The instinct when an agency relationship is underperforming is to look for a new agency. Sometimes that is the right call. More often, the problem is not the agency, it is the absence of marketing agency accountability structures that would make any agency perform better. The relationship is vague, the briefs are loose, the success metrics are either missing or disconnected from commercial reality, and the client is as responsible for the dysfunction as the supplier. Fixing that does not require a pitch process. It requires a different way of managing the relationship you already have.

This matters in the GCC specifically because the cost of switching agencies is high, not just financially, but in terms of the time lost to onboarding, the institutional knowledge that walks out the door, and the disruption to campaigns that are already running. Before you decide to move, it is worth asking honestly whether you have given the current relationship the conditions it needs to succeed. If after following this framework the relationship still cannot be fixed, https://thenobullpartners.com/?p=15312 becomes much clearer.

Start with the brief, it is almost certainly the problem

Most agency briefs are not briefs

A brief should answer five questions: what is the business problem we are trying to solve, who are we trying to reach and why, what do we want them to think, feel, or do differently, what does success look like and how will we measure it, and what are the constraints. Most briefs answer none of these questions with any precision. They describe outputs, “we need a social media campaign”, rather than outcomes. For a deep dive on writing briefs that produce great creative, see https://thenobullpartners.com/?p=15317

If your briefs look like that, you are not giving your agency a fair chance. You are asking them to make strategic decisions that should be made on the client side, and then judging them on the quality of those decisions after the fact. That is an unfair arrangement and it produces bad work.

Separate the strategy conversation from the execution conversation

One of the most common failure modes in agency relationships is conflating strategy and execution in the same meeting. The agency presents creative work. The client reacts to it. The reaction is partly strategic and partly aesthetic. Neither type of feedback is addressed properly because they are mixed together.

The fix is structural. Have a separate strategy alignment session, monthly or quarterly, where you review whether the marketing strategy is still correct. Keep the executional review focused on whether the work meets the agreed brief. This separation makes both conversations more productive.

Build the accountability framework that most clients skip

Define commercial outcomes, not just campaign metrics

Every agency relationship should have a clear answer to the question: what business outcome is this marketing supposed to move? Not impressions, not engagement rate, the outcomes that matter are qualified lead volume, sales pipeline value, and customer acquisition cost. For a full framework on this, see [how to measure marketing impact](/measuring-marketing-impact-roi/).

Run a quarterly relationship review, not just a campaign debrief

Most agency relationships are evaluated campaign by campaign. The better approach is a structured quarterly review that steps back from individual campaigns and asks bigger questions: is the overall marketing strategy working, is the agency relationship delivering the value we expected, and what should we do differently next quarter.

This review should involve senior people on both sides. If the agency’s senior leadership is not in the room, that tells you something about how they value the relationship.

“The biggest client mistake is evaluating agencies on the quality of their creative without evaluating the quality of their strategic thinking. Good creative from bad strategy will not move your business. Mediocre creative from brilliant strategy might.” thenobullpartners

When the relationship genuinely cannot be fixed

There are situations where the relationship is beyond repair, where the strategic misalignment is too deep, the trust is broken, or the agency simply does not have the capability the business now needs. The indicators that a relationship has run its course are usually commercial rather than creative: if the agency has been given clear briefs, reasonable timelines, and honest feedback, and the commercial outcomes are still not moving, the issue is capability not management.

If you need to bring in strategic oversight to manage the transition, a fractional CMO /fractional-cmo-demand-gcc/ can provide the senior leadership that makes any agency relationship more productive, or manage a structured transition to a better model.

The No Bull Partners helps GCC businesses audit their agency relationships and build management structures that make accountability possible. If your agency setup is not delivering, we can help you work out whether to fix it or replace it.

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References

[1] Forrester Research. *Client-Agency Relationship Management Best Practices*. Forrester, 2025.
[2] World Federation of Advertisers. *Agency Remuneration and Accountability Study*. WFA, 2025.
[3] Harvard Business Review. *Getting More from Your Marketing Agency*. HBR, 2024.