Common Pitfalls When Issuing a Marketing RFP

Creating and responding to a Marketing RFP, RFQ, RFI, or RFx is painful for everyone involved. In highly regulated sectors like government and finance, that's expected. For everyone else, the process is usually worse than it needs to be. Better-structured RFPs produce better candidates, sharper responses, and stronger vendor relationships.

Three sides to this: Writing. Inviting. Reviewing.

Writing

A well-written RFP creates a level playing field without sacrificing rigor. The goal is enough structure to enable real comparison, with enough openness to surface genuine strategic thinking. When an RFP is too open-ended, it sends a clear signal to every respondent:

1 You may not know exactly what you want

An open brief shifts the strategy burden onto the agency. Capable firms can handle it, but it makes side-by-side comparison nearly impossible. Each respondent takes a different approach, and you end up evaluating presentations rather than actual capabilities. Conversely, buyers who demonstrate they understand what they're asking for attract the strongest respondents.

2 You might be asking the wrong questions

Structure the RFP in distinct sections: one locked to requirements, another open to strategy, another on process, and another on results. Add a clear note that respondents may challenge any statement in the open sections, as long as they provide their reasoning. This creates benefits you don't get from a tightly scripted document:

You can see how aligned your own teams are on what you actually need.
You can compare strategies at a granular, point-by-point level rather than wading through competing value propositions.
You learn from the responses instead of just evaluating them.

3 Include budget

Budget creates clarity. Without it, agencies have to guess, and guesses produce proposals that are either underscoped or padded. A stated budget immediately eliminates the wrong respondents and focuses the right ones on what's actually feasible.

Standard agency rates run $165–$185 per hour, higher for strategy work and lower for production. When rates drop below that band, expect offshore resourcing or high staff turnover.
Rate times hours equals cost. If you want less time on the work, you'll get less output. Good agencies price for quality. Weak ones pad meetings to hit a budget or rush to meet one. RFPs that include budgeted time estimates for core tasks signal that the buyer understands the scope. Respondents can challenge those estimates, but it gives everyone a starting point.
- Filter early with direct questions: "How many people are typically in your client meetings?" and "How do you manage projects to stay on time and on budget?" The answers tell you more than a pitch deck will.

Inviting

Some RFPs must go to public release. Government and regulated sectors have clear reasons for that. In the commercial market, most marketing RFPs are invitation-based: a curated shortlist, often from referrals or prior relationships.

Here's what to prioritize when building, or narrowing, that list.

1 Evaluate for stability, not just credentials

Agency credentials are largely historical. Turnover in marketing agencies is significant, and the team that did the work you admire is often not the team you'll get. When a team has effectively only been working together for a few months, whatever institutional knowledge the agency claimed evaporates with it.

Consider also whether deep industry specialization is actually what you need. An agency that has only served manufacturers may reinforce the same assumptions that have kept your pipeline flat. Buyers are people. They shop on Amazon, eat at chain restaurants, hire contractors. Reaching them requires understanding more than your vertical.

2 Look at how they present themselves

Any agency that will touch external-facing assets needs to care about quality and presentation. How a firm presents itself in the pitch process is the clearest available signal of how they'll treat your brand. If they are going to touch any aspect of your business that reaches the outside world, you want them to elevate it. They should notice when something is low-quality. They should push to improve it. How they present themselves is a direct indicator of whether that's how they operate.

A concrete example: if you're considering a PR firm that is nearly indistinguishable from an accounting firm in its own materials, that's a warning sign.

Reviewing

A tightly written RFP and a well-chosen shortlist make the review process manageable. When either of those is weak, the review stage inherits the problems. Having observed both sides of this process across organizations of different sizes and budgets, a few patterns consistently separate rigorous evaluations from ones that end in regret.

1 Go heavy on the comparison table

Build a structured scorecard. Capabilities, experience, and process criteria that can be evaluated side by side. Numeric scales can introduce false precision: a checkmark or yes/no/maybe is often more reliable, since you're working from limited interaction with each respondent. A strong comparison table includes:

Low turnover
Specific relevant skills (SEO, video, demand gen, etc.)
Comparable case study
High-caliber brand presentation
Engaged leadership
Established methodology
Realistic budget alignment
Clear communicators

The more open-ended the RFP was, the harder this comparison becomes. Structured briefs produce structured responses that are easier to evaluate.

2 Be deliberate about the intangibles

Some of the most important evaluation criteria can't be quantified in a spreadsheet: whether you'll enjoy working with this team, whether they'll push back when they should, whether they'll prioritize you as a client. These aren't soft considerations. They're often the deciding factor. Some examples:

Are they straightforward to communicate with?
Do they demonstrate critical thinking, not just compliance?
Will we learn from them?
Will they prioritize us as a client?
Will they stay on budget?

List your intangibles internally before the review starts. Discuss them openly as a team. They work best as tiebreakers when the comparison table is close.

Getting an RFx right is genuinely difficult. Mavenray is focused on one part of your business, and we don't pursue every RFP. But we do advise on GTM structure and vendor selection as part of our work with B2B leadership teams. If you're preparing an RFP and want a second opinion on how it's structured, we're available.