Agency Evaluations are "near universal" - new industry study reveals.

The report of the 2009 ANA Agency Performance Evaluation Survey  was released today and it reveals interesting findings that all agency management executives should study in some depth.

The first finding that jumps out is that 92% of firms of revenue size greater than $5Billion run formal  agency evaluations."

That's "near universal" as the ANA describes it.

The second key finding provides a better understanding of why clients are evaluating their agency relationships. 

The 2 top benefits derived from a formal agency evaluation process were identified,  as:

1. Improving under-performing agency relationships (92%)
2. Recognizing high-performing agency relationships (85%) 

A third finding is that qualitative criteria dominate the agency assessment scorecard.

So while quantitative measures are being used, qualitative metrics are the primary drivers of evaluations.

A further interesting result of that 360-feedback evaluations are on the rise with 59% of advertisers running them to develop .

Agency Evaluation Best practices

The 2009 ANA Agency Performance Evaluation Survey also identified very powerful agency evaluation best practices, including:

• All marketers (even those with smaller budgets) should conduct formal agency performance evaluations on a regular basis
• Assign a trusted, neutral point person (could be internal - for example procurement - or an outside consultant) to keep focused on objectives and metrics vs. personalities
• Consider having a more informal "mid-term review" to avoid surprises at the end of the year
• Use a consistent format for all agencies, although specific questions can be varied for different agency types
• Use technology to facilitate adoption, ease of implementation, and analytics
• Consider 360-degree evaluations to get the perspective of the agency
• Present results in person
• Have clear corrective action plans with due dates and owners

Also see the AdAge article, here which includes further commentary from Jim Stengal, ex CMO at P&G and now a Cincinatti-based marketing consultant and senior industry figure Arthur Anderson, principal in Morgan Anderson Consulting.

See:

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=138983

We will to post further items about this survey over the coming weeks.

Source: Association of National Advertisers - the leading client-side industry body