency meeting, because confident people with nothing to prove will answer it directly. The full list is in the first-call questions.
Score the audits, not the decks
Lay the three audits side by side. Did they find the same problems? Where they disagree, who is right? Did anyone find something you did not know about? Did anyone tell you something you did not want to hear? That comparison is worth more than any scoring matrix, and it takes an afternoon rather than six weeks.
Then start small
Appoint for a defined first phase rather than an open-ended retainer, with a review point at the end of it. Structuring that pilot properly is a short piece of work and it removes most of the risk from the decision — which, given that nobody can know how an agency will perform until they are in the account, is the most honest way to decide.
Questions people ask before hiring
How many agencies should a marketing agency RFP include?
Three is usually the right number. Beyond that the responses blur together and the decision gets harder rather than better informed, while each additional agency adds a week to the timeline.
Should I pay agencies to pitch?
Paying for a written audit of your own account is worth it. It changes a free presentation into a piece of real work, and it means you are comparing diagnostic ability rather than production budgets.
What should a paid media brief include?
Your margin and acceptable cost per acquisition, current spend and channels, the state of your tracking, what outcome you actually want, your constraints, and your decision timeline. Two pages is normally enough.
Is a presentation useful at all?
A short conversation is. A ninety-minute deck mostly tests presentation skill, which is not the service you are buying. Use the time to discuss their audit of your account instead.
How long should the agency selection process take?
Two to three weeks is achievable if you shortlist to three and replace the pitch with a paid audit. Six-week processes are usually long because of scheduling rather than diligence.