There are a lot of good agencies out there. A lot of good clients too. But as you’re looking for that perfect agency, remember how important you are to the project’s success.

From selecting the agency, to briefing them, to reviewing work, giving feedback, handling production and dealing with the costs, there are a few things to know to get the most out of your ad agency engagement.

And if you’ve never worked with an ad agency before and never produced an ad campaign before, that doesn’t matter. What does is that you’re forthcoming with your agency about your novice status. This leads us directly to point number one.

1) Honesty is Everything

Be honest about what you know and what you don’t know. Be honest about the budget, your internal structure, office politics, the approval process, how you’ll be judged etc. 

Be honest because that’s how you’ll get the most out of your ad agency relationship. Your ad agency team doesn’t know your business. You don’t want them pretending and bullshiting. You want them to ask questions and learn from you. If you do the same, you’ll have a great relationship, which in turn improves your ad spend’s performance. 

How do you find an agency?

2) Start with a paid project

Don’t waste time trying to get a lot of free thinking from a lot of agencies. Find a few you like (just look at their past work, and ask for case studies and a credentials presentation). Then give one or two a paid project. Reward the one you like with more work. The money you spend on a couple of paid projects will be far more valuable than wasting time with RFPs and pretend assignments. 

Once you have an agency, how do you brief them?

3) Remember, nothing is more complicated than simplicity.

Ask for something simple and you’ll get something great. Ask for something complicated and you’ll get a steamy pile of poop. Make sure your brief contains any research, past work, past findings, testimonials etc. And put them all in one Google Drive or Dropbox. If you have the time and budget for a kickoff workshop, do it. Then it’s the agency’s job to distill everything down into a cohesive story. Once they do that...

4) Don’t “Ya, but. . .”

So when the agency boils the strategy down into one sentence, don’t say, “Yes, but we need to remember the secondary target and retail sales channel support blah blah blah.” The job of the ad agency is to boil it down to one message. 

What’s the best way to measure success?

5) Have one clear project goal. Yep, one.

You can measure awareness pre and post, or track site visits, downloads, click-throughs, sales in one market vs another. But the overall goal needs to be singular. And it can be as simple as, “Get people to our website.” Or “Increase brand awareness.” Or, “Get people to read our blog posts down to point number 5.” Of course, each piece of an integrated campaign has a different role to play. But each piece of communication down the funnel, whatever it’s doing, should be in service to the one, clear project goal.

How do I judge the work?

6) React like a consumer, not a client.

Advertising interrupts people who don’t care what you have to say. Whether it’s a social post or pre-roll video or TV spot. Try to judge an idea like it’s interrupting something you’d rather be seeing.

Who should I run decisions by? 

7) More opinions do not equal more help.

Your opinion matters. So does your CEO’s and your head of sales. But don’t ask your friend who studied marketing in college to weigh in. And don’t ask your spouse. The more people you consult, the more opinions you’ll get and the more fear people will instill in you. “Hmmm, I like it, but I just worry what (insert group of people here) might think.” Worry and fear create bad advertising.

How do I keep criticism constructive? 

8) Compliment before you criticize.

Always start your feedback with what you like. Toss in the word “brilliant” and your creative team will work their tails off for you. (No matter what you say next.) We don’t suggest this just to be nice, though it is a decent thing to do. If you’re positive and encouraging, the team will be more engaged and more receptive to your changes.

How do we avoid mediocrity? 

9) Great work has to yield great results

Ask your agency to push you to do something breakthrough. Demand the unexpected, the unique and different. You can always do additional executions, alternative media and more conservative pieces to support the campaign and shape it to sell like crazy. 

Can you prove a campaign will be successful with data? 

10) There is no algorithm for great work.

Every startup wants to use data to break the advertising code. If there was a formula, we’d all be using it. (And half of the startups wouldn’t fail.) So if you want to get the most out of your agency because you love their work and their results, consider trying it their way. 

Now, go hire an agency.