Agency Spotter is a digital research platform used by decision makers looking to hire marketing service providers (also known as agencies) across 40 service areas including advertising, marketing, digital strategy, web design, mobile marketing, content marketing, branding, packaging design, industrial design, innovation, public relations and many more. Learn more about how to use Agency Spotter.
In addition to the self-service platform, Agency Spotter offers expert agency search services to decision makers who need guidance and also has software that helps teams and companies manage their agency roster more effectively.
Agency Spotter is used by marketers from companies big and small who need to find a marketing agency partner across more than 40 service areas. In 2017, the platform had almost 250,000 professionals search the Agency Spotter, as well as use it’s guides, reports, and tools. Explore some of the largest companies using Agency Spotter.
Agencies use Agency Spotter to showcase their capabilities and connect with clients. It is a platform that helps them broadcast their reputation by hosting client reviews which Agency Spotter verifies independently.
Both founders had seen and experienced a lot of pain around finding, recommending and managing marketing agencies in the past. They want to save professionals time and help them connect with the right fit agencies. There's a whole story behind the impetus for founding Agency Spotter. You can also see them tell part of the story in this video.
Join the conversation with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, our LinkedIn Group, Instagram, and Pinterest. You can also use guides for hiring and working with agencies, along with other thought leadership articles on Agency Spotter's Blog.
We publish top agency reports across many service areas to help you jumpstart your own search for an agency partner. We rank agencies using a combination of objective scoring as well as expert curation. Learn more about our top report methodology here.
Former clients of agencies can post reviews and the agencies also request clients to post reviews. Once client reviews they are submitted, the Agency Spotter team verifies the identity and credibility of each reviewer, and only allows those that meet strict criteria to remain published. Please note that only clients of an agency can review them. This can be former or current clients.
We do not allow former employees or contractors to review them here as there are other sites that do a good job of providing a forum for companies employment practices and satisfaction.
To leave a review, make sure you’re logged in to Agency Spotter, then visit the agency’s portfolio page and look for the “Review Agency” button in their Ratings section.
There are three levels of privacy available to a user who is posting a review. You can post a client review of an agency sharing your name, title, company, and industry. This helps that agency the most and is viewed as the most credible review by other users.
Alternately, users can choose to hide their name and title or post the review privately by hiding everything except for the industry of their company.
For all reviews, The Agency Spotter Team will have access to see who the reviewer is in order to verify that you have had a client relationship with the agency.
No. Agency Spotter’s policy allows all verified reviews to remain published unless they are defamatory or use vulgarities. We do encourage agencies to invite their best clients to write reviews so that future clients will have a more complete view of the agency, especially if they do get a one bad review at some point.
On Agency spotter, you can be discovered by more businesses, make it easy for them to contact you for new business, avoid people whose budgets are too low, and do just-in-time business development by seeing who has been checking you out. Upgraded agencies have been getting 10 to 25 times more exposure on the site than agencies on limited plan, and as a result have been starting more relationships with decision makers and landing more new business. Learn more about the benefits for agencies.
We are compared to other companies in the space all the time. In doing so, many don't realize they are not comparing apples to apples. It is important to know that we are not like most other companies in the space.
Agency Spotter is building a community of decision makers and agencies. We want to save people time and help them find great partners. We were born out of and continue to focus on five clusters of agencies: strategic agencies, marketing agencies, digital agencies, design agencies, and marketing research agencies. In contrast, some of the companies people try to compare us to may have started with programing/development focused businesses or with freelancers (or both). While those companies may have more monthly traffic than us, the questions to ask are: How much of that traffic is looking for your marketing agency versus a java dev shop?
Agency Spotter is research based, and we give users verified client reviews and other reports that are designed to improve the chances of amazing partnerships. We are not a pay to play site. We want any and all agencies that fit our minimum threshold of what an agency is to be on the platform. Agencies can pay to gain more exposure to a point, but no agency can say they are great at more than five service areas out of the 40 we have today. These things are very different to how some directories operate. Many directories are only pay to play or allow you to say you are great at everything. Others have a very limited or targeted number of agencies because they only focus on agencies who are already paying to advertise themselves with Google Adwords.
Agency Spotter is not focused on click through to an agency's website. We rank every registered user on the platform in order to help our agency partners identify a verified lead versus all the other noise. If all you care about is clicks, there are other sites that do that. You can probably even just hire a bot to generate clicks for you if that is how your success is measured. The things you have to think about are: How much of that traffic is just looking to sell your agency something versus hire you? Is it legitimate traffic or is some of it artificial? Can I even convert these clicks into a qualified lead or a sale?
Want to learn more about our benefits? Once you are an admin of an agency, you can schedule a 30 minute call with our team to learn how to get the most out of Agency Spotter.
The short answer is that there is no cost to be on Agency Spotter. If you qualify as an agency, you can and should be on our platform and take full advantage of being able to promote your reputation with features like like verified client reviews.
If you want to compare costs, it gets a bit hypothetical since we are not like most of the companies out there. But, as an agency trying to grow new business, we think you should be using every channel you can if it is helping you.
Here is an example scenario using our lowest monthly pricing (though paying yearly will save you more with us) to give you a cost benefit comparison that may help you think about Agency Spotter versus other companies in the space.
| Agency Spotter | Example Competitor | |
|---|---|---|
| cost | $247/month | $1,000/month |
| est. views | 200/month | 600/month |
| est. leads | 2/month | 6/month |
| est. new business | 1-3/year | 2-6/year |
| cost per view/click | $1.235 | $1.667 |
| cost per lead | $123.5 | $166.7 |
If they both bring you leads, and they both bring you deals, which one is better? Both are much more efficient than what you would pay for a click by advertising on Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Agencies should specialize in one of our core services and must have at least two full-time employees. Register yourself as a user with your business email address and then request your agency be added.
We currently do not showcase freelancers, contractors (individual orgroups), or single-employee firms.
We have professionals searching from more than 100 countries each month, so we publish agencies worldwide. If you have a website or landing page that supports English, Spanish, French, and Italian, we are able to assess your add request faster.
Follow the tips listed on your portfolio and agency dashboard pages, which include things like making sure you've been reviewed by your best clients, updating your private price range information, adding great projects, and more.
The more complete your agency portfolio, the higher you will rank in organic search results. Make sure you complete enough to at least meet the minimum requirements to be included in a Top Agency Report.
Here’s an even more detailed checklist for more guidance. Finally, upgrading will get you much more exposure across more service areas, featured projects, and on any of the brand pages of companies you have worked with.
We offer an Agency Concierge service that is designed for you. After a brief call with you, we will quickly complete your agency portfolio and even call a client to secure a verified review, posting it on their behalf.
Email us at [email protected] to let us know your interested in Agency Concierge service or purchase the service online.
You can upgrade to a premium membership and be rotated into the home page featured area. The other opportunities to be featured in an article or highlighted in some other way are based on our editorial calendar. Editorial preference is given to our agency customers. The only things that might get our attention otherwise are if you're sharing us on social media, have an awesome portfolio, are winning awards, and/or are getting some great attention from users (views, lists, shares, client reviews).
If you are an admin of your agency, just click your user picture at the top right of the site. You will see links for your agency portfolio and dashboard there.
To request admin access for your agency’s portfolio, you need to be logged in as a user of agency spotter (preferably with your company email address). Then, simply search for your agency by name here, click your agency, and then click the box to become an admin to fill out the short request form.
Only the agency admins can edit an agency’s profile (contact info, portfolio, other admins, etc.). Yes, an agency can have multiple admins assigned to it. Having multiple admins is free and encouraged.
There are three ways you can become an admin for your agency: 1. Be the one to request your agency be added in the first place; 2. You can request to claim or be added as an admin on the agency portfolio (look for the orange box on the right side); or, 3. An existing admin from your agency can invite you to be an admin from the top of the agency dashboard.
To request admin access for your agency’s portfolio, you need to be logged in as a user of agency spotter (preferably with your company email address). Then, simply search for your agency by name here, click your agency, and then click the box to become an admin to fill out the short request form.
Once you are an admin, you will be able to remove old admins from the top of your agency dashboard and update your agency’s portfolio information, projects, and more.
Agency Spotter is organising the world of agencies much like Yelp and TripAdvisor did for their industries. Just as a hotel can not opt out of TripAdvisor, an agency cannot opt out of being listed on Agency Spotter.
Our team only removes agencies when they have gone out of business, merged with another agency, or has fallen below our minimum definition of an agency. If you see an agency that should be removed for one of these reasons, please click the feedback tab on the right side of the website to tell us about it.
They may find your portfolio on our site through Google, through inclusion in one of our articles, top reports, social media posts, a brand page that you have listed as a client, through project search, or through an agency search on our platform. Many agencies also link to their portfolio and reviews from their own website using an appropriate badge like “Find Us On” or “Clients Recommend Us On”.
On Agency Spotter, companies can search for agencies by any (and/or any combination of) the following criteria: Service area, location, budget, industry expertise, agency size, affiliation, diversity, audience specialty, martech platforms, and technologies used. Of course, companies can also easily search for you by name.
We only need your clients contact information when we are unable to verify their client review from their login details. Reviews that we cannot verify will be unpublished. Remember, we only allow an agency’s clients to review them.
Your agency’s reputation will be strengthened by a client review that is independently verified. This helps you attract more decision makers on Agency Spotter. It also helps potential clients who search for you feel more confident in selecting you as their preferred partner.
Client reviews are published immediately. However, our verification process may take several business days. If we have questions, we will always attempt to reach out to the reviewer and you.
First of all, you must be listed on our platform. Secondly, we typically only promote agencies that have chosen to upgrade with us. If you meet these criteria, you’re automatically scheduled into our editorial calendar. However, your portfolio must be filled out thoroughly and attractively enough for us to find something substantial that is worth sharing.
Learn how to become eligible for our Top Reports, which we issue regularly and are developing continuously, here.
If you are an agency admin, you can change this from your agency portfolio in the “contact info” section.
First make sure you are logged in to Agency Spotter as an admin for the agency you want reviewed. Next, visit the agency's portfolio page and locate the 'Rating' section on the right side of the page. Click the 'Request a Client Review' button at the bottom of this section, and an automated message will appear on your screen. Send this message (you can tweak it) to the client via your preferred email server. Upon opening it, your client will be prompted through the review process. Though it would benefit your agency to have them post publicly, reviewers have the option to hide their name/title if they choose.
If you view your portfolio in preview mode, you can click on the “review this agency” link to preview the form they will see. Please know that we do not allow people at an agency to review their own agency. And, since we verify every review, trying to post a review of your own agency is a waste of everyone’s time and energy.
Here is what we're asking your clients when you request a review:
Some clients do contact agencies directly through our platform. But, more frequently, they may go to your website or your LinkedIn to reach out to a specific person. For this reason, we recommend you always ask how they found you and if there was a website they used to find you.
If you are upgraded, you can reach out to them proactively to do just-in-time business development. Sometimes this results in you being considered even if they originally passed you over.
Go to your agency dashboard. At the top left of that page is a URL that you can change one time. If you need to change it again, you will need to contact the Agency Spotter team.
Sign into Agency Spotter as a user using your real name and your business email, which hopefully is the same as your website domain.
If you logged in using LinkedIn, make sure you also add your business email to your account and verify it when we send you an automated email.
Complete as much of your agency portfolio as possible. You must have completed the sections for your main portfolio image, selected a core service, added contact information, location, about us title and body copy at a minimum.
Also, make sure you meet our minimum requirements, which means we will need a way to verify that you are not an individual consultant.