No agency is perfect, and no client-agency relationship is without its challenges. But with a structured agency evaluation program, marketing procurement leads and agency management teams can open communication lines, assess performance, identify improvement areas, and forge stronger, more productive partnerships. Discover how formal agency evaluations drive better outcomes for both sides.

Satisfaction scores only tell part of the story. The Customer Effort Score (CES) offers a powerful new lens for evaluating agency relationships, measuring how easy or difficult it is for both sides to get things done. Discover how marketing procurement leads and agency management teams can use CES alongside traditional metrics for a more complete and actionable view of agency performance.

Have you ever been blindsided by an agency relationship that was quietly falling apart? During a busy campaign or project, stakeholders hesitate to raise issues for fear of creating friction. Formal agency evaluation surveys provide a safe, structured channel to surface hidden problems before they escalate, helping marketing procurement leads and agency management teams stay ahead of relationship risk.

Much has been written about agency evaluations from the client’s perspective, but what do agencies actually want from the process? Discover how balancing formal and informal feedback, delivering results promptly, and creating genuine action plans can transform your agency evaluation program into a tool for mutual growth and stronger long-term partnerships.

The quality of your agency evaluation program depends on the quality of feedback it generates. From setting clear expectations to building accountability and structured follow-up, these ten guidelines can transform your agency evaluation from a box-ticking exercise into a driver of real behavioral change and stronger client-agency relationships.

The most powerful agency evaluations go both ways. By inviting your agencies to evaluate you as a client, you get a richer, more honest picture of the relationship. Discover how 360-degree agency evaluations help marketing procurement leads and agency management teams improve effectiveness, reduce waste, and build stronger, more aligned partnerships.

Most agency evaluations measure one thing well and ignore the rest. A creative agency gets judged on creative output. A media agency gets judged on cost efficiency. But agency performance has at least five dimensions (delivery excellence, financial management, strategic alignment, innovation, and relationship health) and an evaluation that misses any of them gives you an incomplete picture.

Annual agency reviews are the industry default, but a year is a long time to let problems compound. Borrowing the “retrospective” concept from agile development (short, structured check-ins at natural project milestones) gives procurement teams and agency managers a way to surface issues while there’s still time to fix them. A five-question pulse survey, run at the end of a major campaign, can reveal more about the health of an agency relationship than a 50-question annual review.

One of the most overlooked elements of any agency evaluation program is what happens after the results come in. Agencies often feel their feedback disappears into a black hole. Discover how marketing procurement leads and agency management teams can close the loop, act on agency feedback, and build the trust that drives long-term performance improvement.