An RFP is a filter, not a form. If all 5 responses say yes to everything, the document filtered nothing. You are left choosing on chemistry and price.
A longer questionnaire will not fix it. Ask questions that require a strong agency to give an honest answer and lose points. Then the responses stop looking alike.
What should a marketing agency RFP include?
Use 7 sections: business context, the outcome you are buying, 6 to 12 months of channel history, your budget range, in-house coverage, your questions, and a decision timeline with scoring criteria. Keep the brief to 4 to 6 pages. Longer documents usually get skimmed.
| Section | What to write | What it filters for |
|---|---|---|
| Business context | Model, ARR or revenue band, ACV or AOV, sales motion | Agencies that have run your economics before |
| The outcome | One number and a date: CAC under $900 by Q1, or 40 SQLs a month | Proposals built around your goal instead of a service menu |
| Channel history | 6 to 12 months of spend, CAC, conversion rate, what you already killed | Agencies that will not re-pitch a test you already ran |
| Budget range | Retainer band plus media spend, stated separately | Priced-for-you proposals instead of package menus |
| In-house coverage | Who you have: designer, writer, analyst, dev | Scope that fills your gaps rather than duplicating staff |
| Your questions | 6 to 8 questions with a forced choice or a number in each | Answers you can lay side by side |
| Process | Due date, presentation window, decision date, scoring weights | Agencies that can staff your start date |
The history section carries the most weight. An agency that sees your last 9 months of CAC by channel can tell you where the money is going before the call. One working from a blank page can only describe its process.
Why do most agency RFPs produce identical proposals?
Yes-or-no questions produce identical proposals. “Do you have experience with B2B SaaS?” has one expected answer. Ask for a number, name, or tradeoff instead. Those details show how each agency thinks.
Rewrite each question so agreement is not an option.
| Question that gets a yes | Question that gets an answer | What you learn |
|---|---|---|
| Do you have SaaS experience? | Name 2 clients with our ACV and sales cycle. What happened to their CAC? | Whether the experience is real or adjacent |
| How do you approach creative testing? | How many net-new creatives per week at our spend level, and who makes them? | Real production capacity behind the philosophy |
| Are you data-driven? | Which 3 metrics would you put on a weekly dashboard for us, and why not the others? | What they optimize toward |
| Can you scale with us? | Who is on our account by name, and what else are they staffed on? | Whether seniors on the pitch stay after signing |
| What results can we expect? | What would you stop doing in our account in week one? | Whether they read the history section |
The last question tells you the most. It requires a defensible opinion. That separates agencies that studied your data from those pattern-matching your industry.
How much should you tell agencies about your budget?
Give a range, and say what it covers. State whether media spend sits inside or outside the fee. Vague budgets do not protect you from being overcharged. They leave you with five proposals scoped for different jobs.
The ANA and 4As published their Positive Pitch Principles in June 2026. The first principle calls for transparency on goals, KPIs, budget, and team structure. Marketing Dive reported average search costs of $408,500 for marketers and $406,092 for incumbent defenses.
Those figures cover enterprise reviews, but smaller searches still consume real time on both sides. Hiding the budget adds work without improving the field.
Practical version for a funded startup:
- State the retainer band. “$8K to $15K a month for the first two quarters.”
- Separate media spend. “Plus $60K a month in paid media, managed but not marked up.”
- Name the flexibility. “The band moves if you can show the payback math.”
How many agencies should you send it to?
3 to 5, after a short screening call with each. A full response takes about 33 hours and pulls in roughly 9 people on the agency side, per Loopio’s 2026 analysis of RFP win rates. Wide fields get thin answers, because good agencies triage.
Loopio’s data also shows organizations decline about 45% of the RFPs they receive. Agencies run go/no-go calls on inbound briefs. Send yours to 10 firms with no budget and a two-week turnaround. Some of the shops you want most will pass.
Screen before you send. A 20-minute call answers most of the questions behind a long questionnaire. It also removes poor fits before anyone starts writing. Our list of questions to ask before hiring a growth agency works well as that screening script.
Writing your brief this week? Send us the history section and the outcome you want. We will tell you whether the scope matches the outcome and budget you set. Book a Free Strategy Call.
What should you ask for besides the proposal?
Ask for three comparable artifacts: a 90-day plan with owners, a redacted client report, and one proposed account cut. Slide decks vary too much to score. These artifacts work side by side.
The 90-day plan matters most because it exposes sequencing. One agency may fix tracking first; another may start with creative volume or landing pages. Any of those can be right for your account. The reasoning shows whether they read your data.
Two things worth asking for by name:
- A sample weekly or monthly report. Our post on what a monthly growth report should show covers what separates a real report from a screenshot of the ads dashboard.
- A trial structure. Ask each agency how it would run a paid pilot before an annual term. How to run a 90-day agency pilot covers what that should include, and our 90-Day Growth Jumpstart is the version we run.
How should you score the responses?
Score the written responses before any presentations, using weights you set in advance. Presentations reward polish. Written answers show preparation, which better predicts the first 90 days.
A workable weighting for a funded startup:
- Fit with your economics (30%). Do they know what your CAC payback needs to be?
- Plan quality and sequencing (25%). Is the first month specific and defensible?
- Team and staffing (20%). Named people, hours, and what else they carry.
- Measurement (15%). How they will prove the work moved anything.
- Commercials (10%). Fee model, term, notice period.
Price sits last on purpose. A cheaper invoice can become expensive when the work underperforms. Once you pick, agency contract terms to negotiate covers where to push hardest.
What should you leave out of the RFP?
Leave out unpaid spec work, 40-question compliance forms, and requests for a full strategy before anyone has seen your account. These requests lower the quality of the field. Agencies with steady demand are more likely to decline, which skews the shortlist toward firms with open capacity.
The ANA and 4As guidance recommends defining the role of speculative work, compensating pitch labor, and ending the process once a decision is made. If you want strategic work before signing, pay for it as a small scoped project. You will get better thinking and a real look at how they work.
Also leave out anything the agency should be telling you. “What channels should we be on?” is a strategy question dressed as procurement. Ask it on the call so you can challenge the answer. Our post on growth agency red flags in the sales process covers what the answers usually reveal.
The brief in one paragraph
Share your numbers, budget range, and goal. Ask 6 to 8 questions that require more than yes. Send the brief to 3 to 5 screened agencies.
Score written answers before presentations. A useful brief creates meaningful differences between proposals. For a second review, Book a Free Strategy Call and bring your draft.
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