TheAgencyRFPIsBroken:WhyPitchSkillsDon'tPredictPerformance

The RFP Problem

The agency RFP process was designed for industries where the deliverable is the proposal. In legal, consulting, and creative services, the pitch document is a genuine preview of the work product.

PPC management is different. The deliverable is ongoing commercial decision-making inside a platform. The quality of that decision-making is invisible in a pitch deck. You can't assess someone's ability to make smart bidding decisions at 3pm on a Tuesday by watching their PowerPoint at 10am on a Wednesday.

What you're actually evaluating in an RFP process: the agency's ability to pitch. Which is entirely unrelated to their ability to manage your account.

Pitch Theatre

Large agencies employ dedicated business development teams whose sole function is winning pitches. These are professional presenters - articulate, polished, and trained to read a room.

The pitch includes:

• • The "quick audit": A surface-level review of your Google Ads account designed to identify easy criticisms of your current setup (or current agency). These are almost always valid observations - because almost every account has obvious issues. Finding them requires 30 minutes, not expertise
• • The case study reel: Cherry-picked results from their best-performing clients, presented without context about client size, margin, or competitive dynamics. "200% ROAS improvement" means nothing without the baseline
• • The strategy deck: Buzzword-heavy slides about "full-funnel optimisation" and "data-driven decision making" that could apply to literally any account. You can usually swap the client logo and reuse 80% of the deck
• • The team introduction: Senior strategists and directors attend the pitch. None of them will work on your account day-to-day

What RFPs Actually Select For

When you score agencies on RFP responses, you're evaluating:

The Bait and Switch

The most damaging aspect of the RFP process is the staffing disconnect. The pitch team and the delivery team are different people.

A typical agency structure:

• • Pitch team: Head of Strategy, Client Director, Senior Account Manager - 15+ years combined experience
• • Delivery team: Account Manager (2 years experience), Account Executive (1 year), overseen by a Senior who manages 8 other clients
• • The gap: The strategic thinking that won you over in the pitch room doesn't make it into the daily account management. The people doing the work don't have the experience to execute the strategy

This is the structural problem behind agencies not understanding your business. It's not that the agency lacks commercial competence - it's that the commercially competent people don't work on your account.

Pricing Distortion

RFPs also distort pricing. When agencies compete on price, they either:

• • Underprice to win, then recover margin by assigning junior staff, reducing reporting frequency, or "recommending" budget increases (which increase their percentage-of-spend fee)
• • Overprice to signal quality, which works on some buyers but has no actual correlation with the quality of account management
• • Match competitor pricing, creating a race to an industry-average fee that supports industry-average results

The fundamental issue: an RFP treats agency services as a commodity. "We need Google Ads management" is like saying "we need a financial adviser." The range of competence, specialisation, and approach is enormous - but RFPs flatten it into a comparable line item.

What Actually Matters

The factors that predict agency performance are almost never evaluated in an RFP:

• • Commercial fluency: Can the day-to-day account manager discuss your P&L, margin structure, and cash flow implications - not just ROAS targets?
• • Diagnostic quality: Not "here are 10 things wrong with your account" but "here's the one thing that's costing you the most money and why"
• • Communication cadence: How proactively does the team surface problems? Do they wait for the monthly report or flag issues in real-time?
• • Strategic challenge: Does the agency push back on your briefs when the brief is wrong? Or do they execute whatever you ask?
• • Sector depth: Not "we've worked in ecommerce" but "we've solved the specific problem of scaling Google Shopping for a multi-brand fashion retailer at £40k/month spend"
• • Staff retention: How long do their account managers stay? High turnover means you'll be re-onboarding every 6-12 months

A Better Selection Process

Replace the RFP with a process that evaluates what actually matters:

Red Flags in Agency Pitches

• • "We guarantee X% ROAS": No honest agency guarantees outcomes they don't control
• • No questions about your margin: If they don't ask about profitability, they'll optimise for revenue - which isn't the same thing
• • Emphasis on tools and technology: Tools don't manage accounts. People do. Technology is table stakes, not a differentiator
• • "We manage £Xm in ad spend": Total managed spend tells you about agency size, not competence. Some of that spend might be managed badly
• • Vague team structure: "A dedicated team" means nothing. How many people? What's their experience? How many other clients do they serve?
• • Pitch-only senior presence: If the Managing Director is in the pitch but won't be in the monthly review, the pitch is theatre

Next Steps

If you're about to run an agency selection process, skip the RFP. Have a conversation instead. The agency's ability to have a commercially intelligent dialogue about your business tells you more in 30 minutes than a 40-page document ever will.