Why Your Media Agency Review Is Long Overdue (And How to Run One Without Blowing Up the Relationship)
Most brands go years without a proper agency review. Here's how to run one that's honest, structured, and doesn't poison the relationship in the process.
The Review You've Been Putting Off
Most brands haven't done a proper agency review in three or four years. The last one was probably triggered by a crisis, a missed campaign, a budget blowout, a change in CMO, rather than by any kind of deliberate governance. And so the relationship has drifted. The agency has gotten comfortable. You've stopped asking hard questions. Performance has become something you describe in percentages that look fine on a slide and mean almost nothing in practice.
That's not a dig at agencies. It's a description of what happens when there's no structured accountability. The work fills the space available, the fees creep, and both sides learn to manage expectations downward rather than have an uncomfortable conversation.
The review isn't about finding a reason to fire them. It's about understanding what you're actually getting.
What a Real Review Looks At
Start with the commercial structure. Pull the contract, the rate card, and the last two years of invoices. What did you pay for? What was delivered? Where did the scope expand without a formal conversation? Most brands discover at least one or two line items they can't fully explain. That's not fraud, it's just what happens when there's no one on the client side managing the commercial relationship properly.
Then look at performance. Not the metrics the agency put in the monthly deck. Go back to the business outcomes you were trying to drive and ask whether the work moved them. If you can't connect agency activity to business results, that's a structural problem, either you didn't brief them properly, or they've been optimizing for the wrong things, or both.
Finally, look at the team. The senior people who won the pitch, are they the ones actually working on your account? This is one of the oldest complaints in the industry and one of the most consistently ignored. You're paying for expertise. You should know whose expertise you're actually paying for.
Running It Without Blowing Things Up
The relationship is real and it has value. Running a review doesn't mean you're about to leave. The agency doesn't need to feel like a defendant.
Be direct about what you're doing and why. "We're doing a structured review of all major vendor relationships this year" is honest and neutral. It signals seriousness without signalling the exit. Most agency leaders, when treated like adults, respond well. They want to know where they stand. The ones who don't are usually the ones with something to hide.
Bring a clear scorecard. Define what good looks like before you walk into the room. That keeps the conversation factual and reduces the chance that it becomes a personality conflict.
If you're considering going to market, say so. Pretending you aren't when you are is a waste of everyone's time and tends to come out anyway.
What Comes Out the Other Side
A good review ends with one of three outcomes: a renegotiated, tighter relationship; a competitive pitch that either reaffirms the incumbent or brings in someone better; or a managed transition. All three are legitimate. The one outcome you want to avoid is what you have now, a relationship that's never been properly examined, operating on autopilot, with no one sure whether it's actually working.
Your media budget is likely one of the largest line items on your marketing P&L. It deserves the same rigour you'd apply to any other major vendor relationship. The review doesn't have to be adversarial. But it does have to happen.