Just as advertising agencies are increasingly facing more competition, so too are the search consultants that work with them.

The pressure is on as more marketers and fractional chief marketing officers take the reins on pitches and a bumper crop of new companies lean further into the review business. 

“There are more—and more varied in type—intermediary consultants in the last 12 to 24 months than there had been in a while,” said Matt Ryan, CEO of search consultancy Roth Ryan Hayes.  

This increased competition is prompting the more traditional consultants to evolve their businesses in pursuit of new revenue streams. That’s taken the form of offering services ancillary to reviews, such as supporting marketers with contract negotiations and evaluating efficiencies with existing agencies, or working with experts to manage clients’ emerging needs around AI and compensation. Some consultants are building niche communities for agency executives. 

Financial and operational support

As it faced a slowdown in agency reviews during the first half of 2024, Roth Ryan Hayes said there was an increase in demand for services helping marketers with agency contract negotiations and evaluating the efficiency with existing partners. 

“We had a quiet first and second quarter [in terms of reviews], but we did much more non-review consulting work than we had in years past,” Ryan said. Roth Ryan Hayes expects to focus more on reviews the rest of 2024 and early 2025, Ryan said, without naming specific clients.

Rather than just manage reviews, some consultants are finding work preventing them. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Joanne Davis Consulting has seen an uptick in marketers looking to repair their agency relationships. The consultancy often interviews a range of stakeholders to identify problems and conducts group work sessions and training programs, said Founder Joanne Davis, likening it to marriage counseling.

“I tell every client before they want to embark on a review, ‘Can this marriage be saved?’” she said.

Joanne Davis Consulting is only ever paid directly by the client for this service, but in some cases, the agency has contributed to the fee, Davis said, declining to comment on specifics.

A person familiar with the matter said the process typically costs less than a “major review.” Consultants previously told Ad Age review fees can span anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000, even reaching millions of dollars depending on the scope. 

Emerging AI and compensation needs

Marketers are looking to search consultants to help navigate AI, too. Flock Associates has seen an uptick in clients looking for support on how they approach the technology in contracts with agencies, said Peter Grossman, the consultancy’s U.S. regional lead. 

About a year ago, “clients weren’t as aggressive in terms of wanting and needing to understand what AI tools are being used by potential agency partners,” said Grossman. “Clients are arriving at the table now with a much clearer view on their expectations for how they want to use data, technology and AI, and therefore the requirements they are asking for” from potential partners, he said.

Flock has worked closely with its AI experts to ensure it is “articulating and writing the clauses in the most objective and right way,” Grossman added. Now, the consultancy has an “entire library of AI clauses” that sit under its procurement practice.

More: 9 AI tools agencies are embracing right now

Flock is also increasingly helping clients figure out how to move to an asset-based pricing model, Grossman said.  

“It’s an exhaustive amount of work,“ Grossman said, adding that brands need to figure out how much they are spending per asset despite not having built their model that way. “How much are we spending for a display ad? How much are we spending for a piece of social content? A lot of clients, if you would ask them to say today, would probably say, ‘I’m not really sure’ ... There’s a lot of due diligence that needs to go into establishing that baseline.”

Also read: How agency compensation methods are changing

A community for agency executives

Growth consultancy NBZ Partner has rolled out new services over the past year, including one designed to create resources and a community for agency new business executives. In October, it launched NBZ+, a membership program that costs $500 a month (or $5,000 per year) and includes personal coaching sessions, events and insights from NBZ research partners. Members also get access to NBZ Partners dedicated Slack channel for new business leaders. 

“All the things you can imagine a new business person coming up against, we’ve got an answer for,” said Rachel Segall, co-founder of NBZ Partner, adding that NBZ+ has more than 60 members. 

The consultancy has also recently established a service aimed at helping match marketers with small or mid-sized agencies, which the growth consultancy describes as “unusual suspects.” The service, called NBZ Match, offers three tiers: Flirt, Date and Match. Flirt refers to suggesting a list of agencies for marketers, Date helps with finding shops for project work and Match is a full-scale agency search, according to NBZ Partner’s website. 

NBZ Partner has established a board of advisors—which features brand and agency executives such as Pereira O’Dell Chief Growth Officer Mona Munayyer Gonzalez and former Build-A-Bear CMO Julia Fitzgerald—that will examine and provide feedback on NBZ Match, which has supported brands including Zillow and Riot Games. 

Pitch support

By the end of 2024, Mercer Island Group will have conducted “somewhere over 25 reviews,” said Steve Boehler, founding partner of the consultancy, which in May wrapped a three-month creative pitch for Stop & Shop. “It’ll easily be a record year for us,” Boehler said. 

As well as reviews, Mercer Island Group also helps agencies better position themselves during pitches led by another consultant or the brand itself, Boehler said.

“We help them from start to finish—lay out the right plan, develop the right strategy, go through the dress rehearsals, review the decks, etc.,” Boehler added, declining to comment on fees for this service. 

Read: How to start an ad agency

One of the reasons Mercer Island Group is seeing an increase in this area, according to Boehler, is due to the record numbers of agencies opening up: “Most agencies don’t do a very good job standing out and marketing themselves other than the work they do.”

A chemistry-focused approach

Consultants such as Creative Haystack, launched by former Procter & Gamble Co. executive Pete Carter in late 2021, are offering approaches counter to a conventional review.

Carter independently evaluates a list of roughly 300 agencies he’s compiled throughout the years before sending over a list of 10 to 12 options to marketers, which then select five or six to proceed with.

Creative Haystack charges marketers a flat fee of $40,000 for searches and requires they make themselves available to meet potential agency partners twice in person throughout the process, including one informal meeting such as a dinner and a meeting where the agency can discuss its strategy, previous work and more. Carter does not allow agencies to present spec work—opting for case studies instead. 

“My idea of a consultant is that I’m helping you avoid the pitfalls and I’m getting you to an answer faster and cheaper,” said Carter, who recently ran a seven-week creative review for cosmetics maker Revlon.

Searches represent roughly 30% of Creative Haystack’s business. Brand positioning work—which typically ranges between $20,000 to $30,000—makes up the bulk of the business. The consultancy also helps some clients work on advertising development, Carter said. Creative Haystack has run searches for brands such as Revlon and Dude Wipes. 

Room for everyone?

More competition is better for the industry, according to several agency executives and consultants Ad Age interviewed. 

“In the same way that it’s good for clients that there are more agencies out there—because that means there’s diversity of thinking and … people need to be on their toes a little bit more and trying new things—that’s true to me with the consultants as well,” said one chief growth officer speaking on the condition of anonymity. 

More options also give brands a better chance of finding the right search consultant, Ryan said. “​​If a marketer meets three consultants and picks the one they feel most comfortable with, [when] they start … working through the process, they’re going to find that they have a certain degree of like-mindedness about decisions,” he said.

Others, however, have a different opinion. AAR Partners President Lisa Colantuono believes many consultants are simply tacking on reviews as another service, thereby “polluting” the playing field.

“We have more cavalier consultants … who do not know the true nuances of running a review,” Colantuono told Ad Age.

The proliferation of new consultants gives marketers two choices, according to Colantuono: Choose someone they have a relationship with already, or handle the process themselves. And while brands certainly still “make decisions based on reputation, it’s more about relationships and reputation now,” she added. 

But some consultants believe the marketplace is large enough to support the range of options that now exist.

“There is room for a lot of different approaches,” said Boehler, “and I’m confident in how we do it, but I’m sure there’s clients out there that would prefer a different kind of approach.”