Choosing an agency on hard criteria

Agency selection is usually decided by the pitch, which measures the ability to pitch. Six checks measure the ability to deliver.

1. Who does the work

The people in the pitch are frequently not the people on the account. Ask directly: who will write, who will design, who is the day-to-day contact, and what else are they working on.

Ask to meet them before signing. An agency that resists this is telling you something.

2. A project that went wrong

Ask for one engagement that did not work and what changed as a result. The answer separates two kinds of agency.

An agency with no failures either has no history or is not being honest. One that describes a failure specifically, including its own part in it, has a working process for learning.

3. References you choose

Ask for three client references and pick which ones you call. A curated list of two is a curated list.

Ask referees three questions: what surprised you, what would you do differently, and would you hire them again for the same work.

4. Sector experience, handled carefully

Sector experience is overvalued. Understanding of your customer matters more, and that can be learned in a fortnight by anyone who bothers.

5. How they handle disagreement

Present a deliberately weak idea of your own in the meeting and see what happens. An agency that agrees with everything the client says will produce work that is the average of your internal opinions.

You are buying judgement. If the judgement never contradicts you, you are paying for production.

6. The commercial terms

Read four clauses before anything else: who owns the work and the source files; notice period, where three months is normal and twelve is a trap; whether media commission is charged and at what rate; and what happens to accounts, data and access if the relationship ends.

The last point is the one that hurts. Agencies that hold your advertising accounts, your domain or your analytics in their own name create an exit cost that has nothing to do with the work.

The pitch question

For substantial budgets, pay for the pitch. Three agencies at £2,000 each buys three considered proposals rather than three recycled decks.