Agency proposals are difficult to compare because they often answer different questions. One sells media management, another presents a brand transformation and a third includes a website rebuild. Before comparing monthly fees, make sure the business is actually comparing the same work.
A strong evaluation should reveal how an agency thinks, what it will deliver and what happens when a campaign does not perform as expected. The following approach works for a Canadian business choosing either a local partner or an international team.
Give every candidate the same brief
Describe the priority service, ideal customer, current acquisition process and the commercial problem you want help solving. Share known constraints: a small internal team, a slow approval process, a limited service area or a website that cannot yet be edited. Distinguish facts from estimates.
Ask for a proposed first phase rather than an elaborate speculative campaign. The response should explain what the agency needs to learn, what it can begin now and which decisions depend on access or research. A confident plan can still acknowledge uncertainty.
Inspect the evidence behind the work
A portfolio demonstrates craft, but a performance claim needs context. Ask what the agency actually owned, which period the result covers, what baseline was used and whether the figures include all relevant costs. An attractive creative concept is valuable; it should simply be labelled as a concept when it was not a commissioned campaign.
Request references when appropriate and obtain permission before contacting them. You can also ask the agency to walk through one anonymised decision: what was observed, what changed and how the team interpreted the outcome. Listen for reasoning rather than a rehearsed success story.
Make the operating model concrete
Find out who will manage the account, who produces the work and who checks tracking or website changes. Agree how feedback is consolidated and what counts as an additional revision. A proposal listing many capabilities does not establish how much production capacity is included.
Ask what a normal month looks like: meetings, reporting, creative delivery, campaign maintenance and response times for urgent problems. Consider time zones as an operating detail. A Canada-focused business can work effectively with a distributed team when ownership and availability are clear.
Clarify ownership before access is granted
The business should understand who controls its domain, advertising accounts, analytics, website, creative source files and customer data. Access should be granted through appropriate platform roles rather than shared personal passwords. Record how access is removed at the end of the engagement.
Review the scope, payment terms, cancellation process, asset licensing and handover requirements with the appropriate decision-makers. This is commercial preparation, not a substitute for legal advice about a particular contract.
Use a comparison sheet that rewards clarity
- Understanding of the actual business constraint.
- Credible evidence relevant to the proposed scope.
- Named responsibilities and realistic production capacity.
- Transparent fees, exclusions and dependencies.
- A useful reporting and decision process.
- Clear account ownership and exit arrangements.
Score these factors after each conversation, while the details are fresh. Price still matters, but a low fee is not a saving if essential work is excluded or the business cannot recover its assets. Choose a partner whose reasoning you can examine and whose process your team can realistically support.
EBJ FIELD NOTES / THE AGENCY REVIEW
| 01 Scope | 02 Evidence | 03 Ownership |
Ask each agency to explain the same real business problem, then compare its reasoning and operating model.
Put it to work
Ask each agency to explain the same real business problem, then compare its reasoning and operating model.
Explore EBJ’s marketing strategy services, or tell us what your business is trying to improve.