Free Marketing Agency Selection Scorecard

Most business owners have a story about a marketing agency that didn’t deliver. A retainer that produced reports but no leads. A relationship that started strong and went quiet. A contract that was easier to get into than out of.

The problem usually isn’t that the agency was incompetent. The problem is that the evaluation process never surfaced the right questions — and by the time the red flags showed up, the budget was already gone.

Choosing a marketing agency is one of the most consequential decisions a growing business can make. Done well, it accelerates revenue, improves lead quality, and creates a system that compounds over time. Done poorly, it costs you money, months, and momentum.

THAT Agency’s free Marketing Agency Selection Scorecard is a Microsoft Excel-based evaluation template built to remove guesswork from the process. With built-in criteria weighting, it lets you objectively score and compare agencies across the factors that actually predict performance — not just the ones that look good in a pitch meeting.

What the Scorecard Evaluates:

• RFP adherence — did they actually answer what you asked, or did they present a generic deck?
• Company stability and structure — financial viability, team depth, ownership model, and operational consistency
• Level of understanding — do they understand your industry, your buyers, and your market — or are they learning on your dollar?
• Industry and vertical experience — relevant case studies, proven results in comparable businesses, and evidence of local/regional market knowledge
• Service alignment — are their core capabilities matched to your actual needs, not just their preferred packages?
• Transparency and reporting standards — how do they define success, what does reporting look like, and will you always know where your money is going?
• Costs, fees, and contract terms — a clear view of what you’re paying, what’s included, and what the exit looks like
• Communication and responsiveness — the factor most business owners wish they’d evaluated before signing

Who This Is For:

Business owners, presidents, and marketing directors who are actively evaluating agencies, re-evaluating a current relationship, or rebuilding after a partnership that didn’t work. If you’re about to make a significant investment in marketing, this scorecard is the due diligence step most companies skip — and later regret.

You can use it to evaluate a single agency or score multiple agencies side-by-side. The weighting system means the criteria most important to your business carry more influence over the final score — so the result reflects your priorities, not a generic rubric.

Twenty years in this industry taught us that the businesses with the best agency relationships aren’t the ones who got lucky. They’re the ones who asked better questions up front.derstand the landscape, build to it deliberately, and measure what matters.