Have agency-client relationships become too transactional – and what can both sides do to bring partnership back?
We often complain that agencies don’t understand our business. But how much effort have we actually invested in helping them understand it?
Having worked across multiple businesses, categories and agency relationships, I believe genuine partnership is about far more than a good brief, a signed contract or a quarterly business review. It’s about mutual understanding, trust, accountability and a shared commitment to commercial outcomes. And responsibility sits firmly on both sides.
1.Stop expecting agencies to read our minds
Do agencies understand our business model, commercial objectives, stakeholder landscape and approval processes? Do they know which requests are genuinely urgent and which can wait?
Too often, we add work to a queue, treat everything as a priority and then wonder why the agency hasn’t delivered the thing that mattered most.
You can’t expect an agency to think like a partner if you only give it enough information to operate like a supplier.
Prioritisation is a shared responsibility. Clients must communicate what matters most; agencies must challenge competing demands and make trade-offs visible.
2.Where have the water-cooler moments gone?
Great partnerships aren’t built exclusively in status meetings and briefing documents. They develop through informal conversations: the spontaneous idea, the challenge over coffee, the discussion that starts with one problem and ends somewhere unexpected.
We don’t have to resort back to long Friday lunches (although, they were nice). Spending time in one another’s offices helps, but physical presence alone isn’t enough. We need space for free-flowing conversation, creative exploration and getting to know one another as people.
The water cooler isn’t just a place. It’s the opportunity for an idea to emerge that nobody put in a brief.
3.Manage your agency like you manage your people
When someone in our team underperforms, we don’t necessarily replace them immediately. We set objectives, provide feedback, identify problems and give them an opportunity to improve. Why shouldn’t we apply the same discipline to agencies?
At HSBC, we introduced a more structured approach to agency performance management. In one instance, an agency that had previously been underperforming responded well to clearer expectations, regular reviews and a better understanding of our respective processes. It ultimately became one of the strongest agencies in our roster and won more business.
When capabilities don’t align with business needs, it may be time to part ways. Performance management is about making evidence-based decisions: sometimes clearer expectations unlock better performance; other times, the gap is too great.
Agree shared objectives and measures of success, whether that’s strategic thinking, innovation, delivery pace, execution quality or commercial impact.
The goal isn’t to retain every agency, but to help the right partners succeed.
4.Stop pretending to be someone you’re not – especially in a pitch
Brands can sell a vision of strategic transformation and long-term partnership during a pitch, only for the agency to discover a chaotic organisation driven by tactical, short-term demands, endless stakeholders and last-minute changes.
Equally, an agency might promise proactive strategic thinking, only for the client to discover a slower-moving partner that needs extensive direction.
If your business moves at a million miles an hour, say so. If approvals take weeks, be transparent. If you need tactical delivery today but want to build towards a longer-term vision, explain that.
The pitch shouldn’t be about convincing each other you’re picture- perfect. It should be about discovering whether you’re right for each other.
4.One integrated agency or a roster of specialists?
An integrated agency offers simplicity and connected thinking (in theory), but breadth doesn’t guarantee depth. Specialists bring expertise but add complexity: who joins the dots and owns the overarching strategy? The more fragmented your roster, the more internal capability you need to orchestrate it.
If you choose specialists, bring them together through annual kick-offs, mid-year reviews and appropriate planning to maintain strategic alignment.
At Hyperoptic, I introduced an innovation slush fund to encourage agencies to go beyond their retained remits. Our ecosystem spanned paid media, SEO, affiliates, out-of-home, connected TV and local marketing. We’d brief multiple agencies on business challenges, with the strongest ideas winning additional activation budget. This fostered collaboration and healthy competition, rewarding ideas over retained deliverables.
Your agency roster shouldn’t be a collection of separate contracts, but an ecosystem of partners working towards a shared business ambition.
5.If we win, you win
If we genuinely want agencies to behave like strategic partners, we need to consider how we reward them.
Too often, remuneration focuses on delivery outputs or metrics that are easy to measure, such as cost per acquisition (CPA). But you can reduce CPA without generating incremental revenue. You can deliver every campaign on time without materially improving business performance.
We shouldn’t reward agencies for activity when what we really want is impact.
Where appropriate, remuneration should align with meaningful business outcomes, such as incremental revenue or profit. If the business wins, the agency should share in that success.
But this must be fair. Before holding agencies accountable for incremental growth, we need robust internal measurement, credible baselines and agreement on what they can reasonably influence. Otherwise, we’re asking partners to accept risk against outcomes they don’t control.
Partnership is a behaviour, not a contract
We can’t demand strategic partnership while treating agencies as interchangeable suppliers. Nor should agencies expect trusted-partner status without demonstrating commercial understanding, intellectual honesty and accountability.
Partnership requires mutual understanding, clear priorities, space for collaboration, constructive performance management and shared incentives.
The best agency relationship isn’t necessarily the one with the biggest budget or the longest contract. It’s the one where both sides challenge each other’s thinking and share accountability for results.
If you want a partner, stop behaving like a customer. And if you want to be a partner, stop behaving like a supplier.
Jay Safdar is a growth marketing leader with experience spanning global financial giants, British icons and tech innovators – including AllSaints, Amex, Amazon, Barclays, EE, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Hyperoptic, John Lewis, Lloyds and WEX Inc. Specialising in demand generation, performance marketing and marketing effectiveness, Jay has a proven track record of driving commercial impact through data-led strategy and insight-driven creative.
