Working with agencies: pitches, pay, scopes and reviews

Choosing an agency and working with it well is a management job, and the industry has written down a lot of its best practice. This piece covers the decisions in order: whether to pitch, how to run a pitch, how to pay, how to scope the work, which model to use, and how to review the relationship. The structures themselves (lead agency, roster, in-house, hybrid) are compared in organising for IMC.

• Pitches cost a lot An ANA and 4A's study put the combined cost of a review with three finalists at about $1 million^11, 12.
• The principles are public In the UK, the IPA and ISBA's Good Pitch and Pitch Positive Pledge^1, 4; in the US, the ANA and 4As' guidelines and their 2026 Positive Pitch Principles^7, 9; for PR, the PRCA's FRESH framework¹³.
• Pay is mostly for time In the ANA's 2022 survey, 82% of marketers used fee-based compensation, while the use of performance incentives fell to 41%¹⁵.
• The scope of work is the contract's working part: deliverables, hand-offs and what is out of scope.
• Reviews work both ways the agency's performance and the client's.

The Pitch Positive Pledge, launched by ISBA and the IPA on 11 May 2022 with more than 70 signatories, including 14 brands, starts before the pitch: advertisers should be sure a pitch is needed and set out in writing why it is required^4, 5. That test matters because reviews are expensive. The Cost of the Pitch, a 2023 ANA and 4A's study based on more than 300 interviews with US marketers and agency executives, estimated the costs on both sides^11, 12:

The study put the client's cost at about $408,500 for a review without the incumbent and $373,470 with it, and the agency's at about $204,461 for a challenger and $406,092 for an incumbent defending the account; with three finalists, the combined cost came to about $1 million without the incumbent and $1.2 million with it^11, 12. MediaPost reported that a quarter of marketers saw campaign or product launches delayed by the review, and that two-thirds of brands that ran one kept the incumbent¹².

So before you call a pitch, ask: is the problem the agency, or the brief, the scope, the budget or the way we work together? A frank review with the incumbent, a re-scope or a new team on the account often costs less and fixes more. Pitch when the needs have genuinely changed (a new strategy, a new market, a capability the agency does not have) or when trust has gone.

The UK's Good Pitch, launched by the IPA and ISBA in October 2011, set out six principles (openness and transparency, respect, bravery, access and navigation, timing, and collective action) to make pitching more efficient and cheaper for both sides^2, 3. Its guidance recommends clearly defined stages that screen a sensible number of agencies, at least four weeks between the brief and the first presentation, a written brief plus one-to-one interviews with client stakeholders without rival agencies present, and a non-disclosure agreement so both sides can share what they need¹.

In the US, the ANA and 4A's Guidelines for Agency Search cover the full process, from the decision to search through a request for information, a request for proposals for semi-finalists and the finalist stage, and include a word on speculative work⁷. A later update stressed that every phase of a review requires a brief, with more interaction between client and agency teams at each phase⁸. In 2026 the two bodies released ten Positive Pitch Principles to make pitching more transparent, fair and efficient⁹; Campaign reported that they include budget transparency, limits on the number of agencies invited, payment for speculative work and a warning against ghosting, while questioning how they will be enforced¹⁰. The PRCA's FRESH framework for public relations asks for no more than three agencies at the final stage, notice and clear feedback for unsuccessful agencies, recognition that pitched ideas remain the agency's property unless paid for, and a contract signed within two weeks of appointment¹³.

Feedback is not optional: the 4As and ANA guidelines for search consultants describe feedback as critical for agencies that lose a pitch²⁰. Pledges have critics too; agency leaders asked at the launch of the UK pledge whether promising to do better was enough⁶. The safe course is to publish your own pitch rules to the agencies at the start, and keep to them.

The IPA, ISBA, the MCCA and the PRCA publish a joint remuneration guide, updated in 2012 to take account of more complex and hybrid models, with a ten-point checklist¹⁶; ISBA also publishes best-practice principles for paying agencies¹⁷. The main models:

The ANA's Trends in Agency Compensation, in its 18th edition in 2022, found that 82% of respondents used fee-based compensation, up from 68% in 2016, and that the use of performance incentives had fallen to 41%, from 48% in 2016 and 61% in 2013; most marketers said they did not know whether performance pay was improving their agencies' performance^14, 15. The lesson is not that incentives fail but that they need measures both sides trust, set before the work starts, and partly within the agency's control.

Whatever the fee model, the scope of work is where the relationship is defined. A useful scope states:

• Objectives and services What the agency is responsible for, tied to the plan's objectives.
• Deliverables The expected outputs per year or per project, by type, market and language.
• People The named team, seniority and time allocation, and how changes are agreed.
• Hand-offs What the agency receives from and gives to other agencies and internal teams.
• Approvals Who signs off what, and how long each side has to respond.
• Out of scope What is excluded, and how extra work is quoted and approved.
• Measures How performance will be reviewed.

In an integrated programme the hand-offs matter most. The integration RACI tool sets out, for each task, who is responsible, who is accountable, who is consulted and who is informed across agencies and teams, so that two agencies do not both think they own the idea, or neither owns the calendar.

The models and the ANA's research on in-housing are covered in organising for IMC. For the choice itself, ask in order:

ISBA's guidance, written with Observatory International, treats evaluation as one of several tools for keeping the relationship on track¹⁸, and its guide with Alchemists sets out the stages a client-agency relationship moves through and principles for evaluating it¹⁹. In practice:

• Make it two-way The agency rates the client too: the quality of briefs, the speed and clarity of feedback, the stability of decisions and payment on time.
• Fix the rhythm A short review every quarter and a full one each year, with the same questions each time so trends are visible.
• Score what matters Business results against the plan's objectives, the quality of strategy and creative work, service and responsiveness, value for money, and the way the agency works with others in the roster.
• Agree actions Every review ends with two or three changes for each side, owned and dated.
• Link pay carefully If incentives depend on the review, the criteria and weights are agreed in advance.

• Pitching to fix a client problem If the brief, scope or approvals are the cause, a new agency inherits them.
• Long lists and unpaid finished work They waste money on both sides and favour agencies that can afford to give work away.
• Judging the pitch team, then meeting a different team Ask to meet the people who will work on the account.
• Fees without a scope Disputes about "extra" work follow.
• Incentives on measures the agency cannot influence, or set after the fact.
• Reviews only when things go wrong By then the relationship is already damaged.

Worked example (illustrative). A mid-sized consumer brand is unhappy with its creative agency. Before calling a pitch, the marketing director runs a two-way review. It shows that briefs have arrived without budgets, feedback has come from four people with conflicting views, and the agency's senior team has thinned out. The brand fixes its side (one brief template, one approver), the agency restores a senior strategist, and both agree three measures for the next two quarters. If those are not met, the brand will pitch, with written reasons, a shortlist of three and its rules published at the start.

Your Monday checklist:

1. Write down, in a paragraph, what your current agencies are each responsible for; if you cannot, start with the scopes.
2. Map the hand-offs between agencies and internal teams with the integration RACI.
3. Check each fee model against its scope: does what you pay match what you ask for?
4. Schedule a two-way review with each agency this quarter, with the same questions for all.
5. If you are considering a pitch, write the reasons, budget and timetable first, and test whether a re-scope would solve the problem.
6. Keep a pitch policy on file: number of agencies, stages, timings, payment for creative work and feedback.

• The Good Pitch^1, 2, 3 and the Pitch Positive Pledge^4, 5, 6.
• The ANA and 4A's search guidelines^7, 8, 20, the 2026 principles^9, 10 and The Cost of the Pitch^11, 12; the PRCA's FRESH framework¹³.
• The ANA's Trends in Agency Compensation^14, 15 and the joint remuneration guide^16, 17.
• ISBA on agency evaluation and relationships^18, 19.
• On IMC Report: organising for IMC, briefing agencies, and the agency lead and CMO hubs.