Marketing Leadership Insights for CEOs and Owners

Managing multiple marketing agencies can give a growing company access to specialists it could not efficiently employ full time. A paid media agency, a search partner and a creative studio may each be excellent at their work. The trouble usually begins in the spaces between their assignments. When agencies report to different stakeholders, work from different briefs and define success through their own channel metrics, the company ends up coordinating vendors rather than lead

A marketing agency should not be fired simply because one campaign underperformed or one quarter missed expectations. The stronger reason to end the relationship is when the agency can no longer diagnose problems honestly, adapt its approach, communicate clearly, or remain accountable to the business outcome it was hired to support. That distinction matters because replacing an agency is disruptive. It takes time, costs money, creates transition risk, and often delays work th

Most companies evaluate marketing agencies too late in the process. By the time the agency is presenting work, the conversation has already shifted toward chemistry, creative ideas, case studies, and price. Those things matter. But they are not the best predictors of whether the relationship will work. A better agency evaluation starts earlier, with a more basic question: does this agency understand the business problem well enough to solve the right one? How to evaluate a ma