Agency fees and commercial arrangements are essential to get right. But what is the right agency fee model? How much should be paid? And how do you manage and negotiate these fees effectively? While there is common practice in agency fee models, there is no best practice, with each fee model dependent on the discipline, services, volume, and more.
The objective of our agency fee advisory is to create fair, sustainable and mutually equitable models that are easy to manage, and which drive the desired outcomes.
We approach this challenging area from a number of angles, tailored in each project to fit specific need. You can explore them here:
Find more information on agency commercials arrangements here or explore more details and insights below.
Cost benchmarking and value benchmarking your agency, which one gives the best results?
In response to the question of “What is a cynic?” Oscar Wilde wrote “A man who knows the price of ...
Why it is so important to have an agency scope of work
This is the final in our series of articles on agency scope of work management. Managing the scope of work ...
How to build flexibility into an agency scope of work
This is the third in a series of articles on agency scope of work management. Managing the scope of work for ...
The impact of economies of scale on scope of work cost
This is the second in a series of articles on agency scope of work management. Managing the scope of work ...
How to define an agency scope of work to deliver increased value
This is the first in a series of agency scope of work management articles. Managing the scope of work for ...
Who should really be paying for advertising agency pitches?
The first point I have to make is “Why are you pitching any way?” But the fact is that pitching ...
Beware the dangers of the cookie cutter approach to benchmarking agency remuneration
One of the topics that regularly occupies conversations with marketing services and procurement teams is benchmarking their existing agency arrangements ...
The flawed economics of falling agency salaries and falling overhead rates
It is interesting that when you listen to some marketing procurement and consultants there appears to be a consistent story ...
Five common traps when assessing or defending agency value
Benjamin Graham famously wrote ‘Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.’ He was a smart guy, and ...
What is the best agency remuneration model for every advertiser?
It is interesting that according to the ANA the most common agency compensation model is still the resource retainer approach ...
Why adjusting an agency scope of work requires careful consideration
An advertiser recently called with an issue that had lead to a dispute with their agency. The advertiser had a ...
How Value Based Compensation can support Zero Based Budgeting
Zero-based budgeting is an accounting practice that forces managers to think about how every dollar is spent in every budgeting ...
Before you move forward with agency remuneration, make sure you look back
For more than a decade, we have been helping advertisers to benchmark and improve their agency remuneration arrangements. We do ...
Seven essential considerations when moving from agency retainer to project fees
There is a distinct market trend in how marketers and advertisers are compensating their agencies and suppliers: the trend is ...
What to do if you think you are being overcharged by an agency
It was an interesting conversation recently, with the head of a digital agency that had found themselves in a dispute ...
The latest trends in agency remuneration
This is the first in the series of TrinityP3 Webinars. Today we're talking about the latest trends in agency remuneration and ...
Why agency negotiations are never as straightforward as you think
Negotiations can be difficult things, especially when either party is speaking a different language. And believe it or not, marketers ...
How smart marketers are moving beyond the agency remuneration stalemate
Suspend disbelief for a moment. Imagine a world where agencies are paid solely on the basis of commercial results. An ...
How the Verificom Agency Fee Calculator helps agencies and advertisers agree agency fees
Recently we were presenting the results of an agency remuneration-benchmarking project to an advertiser and members of the team asked ...
5 issues you need to overcome to make agency incentive payments work
For the past ten years we have been working with advertisers to move their agency compensation from the popular cost-based ...
Why are you still paying production mark-ups to your agency?
When I first started my career in agency finance departments, adding a service fee markup to 3rd party production costs ...
5 reasons why advertisers paying for pitches will not work
Recently the new CEO of the Communications Council, Tony Hale, announced in a Mumbrella Google Hangout that he believed advertisers ...
Can an agency win a media pitch without discounting rates?
In a market place obsessed with prices and rates, it appears that unless you can win the race to zero ...
What is the best way to benchmark agency compensation?
Due to the constant updates to the operating systems of the iOS requiring updates to the app, we have discontinued ...
Why lower agency retainers lead to higher production costs
It is common to have creative agency, and increasingly digital agency fees, broken into two component parts. First is the ...
What should my advertising agency cost be?
We have been benchmarking advertising agency costs for more than a decade. This is usually undertaken with an historical focus, looking ...
How to develop a price based remuneration model for your agencies
We have been working with value based remuneration (VBR) or compensation (VBC) models since 2007 and have implemented these in ...
How much agency financial transparency do marketers really need?
It is common for a tender or RFP to require the respondents to provide details about their financial circumstances. These ...
How long does it take to create a big advertising idea?
As agencies largely charge fees related to resource hours, it got me thinking about how much a big idea costs ...
Are you compensating your agencies or remunerating them?
Now you may think that Compensation is Remuneration, there is really no difference between the two. But it is not ...
