How to Run a Fair Agency Pitch (and When Not to Run One)

A pitch looks like a simple way to choose an agency: invite several, compare ideas, pick the best. In practice, many pitches run on a vague brief, a long list of agencies, no budget and no feedback at the end. The result is predictable: strong agencies decline, the rest submit rushed work, and the decision goes to whoever made the prettiest slides.

A fair pitch is not about being nice to agencies. It is about reaching a decision you can still defend six months later.

First question: do you need a pitch at all?

A pitch makes sense when you are choosing a long-term partner, the budget is significant, and you genuinely do not know which agency fits best. It usually does not make sense when:

• The job is small and one-off. A short call with two or three agencies and a written quote is enough.
• You are happy with your current agency but want a lower price. Negotiate directly; a fake pitch damages trust on both sides.
• The decision has already been made internally. Inviting others "for comparison" wastes their work and your reputation.
• You cannot yet explain the business problem. Fix the brief first.

There are lighter alternatives: credentials meetings followed by a chemistry session, a small paid trial project, or a strategy workshop with one or two agencies. These often tell you more about how you will work together than speculative creative work does.

Step 1: Keep the shortlist short

Build a long list from referrals, work you admire, award entries and agency directories — on the platform you can filter agencies by service and city. Then narrow it with a short credentials request: relevant experience, the team, agency size, conflicts with your competitors.

Invite three or four agencies to the actual pitch. With more, each agency's chance of winning becomes too small to justify putting its best people on it, and your own team will not have time to evaluate everyone properly. In small markets this matters even more: the same agencies are invited again and again, and they quickly learn which clients are worth the effort.

Step 2: Write a brief agencies can actually answer

The brief should state the business problem, the target audience, what success looks like (a number and a date), the budget range, the mandatory elements, and exactly what you want to see in the pitch. If you want strategy only, say so. If you want creative ideas, say how many and how finished.

Hold one briefing session where all agencies can ask questions, and send the answers to everyone in writing. Equal information is the foundation of a fair process. In my experience, the brands that receive the best pitch work are not the biggest ones, but the ones with the clearest brief.

Step 3: Set a realistic timeline

Agencies need time to think, not only to design. Leave enough weeks between the briefing and the presentation for proper work — a rushed timeline rewards the agency with the most spare hands, not the one with the best thinking.

Put every date in the brief: briefing, deadline for questions, presentation, decision, start of work. Then keep to them. A decision that slips by a month tells agencies a lot about what working with you will be like.

Step 4: Decide on a pitch fee

If you ask for speculative creative work, consider paying a pitch fee. It will rarely cover an agency's full cost, but it shows that you value their time and encourages the strongest agencies to take part.

Be clear about ownership. A pitch fee does not automatically give you the rights to the ideas. If you want to use an idea from an agency you did not hire, you buy it separately. Write these intellectual property terms into the brief.

If there is no budget for a fee, ask for less: a strategic approach and one creative route instead of a full campaign.

Step 5: Agree the evaluation criteria before the pitch

Write the criteria and their weights before you see a single presentation, and share them with the agencies. Typical criteria:

1. Understanding of the business problem
2. Quality of the strategic thinking
3. Strength of the creative idea
4. The team that will actually work on the account
5. Chemistry and working style
6. Cost and commercial terms

Make sure everyone who scores attends every presentation. A senior manager who sees only one pitch and then votes is the most common way a fair process breaks down.

Step 6: Give real feedback

Tell every agency the result on the date you promised, and offer each a feedback call. Explain how they scored against the criteria and what made the difference. It costs you about thirty minutes per agency and builds your reputation as a client good agencies want to work with. In a market where everyone knows everyone, that reputation travels fast.

You do not have to invent the process

Industry bodies have published pitch guidelines you can use as a checklist. For example, the UK's Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) maintains "The Good Pitch", a set of principles for a fair and transparent process in which agencies receive the client's requirements up front and the client screens a sensible number of agencies. Adapt such guidelines to your market, budget and category.

The takeaway

Before you send the first invitation, write down five things on one page: why you need a pitch, which three or four agencies, what you want to see, how you will score, and when you will decide. If you cannot fill that page, you are not ready to pitch yet.