How to shortlist and score a digital marketing agency

The agency with the best-looking deck is rarely the one that does the best work. Slides are cheap; results are not. If you want to shortlist a digital marketing agency that will actually deliver, score the response for evidence, for the people who will do the work, and for honesty, not for polish. Here is a practical way to do it.

Score evidence, not promises

Anyone can claim they drive growth. Reward the agencies that prove it. Look for named clients, real numbers and outcomes tied to revenue or enquiries, not vanity metrics like impressions. Be sceptical of averages and projections; a specific result for a named business, with a client you could call, is worth more than a page of industry statistics.

Check who actually does the work

A common trap is the pitch team you never see again. Ask who will be on your account day to day, how senior they are, and whether the people presenting are the people delivering. The honest answer to this question tells you more than almost anything else in the response. The team you score should be the team you get.

Weight the response to your KPIs

Before you read a single proposal, decide what matters most and weight your scoring accordingly. If qualified leads are the goal, weight the sections about tracking, conversion and reporting heavily. Publishing your criteria, as covered in our tender brief guide, keeps scoring consistent and pushes agencies to answer your actual questions.

Ask for referenceable results

Make referenceability a requirement, not an afterthought. Ask each shortlisted agency for a client in a similar situation who is willing to speak to you. Agencies confident in their work will offer references readily; those that hesitate are telling you something. A ten-minute call with a real client cuts through more than any case study.

Watch for the red flags

Guaranteed rankings, contracts that lock you in for years with no break, ownership of your ad accounts or data held by the agency, and reporting built on metrics that never tie back to money, treat all of these as warnings. The right partner is transparent about what they can and cannot do, sets up everything in your name, and reports honestly even when a month is mixed. If you want to see how we answer these questions, our tenders pages lay it out.