Agency Field Guide
Menu

For marketers:
Find the right agency
for your business.

Hiring or managing a marketing agency? Find teams with relevant experience, compare their work, and use our guides to choose and manage the right partner.

Start with the job you need done.

  1. Write down the problem before the agency type.

    What needs to improve? What can you spend? What can your own team handle? “Fix our retention program” gives you a more useful starting point than “find a great agency.”

  2. Search by service, industry, location, or platform.

    Try beauty email marketing or Shopify, then use the available filters to narrow the results. If the list is too thin, remove a constraint. Start with paid media, SEO & AEO, or email & retention if you already know the service.

  3. Read the profile. Follow the sources.

    Look for relevant client mentions, case studies, services, and credentials. Open the linked evidence. A familiar logo is a reason to investigate, not proof that the agency solved your exact problem.

  4. Build a small shortlist around fit.

    Keep your own notes on three to five agencies: relevant work, what still needs checking, and questions for the first call. Ask who would do your work, what the engagement costs, and whether they have capacity. The directory can’t confirm those things for you.

  5. Take the conversation to the agency.

    Visit the agency’s website from its profile and contact the team directly. Give each shortlisted agency the same brief so you can compare their thinking, scope, and costs on equal terms.

Know a relevant brand? Start there.

Use brand pages to find agencies that publicly name a company as a client. Start with a competitor, a business like yours, or a brand whose work made you curious.

Find relevant experience.

Search a brand in Brands, select the matching company, then open the agency profiles. Follow each “Named on…” link to inspect the original source. Look for the service, business problem and scope you need.

Research your market.

Repeat with a few comparable businesses. Note the projects their agencies describe and the questions those raise for your own plans. Public mentions do not reveal a competitor’s complete strategy or current roster.

Turn a logo into a better question.

Ask which team, location or business unit the agency worked with, when the work happened and who did it. For a hotel search, work for one property may be much more relevant than a corporate brand campaign, or the other way around.

Build your shortlist.

Keep your own notes on three to five agencies, including the source, why the work is relevant and what remains unknown. Confirm current team, capacity, budget fit and any category conflicts before choosing.

These are agency-reported connections, including past work. A missing result means less information in AFG, not that the brand has never hired an agency.

Look up a brand → · Read the complete brand research guide →

Evidence has different strengths.

Third-party verified means a source outside the agency supports that specific claim, such as a partner-directory entry. It isn’t a blanket quality guarantee.

Agency-stated information comes from the agency’s own public material. Client rosters help show patterns of experience; a mention alone does not confirm a current relationship, dates, or scope.

A sparse profile means we hold less information. Search order is not a “best agencies” ranking, and nobody pays for placement.

How we build the directory →

Practical guides. Before and after the hire.

Browse all guides →

A question we haven’t answered?

Tell us what you’re trying to find, flag a profile error, or suggest a guide you wish existed.

Prefer email? support@agencyfieldguide.com

We use these details to handle your message. Privacy Policy.