How to Choose an Agency: A Shortlist Method That Works

Most bad agency choices are made in the presentation room. Someone shows a reel, the team looks sharp, the slides are lovely, and the criteria get written afterwards to justify the decision. Reverse the order and the choice gets much easier.

The method below works for website builds, app projects and retained marketing work. It takes roughly a day of your own time spread over a few weeks. That is cheap compared with replacing an agency halfway through a build.

Decide four things before you search

Write these on a single page. You will reuse it later as the core of your brief.

1. The goal in one sentence. “Double inbound leads from the site by Q3” is a goal. “New website” is not.
2. A budget range. Agencies that get no number will guess, and you will receive quotes from £8,000 to £80,000 for the same request. A range costs you nothing in negotiation and saves everyone time.
3. Who signs off. If the managing director can overrule marketing at the end, the MD needs to be involved from the start.
4. Who works with the agency day to day. Agencies need answers fast. Budget at least five hours a week of someone’s time on your side for a typical website project.

That page grows into a full brief. Our agency brief template shows the structure.

Where good candidates come from

Aim for 15 to 20 names on a longlist. Fewer gives you too little choice; more and you stop reading each one properly.

The best sources are boring. Ask peers who have finished a project with an agency, not people who merely know someone there. Look at sites and apps you admire and check the footer or the “credits” page. Browse member lists of trade bodies in your market. Read case studies on agency sites, but only count the ones that name the client and give at least one number.

Sponsored directories and “top 10” lists are fine for gathering names. Nothing more. Ranking positions on those sites often follow advertising spend.

Specialist, full-service or software studio

Picking the right type of agency cuts the longlist faster than anything else.

With full-service agencies, ask one blunt question early. Which parts of this project will your own employees do, and which go to partners? Subcontracting is normal. Finding out about it after the first missed deadline is not.

Weight the criteria before you meet anyone

Here is where most selections quietly go wrong. Fix the criteria and their weights first, then score every candidate from 1 to 5 on each.

Agency B has the strongest portfolio and would win on gut feeling. Agency C edges ahead because it has no weak spot in process, technology or contract terms. You only notice that kind of shift if the weights were set before the charm offensive started.

The numbers above are invented; the method isn’t. Change the weights to suit your project. Fixed launch dates push process up. Products you will run for years push contract and exit terms up, and our guide on who owns the source code explains why.

Reference calls that tell you something

Case studies are marketing. The useful information comes from a former client on the phone. Ask every shortlisted agency for two contacts, ideally from projects that went live at least a year ago, so the client has also lived through maintenance and change requests.

Ten minutes per call is enough if you ask the right things:

• Did the project finish on budget? If not, by how much did it overrun and why?
• Which people from the pitch actually worked on your project?
• How did acceptance go, and how quickly were bugs fixed afterwards?
• Are you still working with them? If not, what ended it?
• What would you put differently in the contract next time?

That last question gets the most honest answers. Watch the timing, too. When an agency needs a week to “find” a reference who will talk to you, that tells you something. Our list of agency red flags covers the other warning signs.

The first meeting

Before any proposal, have a 45- to 60-minute conversation with each finalist. Insist that the person who would run your project is in the room. If only sales and a founder turn up, ask who would lead the work day to day, how many other projects that person carries and who covers when they are on holiday.

Ask to see real working material from a current or recent project: the ticket board, the project plan, a weekly status report. Slides show ambition. Tools show habits. For comparison, you can read how a venture studio like OnlineBuilders describes its own process, from idea to running product.

Then ask about a project that went badly. Agencies with a specific answer, and a clear account of what they changed afterwards, tend to be more trustworthy than those who claim never to have had a problem.

Pitch, paid trial or neither

For smaller projects, a formal pitch with creative work is usually too expensive for everyone involved. Two proposals based on the same brief, plus a workshop with your favourite, will do. Larger budgets or multi-year retainers can justify a pitch, ideally a paid one. The agency pitch process guide walks through it.

There is a credible alternative. Some companies skip comparison altogether and give a recommended agency a small paid starter project, two weeks of real work with a clear deliverable. You learn more from that than from any presentation, as long as you are genuinely free to walk away afterwards.

What you should end up with

You want two or three proposals that answer the same brief, so they can be laid side by side. The guide on how to compare agency proposals shows how to normalise them, and agency hourly rates helps you judge whether the day rates make sense.

Your next step: open a spreadsheet, enter the six criteria from the table above and split 100% of the weight between them. Only then send the first email to an agency.