Decide whether an RFP is necessary
An agency RFP should resolve a buying decision, not substitute for making one. Before contacting agencies, agree internally on the problem, the available budget, the person authorized to approve the appointment, and what success would look like.
A formal process is useful when the engagement is complex, stakeholders need a documented comparison, or procurement rules require competition. For a contained assignment with a clear scope, capability conversations followed by comparable proposals may be enough.
Do not launch while funding is uncertain or leadership is still debating whether to replace the incumbent. Agencies cannot solve those governance problems through better presentations.
How many agencies should you invite?
Invite the smallest shortlist that gives you credible alternatives and that your team can evaluate properly. Do not set an invitation target and then add unsuitable agencies to fill it.
Build a broader research list using the agency directory, then narrow it through short qualification conversations. Those conversations should establish:
- Whether the agency handles the actual assignment, rather than an adjacent service.
- Whether your budget and its commercial expectations are compatible.
- Whether the likely delivery team has capacity.
- Whether conflicts, geography, security requirements, or procurement terms prevent an appointment.
- Whether the agency wants to compete under the proposed process.
Use agency specialties to distinguish the capability you need from a general marketing label. An agency suited to brand positioning is not automatically the right partner for ongoing media operations.
Every invited agency should have a plausible route to winning. Do not include a courtesy bidder, an obvious budget mismatch, or a firm whose approach leadership has already rejected. If the shortlist still feels unwieldy, improve qualification before asking for proposals.
Build a brief that supports comparable answers
Keep the main document focused on decisions. Put background research, technical inventories, and existing brand materials in supporting files that every bidder can access.
Define the assignment
Your brief should cover:
- **Business problem:** what needs to change and why it matters.
- **Audience and context:** customers, markets, competitors, and relevant research.
- **Scope:** required services, deliverables, channels, and explicit exclusions.
- **Success measures:** intended outcomes, available baselines, and measurement limitations.
- **Commercial boundaries:** approved budget range, required pricing format, and likely expenses.
- **Operating conditions:** internal resources, approval responsibilities, technology, and dependencies.
- **Selection process:** decision-makers, criteria, milestones, presentation expectations, and contracting steps.
Separate committed work from possible future work. Otherwise, agencies may price different engagements while appearing to answer the same brief.
Disclose what affects feasibility
Share constraints early: a fixed launch date, a mandatory platform, limited access to customer data, or legal review requirements. Explain which conditions are negotiable.
State the budget in the actual RFP rather than asking agencies to infer it. For help choosing a comparable commercial structure, review agency pricing models before requesting fees. A project proposal and a retainer should not be compared without examining their scope, responsibilities, and assumptions.
If information is unavailable, identify the gap and ask bidders to state their assumptions. Do not disguise uncertainty as a fixed requirement.
Request evidence, not an unpaid campaign
Ask for material that helps you assess capability and working fit:
- Relevant case studies explaining the agency's role, constraints, and results.
- A proposed delivery approach with dependencies and decision points.
- Named delivery roles, senior involvement, and subcontracting arrangements.
- A pricing breakdown covering scope, exclusions, expenses, and change control.
- Risks the agency sees in your brief and questions it would investigate first.
A polished concept can conceal weak delivery arrangements. Assess how the agency reasons, explains trade-offs, and responds to missing information instead of rewarding presentation volume.
AIGA's position on speculative work identifies risks associated with speculative creative work. For this process, avoid requesting usable campaign concepts, finished designs, or a complete strategic solution without compensation.
If a practical exercise is genuinely necessary, make it paid, tightly scoped, and consistent across participants. Agree on usage rights in advance. A discussion of an existing case study may answer the same question with less burden.
Agree on the scorecard before proposals arrive
The scorecard should translate the brief into observable evidence. Do not invent criteria after seeing an impressive presentation.
For a useful procedural reference, US federal acquisition rules require solicitation documents to state evaluation factors and their relative importance. Those rules govern federal procurement, not ordinary private-sector agency buying, but the transparency principle is worth adopting.
Separate eligibility from comparative scoring
Treat genuine non-negotiables as eligibility checks: necessary security controls, conflict clearance, budget compatibility, and acceptance of essential contract terms. Resolve these before asking for substantial pitch work.
Then evaluate eligible agencies against criteria such as:
- **Problem understanding:** does the response address the business need and challenge weak assumptions?
- **Relevant capability:** is there credible evidence of comparable work and responsibilities?
- **Delivery confidence:** are staffing, governance, dependencies, and quality control clear?
- **Commercial clarity:** are fees understandable and tied to a defined scope?
- **Working fit:** can the proposed team explain decisions, handle disagreement, and collaborate?
Use evidence-anchored ratings
A lean scorecard can use descriptive ratings: **not demonstrated**, **partly demonstrated**, **demonstrated**, and **strongly demonstrated**. Define what each means for each criterion before evaluation starts.
For delivery confidence, “demonstrated” might require a credible staffing plan, explicit dependencies, and clear approval responsibilities. “Strongly demonstrated” should require additional relevant evidence, not simply a more attractive deck.
Identify the highest-priority criteria and the tie-break rule in advance. Do not count favorable ratings as though every criterion matters equally.
Have reviewers assess independently before discussing results. Each rating should include a proposal reference and a short explanation. Federal proposal-evaluation guidance similarly calls for assessment against stated factors and documentation of strengths, weaknesses, and risks.
Use directory research as an input, not a substitute for this work. Read our agency evaluation methodology to understand how directory assessments are framed, then conduct checks specific to your engagement.
Keep communication controlled and useful
Assign a buyer-side process owner. Give agencies a clear route for questions and circulate material clarifications to all participants without exposing confidential bidder information.
Publish milestones that reflect your real review capacity. If leadership cannot meet the decision date, tell bidders promptly rather than leaving them to chase updates.
Use the same core discussion agenda for finalists, while allowing agency-specific follow-up. Ask the proposed delivery team to participate so you can evaluate working relationships, not only sales performance.
Do not add surprise exercises or repeatedly reopen the brief. If requirements change materially, explain the change and allow agencies to revise their proposals or withdraw.
Close the decision properly
Before appointing the preferred agency, verify relevant references with permission and reconcile the proposal with the contract. Confirm staffing, deliverables, ownership, access to accounts and data, expenses, payment terms, and exit arrangements.
Notify unsuccessful agencies promptly. Give feedback tied to the published criteria without sharing a competitor's confidential proposal or pricing.
Finally, preserve the brief, scorecards, clarification log, and decision rationale. The process should leave the winning agency with a usable starting point—not a fresh discovery exercise about what the buyer actually wanted.