About this post
Author
Function Software
Role
Creative Agency Software Manager
Published
September 29, 2026
Read time
4
Category
Agency operations
Choosing an agency to work with is one of the more consequential decisions a marketing leader makes. Get it right, and you gain a partner who makes your work better and your job easier. Get it wrong, and you spend months managing a vendor who needs more management than your internal team.
The problem is that agencies are very good at the pitch. They've done hundreds of them. The case studies are polished. The team presented in the chemistry meeting is usually more senior than the team that will actually run your account. The deck is always impressive.
So how do you evaluate what's actually behind the pitch?
This guide covers what to look for when evaluating advertising agency services, including the questions most clients forget to ask and the signs that distinguish well-run agencies from ones that will create more work for you than they solve.
Before you evaluate any agency, get specific about what you're looking for. "We need a creative agency" is too broad to evaluate against.
Ask yourself:
What type of work are we hiring for? Brand strategy, campaign creative, digital advertising, content, social, PR, web? Different agencies specialize in different areas. A brand design studio and a performance marketing agency are not interchangeable.
What's our engagement model? Are you looking for project-based work (a specific campaign or deliverable) or an ongoing retainer relationship? Agencies often excel at one and struggle with the other.
What's the real problem we're trying to solve? If the brief to the agency is "we need a new website," dig one layer deeper. Why does the website need to change? What isn't working with the current one? The clearer you are on the underlying problem, the better you can evaluate whether an agency's approach actually addresses it.
What does success look like in 12 months? Not the deliverables list. The actual business outcome. If you can't define that, no agency can either, and the relationship will be evaluated against undefined expectations.
Brand strategy is the agency's ability to understand your market, your audience, and the place you should occupy in your customers' minds, then articulate that in a way that guides everything from naming to visual identity to campaign messaging.
What to evaluate: Ask for examples of positioning work that produced measurable results, not just beautiful outputs. Ask how they define and validate a strategic direction. Ask what happens when the client and the agency disagree on strategy.
Watch for: Agencies that jump to visual executions before strategy is resolved. Positioning that sounds like every other brand in your category. Vague language about "connecting with audiences" without specificity about which audiences and how.
This is the work most people think of when they think of advertising agency services: the ideas that drive campaigns. TV spots, digital creative, social content, out-of-home, print. The visible output of the creative process.
What to evaluate: Look beyond the awards in the case studies. Ask what the brief was, what the strategic insight was, and what happened to the campaign in market. Any agency can show you beautiful work; fewer can show you work that did something.
Watch for: Case studies with no results. Work that looks stunning but doesn't have a clear strategic idea at its center. A portfolio that all looks the same. That's a signal the agency has a signature style they apply to everyone rather than solving each brief on its own terms.
Performance-focused agencies manage paid digital channels: search, social, display, programmatic, and email. Unlike brand work, performance marketing is measurable in real time. Cost per click, conversion rate, return on ad spend.
What to evaluate: Ask for specific examples of campaign performance, including the starting point and what improved. Ask how they structure reporting and what KPIs they optimize for. Ask how they handle periods when performance drops.
Watch for: Agencies that optimize for the metrics they control (impressions, clicks) rather than the metrics that matter to your business (conversions, revenue). Proprietary "black box" methodologies that you can't audit. Long minimum contract lengths with no performance benchmarks.
Content agencies produce written, video, and multimedia content optimized to attract and convert audiences organically. The best ones understand both audience psychology and search behavior. They produce content people want to read that also ranks for relevant queries.
What to evaluate: Ask to see examples of content that ranks and drives measurable traffic. Ask how they do keyword research and what their process is for connecting content to business outcomes. Ask for their target word counts and publishing cadence for a client similar to yours.
Watch for: Content that's thin, generic, or keyword-stuffed. Agencies that measure success only in volume (publishing frequency) rather than quality and performance. No clear process for distributing content after it's published.
PR agencies manage earned media: press coverage, media relationships, spokesperson training, crisis communications. Unlike paid advertising, you can't buy placement. You earn it through story quality and media relationships.
What to evaluate: Ask for coverage results from the past 12 months for a comparable client. Ask how they measure success beyond clip counts. Ask who specifically on their team has the media relationships relevant to your industry.
Watch for: Agencies that lead with quantity of pitches rather than quality of placements. Vague language about "media relationships" without specific journalists or publications named. No clear differentiation between their PR value and what you could do with a publicist directly.
The quality of the creative work is the obvious thing to evaluate. Less obvious, and often more important for the day-to-day experience of working with an agency, is how they actually operate.
In most pitches, the agency's most senior people present the work. In day-to-day reality, they may not be involved. Ask directly: who will be your primary point of contact? What's their experience level? Who else will work on your account, and what are their roles?
The answer matters more than the portfolio.
Ask about their communication cadence: how frequently will they update you, in what format, and through which channel? A weekly written update is very different from "we'll be in touch when there's something to show."
Ask specifically how they handle communication when something goes wrong. When a deadline slips, when a concept isn't landing, when the budget is running over.
This question separates operationally disciplined agencies from ones that are great at creative work and loose on delivery. Ask what systems they use to track projects and whether you'll have visibility into project status.
Well-run agencies track time against estimates, have a clear process for flagging budget risk early, and use formal change orders when scope expands. Agencies without these practices will surprise you with invoices and timelines that didn't match your expectations.
Scope change is a normal part of creative work. How an agency handles it tells you a lot about how they'll run your account.
Best practice: scope changes are flagged before work proceeds, priced transparently, and documented in writing. If an agency's answer to "what happens if we ask for additional work?" is vague or sounds like "we'll figure it out," that vagueness will show up in your relationship.
At the end of each month or project, what do you get? A presentation? A dashboard? A spreadsheet? Ask what's included in the report, who produces it, and how long it takes them.
Good agencies report on what matters to your business. They connect their outputs to your outcomes. They're transparent about what worked and what didn't.
These aren't always obvious during a pitch, but they're worth looking for.
They ask good questions. Agencies that are genuinely trying to solve your problem ask questions before they present ideas. If an agency comes to the first meeting with a fully formed pitch, they may be showing you their standard deck rather than a response to your specific situation.
They tell you what they won't do. Agencies that turn down work that isn't right for them are more trustworthy than agencies that say yes to everything. A clear sense of what they're built for signals self-awareness.
They're honest about past failures. Ask about a project that didn't go as planned and what they learned from it. A thoughtful answer tells you more than a portfolio of wins. A defensive or vague answer tells you something too.
Their processes are specific. When you ask how they handle project management, brief-writing, or revisions, they give you a specific answer, not "it depends on the project." Well-run agencies have clear, consistent processes.
The team is stable. Ask about team tenure and turnover. An agency where account staff cycles out every 12-18 months is an agency that will introduce you to a new team every 12-18 months.
What are advertising agency services?Advertising agency services typically include brand strategy, creative development, campaign production, media planning and buying, digital marketing, content creation, social media, PR, and performance analytics. Most agencies specialize in a subset of these.
How do I choose between a full-service agency and a specialist agency?Full-service agencies offer more coordination across multiple disciplines. Specialist agencies go deeper in a specific area. The right choice depends on whether you need breadth (a complex, multi-channel brand launch) or depth (improving performance marketing ROI in one channel).
What should I ask an agency in an RFP or pitch?Ask about the team that will actually work on your account, their process for managing scope changes, how they measure success, and examples of work that produced measurable results. Also ask about a project that didn't go as planned and what they learned.
How important is a creative brief when working with an agency?Very important. A strong brief is the foundation of every successful agency engagement. Agencies that skip the brief or accept vague ones are likely to produce work that misses the mark. Expect a reputable agency to push back on ambiguity in your brief.
How should agencies report on their work?Reporting should connect agency outputs to your business outcomes. At minimum: what was delivered, what metrics changed, and how actual effort compared to the estimate. Good agencies share this proactively and regularly, not only when asked.
What's a realistic timeline for seeing results from agency work?Brand work takes 6-18 months to show measurable impact. Performance marketing can show results within weeks. Content and SEO typically require 3-6 months before meaningful ranking improvements appear. Any agency promising faster results than these benchmarks warrants additional scrutiny.
How do I know if an agency is overcharging me?Benchmark against market rates for comparable agencies and services in your region. Ask for a breakdown of what's included in the fee. Agencies should be able to explain what hours are allocated to what activities. If they can't, that's a flag.
Evaluating advertising agency services isn't just about evaluating the work. It's about evaluating the relationship you're entering into.
The agencies that make the best long-term partners are the ones who are honest about what they can and can't do, transparent about how they operate, and structured well enough to deliver consistently, not just pitch brilliantly.
The portfolio gets you in the room. How the agency manages the work is what determines whether you're still working with them two years from now.
Function Software builds agency management tools for creative professionals.
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