Insights

34 Advertising Agency Search Consultants

Peter · October 18, 2022 · 6 Comments

Advertising Agency Search Consultants – The Personal Shopper Of The Ad World — Updated 18 October 2022

I’ve updated my list of the advertising agency search consultants universe. After updating we’re at 42. But, I can not update the “34” URL – so, there. Let me know if I am missing any consultancies. Thanks.

Before I get into the subject, I want to make an important point. Whether or not your agency has the chops and appropriate expertise to get the attention of a search consultant, please try to look and act different. Be unignorable.

Yes, you might be a great social media agency or media planning and buying group. But, I bet you have at least a dozen look-alike competitors.

Get It Right – First = Ask The Tough Questions Before You Contact Advertising Agency Search Consultants

Ask how you will stand out under the scrutiny of expert agency search consultants. Ask yourself, would you be interested in your agency? Ask me to help you.

The Big World of Advertising Agency Search Consultants

Advertising agency search consultants help clients locate the perfect agency out of hundreds, even thousands, of small and large agency options. It is estimated that about 10% to 15% of all searches use the services of a consultant (I am thinking about dollar volume, not total agency searches.) I suspect that the number of consultant-led pitches is well over 50% for clients that have large budgets, complicated accounts and now, highly specialized agency requirements.

Should Your Agency Contact An Advertising Agency Search Consultant? It Depends.

Should your agency contact the search consultants on this list? Well, yes and no.

A New Kick-Ass Email Tool

Peter · October 13, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Here’s a new subject line email tool that will increase opens.

I got an email today from one of my favorite email newsletters – Josh Spector’s For The Interested. The email pointed me to omnisend’s email subject line tester

The omnisend promise: Boost your email open rates: analyze and improve your subject lines before sending your next campaign.

I used the tool to create this blog post’s subject line. It scored high.

You can see more tools and resources right There’s more! Here in my advertising, marketing agency resources list.

Is Your Advertising Agency Pitching Too Much?

Peter · October 10, 2022 · 1 Comment

Is Your Advertising Agency Pitching Too Much? Maybe You Need To Say No!

Here is an excerpt from my book on advertising agency pitching and presenting. This tidbit emphasizes the importance of not (allow me to repeat myself) not pitching every account that whistles. You can’t afford it. It costs too much cash, time, energy, and agency staff pain (BURNOUT!). Pitching too much causes one more problem. You will reduce your business development ROI.

There is lots more in “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book Win More Pitches.” You can buy the paperback and eBook on -> Amazon.

Yes, No, Maybe?

Before you embark on a new pitch, you should be asking yourself one extremely important question…

Should we be pitching this account?

I know what you are thinking… Levitan’s kidding right? We’ve made it through the RFI and RFP stages, and now he wants us to ask if we should even be going to the finals.

It’s still ok to say “no”, and now is the time to take a deep breath and review a go-no-go decision. You are about to spend a great deal of time and money. Are you sure that you should go through the next step? Are your colleague’s groans getting louder? Looking in any way ambivalent about the pitch will not help your pitch team feel good about charging into it. Passionless pitches don’t win.

Pitch or not is usually one of the most difficult decisions agency management has to make. There is a good chance that you think that you’ve already answered this question if you participated in an RFP that led to your selection as a shortlist candidate. I believe that even if you’ve performed a sound decision-making process, now is the time to stop to determine if this potentially expensive pitch is worth the time, effort, and human and cash costs.

Are You A Marketing Agency

Peter · September 30, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Marketing Agency or Advertising Agency or Digital Agency?

A few years ago, an agency was called an advertising agency. Then digital came around and agencies began to call themselves digital agencies. Now some call themselves a marketing agency.

What Does Google Search Think? It Thinks – Marketing Agency.

I used Google Trends to see if it could help answer by showing me what people search on. I was a bit surprised. Here are two charts. First comparative searches from 2004 to today. You can see that “advertising agency” once ruled. Today, the second chart, clearly shows that people are searching for a “marketing agency”… Wow.

Is this a definitive answer to what you should call your very own agency? No. But, things are getting a bit complicated.

Yes, there is more to this story. Stay tuned.

Marketing Agency Influencers

Peter · September 16, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Where To Eat and Marketing Agency Influencers

This post is about amateur reviews, the power of influencers as noted by Adweek and marketing agency influencers, and reviews on websites like Agency Spotter.

Some history: I came back to Saatchi & Saatchi New York from our London office in 1994. In both offices I ran business development and ate out a lot. By the time I hit the New York office, Saatchi was on its last legs (as in a company run by Maurice and Charles Saatchi – who were soon “exited” – but founded M&C Saatchi which is arguably a savvier agency).

A thing that hit me when I returned from London in 1994 was this thing called the Internet. I ran around the agency trying to get someone to pay attention but since we were in a bit of a death spiral, I could not excite leadership about the growing digital universe.

While still at the agency I worked with our tech guru to make plans to launch a digital company funded by Digital Equipment. Around that time, I got a call from Tom Florio, the publisher of the New Yorker, who told me that the Newhouse family, the owners of Condé Nast magazines, the New Yorker, Random House and the third largest newspaper group, had this idea of launching online newspapers. I got the CEO job, a brilliant team, and said bye bye to Saatchi.

OK Now On To Reviews

Putting newspapers online in the 1990s was wild. We had carte blanche to invent the formula and the backing of billionaires. New Jersey Online was the combo of the Newark Star-Ledger (the largest paper in NJ), The Times of Trenton and The Jersey Journal. We had the news feeds from each paper, the best coverage of New York and New Jersey’s 7 professional sports teams, the first direct news feed from the Associated Press (a news first), a haiku film critic, Hoboken nightlife reviews, put zoomable cams on NJ beaches, and fab design. We also had what was one of the first set of social media forums – which drove our page views higher than The New York Times online