The standard marketing agency RFP evaluates capabilities: team bios, client lists, case studies, methodology frameworks, and pricing. All of those are evaluable. Almost none of them reliably predict whether an agency will actually improve your business.
The problem is that agencies are very good at RFPs. They’ve refined their responses, coached their presenters, and curated their case studies for maximum impression. After a typical evaluation process, you’ve learned a lot about how an agency presents — and very little about how it thinks.
Here’s a better process.
Phase 1: The Screening RFP
The initial RFP is for triage — narrowing a large field to three to five finalists. Keep it lean. Ask for four things:
A one-page summary of why their agency is the right fit for your specific situation — not a capabilities overview. A capabilities overview tells you what they do. A specific fit statement tells you whether they’ve actually thought about your problem.
Three case studies with real metrics: situation, what they did, measurable outcomes — revenue, pipeline, ROAS. Not case study headlines. Actual numbers.
The names and tenures of the people who would work on your account. The people in the pitch room and the people running your account are often not the same. Know the difference before you sign.
A preliminary point of view on your biggest marketing opportunity based on public information. An agency that brings a thoughtful POV before they’ve been paid is telling you something important about how they’ll operate when they are.
Phase 2: The Strategy Brief Challenge
Instead of a traditional pitch, send finalists a strategy challenge. Give them real context — your goals, current results, competitive landscape — and ask them to respond with a six-month strategic recommendation.
What to Evaluate in Their Response
Strategic clarity. Do they have a clear, defensible point of view — or do they hedge everything with “it depends”?
Business acumen. Do their recommendations reflect an understanding of your business model, or just marketing best practices applied generically?
Specificity. Are they willing to make specific, measurable recommendations — or do they stay safely abstract where nothing can be held against them?
Intellectual honesty. Do they identify risks and tradeoffs — or does everything sound like a guaranteed win?
The strategy brief challenge is the single most revealing step in the process. It’s impossible to fake strategic thinking at this level of specificity.
Phase 3: The Live Working Session
Before you make a final decision, run a live working session with your top two finalists. Not a presentation — a working session. Bring a real problem you’re facing and ask them to work through it with you in real time.
This reveals things no presentation can: how they think under pressure, whether senior people listen as well as they talk, whether they’ll disagree with you when the evidence supports it, and the chemistry between your teams.
Ninety minutes of real working time will tell you more than three polished presentations. Don’t skip this step.
The RFP Questions That Actually Reveal Character
The questions most RFPs ask are designed to get answers agencies have already prepared. These aren’t.
“Tell us about a client you’ve lost and what you learned from it.” How an agency handles failure tells you more than how they handle success.
“What’s a recommendation you made that the client didn’t take — and were you right?” Reveals whether they hold their convictions or fold under pressure.
“Walk us through a campaign that underperformed and how you handled it.” You want to know if they’ll be transparent and proactive when things aren’t working — not just when they are.
“How do you handle disagreements with clients about strategy?” Tells you whether you’ll get honest counsel or a validation machine.
“What metrics do you track that most agencies don’t?” Reveals whether they’re thinking about what’s easy to measure or what actually matters.
Confident, specific answers mean you have a capable partner. Vague, rehearsed, or overly polished answers mean you’re still talking to a presenter.
The Decision Criteria That Actually Predict Performance
Most RFP scorecards weight the wrong variables. Here’s a framework that doesn’t:
- Strategic thinking quality: 30%
- Proven outcome metrics — not just case study stories: 25%
- Team quality — who will actually work on your account: 20%
- Culture and working relationship fit: 15%
- Pricing and terms: 10%
If pricing is weighted higher than 10 to 15%, you’re optimizing for the wrong variable. The agencies that win on price rarely win on performance — and you’ll likely be running this process again in 18 months.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should a marketing agency RFP process take?
A well-structured process runs four to six weeks: one to two weeks for initial screening, one to two weeks for the strategy brief challenge, and one week for live working sessions and final evaluation. Longer than that and you’re adding time without adding signal. Shorter and you’re skipping steps that matter — usually the working session, which is the most predictive part of the process.
How many agencies should I include in an RFP?
Start with eight to twelve for initial outreach, narrow to three to five for the strategy brief challenge, and run live working sessions with your top two. More than five in the strategy brief phase produces diminishing returns and significant internal time cost. The goal is signal, not coverage.
Should I share my budget in the RFP?
Yes. Agencies that don’t know your budget will either overbid (wasting your evaluation time) or underbid and scope accordingly (setting you up for a gap between expectations and delivery). Sharing the budget focuses the conversation on how they’d allocate it — which tells you something about their strategic priorities — rather than on what they think you’re willing to spend.
What’s the biggest mistake companies make in the agency selection process?
Selecting for presentation quality rather than strategic thinking. The agencies that win most RFPs are the ones that have run the most RFPs — they know what to show, what to say, and how to make the room feel confident. The agencies that will actually improve your business are the ones that can answer hard questions specifically, hold their convictions under pressure, and show up to a working session ready to think rather than perform. Those qualities don’t always correlate with who gives the best pitch.
The Process Reflects the Partnership
How an agency shows up in an RFP process is a preview of how they’ll show up in the relationship. An agency that brings a sharp POV before they’ve been hired is showing you what proactive looks like. An agency that hedges every recommendation during evaluation will hedge every recommendation after signing.
Run a process that reveals how they think — not how well they present. The right partner will welcome it.
About the Author
Dan Enrico has spent nearly two decades doing one thing: building marketing programs that produce results senior leaders can take to their board. As Vice President of Strategy at DSM, he works directly with CMOs and marketing leaders across New Jersey and nationally to find where marketing investment is falling short, uncover where the real growth opportunity lives, and build the integrated strategy to go after it. Dan doesn’t wait to be told what to do. He shows up with a point of view, backs it with data, and stays accountable to the outcome. That’s the standard he holds himself to — and the standard every DSM client should expect.