Leadership teams: reading an agency proposal without being in the trade
You receive three proposals for the same need, from $2,500 to $14,000 a month. None is comparable to the others, because none describes the same work. Twelve lines are enough to see what each one actually contains, without being in the trade.
- A more-than-fivefold gap between proposals does not signal a difference in margin. It signals that the three describe different work.
- The most revealing question is not the price, it is the result measure promised and how it will be calculated.
- A promise of a quantified return on attributed conversions calls for verification. Google itself states that its incrementality tool intentionally ignores standard attribution rules.
- Three lines concern account ownership and handover. Their absence is the most reliable signal of all.
- A proposal that never asks about your margin or your capacity cannot steer your budget, it can only spend it.
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What a proposal review grid is
A proposal review grid is a fixed list of points to check in any marketing services offer, whatever the discipline and the provider. It lets a non-specialist executive compare documents that look nothing alike, by bringing each one back to the same questions: what is delivered, how the result will be measured, who owns what, and what happens at the end.
Why the price gap means nothing
This article is for executives and management teams who must choose a marketing provider without mastering its disciplines. It is not about picking the right price, but about reading what each price buys.
Three proposals arrive. The first asks $2,500 a month, the second $6,500, the third $14,000. The reflex is to conclude that the third is expensive, that the first is risky, and to choose the middle one.
It is almost always the wrong reading. In most cases, the first offers partial execution with no measurement, the second full execution on a single channel, and the third full execution with measurement and data work. These are not three prices for the same work, they are three different jobs.
Until you bring the three documents back to the same questions, you are comparing apples and hours. The grid is for exactly that.
The twelve lines
| Line | What to look for | What should worry you |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The business problem | A sentence that describes your situation, not theirs | A generic, interchangeable preamble |
| 2. The target result | A quantified commercial objective | A traffic or visibility objective |
| 3. The result measure | The data source and how it is calculated | No source named |
| 4. What is delivered | Named, countable deliverables | Verbs with no objects, like optimize or support |
| 5. Who does the work | The profiles and their share of the time | No mention of who does the work |
| 6. What is expected of you | Your tasks, your time, your data | Nothing, which is always false |
| 7. The timeline | Milestones with dates | A start with no visible end |
| 8. Time to result | An honest estimate, sales cycle included | Gains promised from the first month |
| 9. Account ownership | Created and held in your name | The subject is not raised |
| 10. Handover | A deadline and a list of deliverables at the end | No exit clause |
| 11. Total cost | Fees, media, tools, recurring charges | A flat package with no breakdown |
| 12. The stop condition | What triggers a review or an end | A long commitment with no way out |
A proposal that answers all twelve clearly is not necessarily the best. But a proposal that leaves five unanswered asks you to trust it on five subjects where money is lost.
The line that matters most
Line 3 decides everything else. If no one defines how the result will be measured, none of the other eleven can be assessed during the engagement.
The answer that holds up names a data source, a calculation method and a frequency. For example: closed sales from the requests, pulled from the management system, read by monthly cohort with the sales cycle's lag. It is verifiable, and it commits the provider.
An inadequate answer promises a quantified return on conversions reported by the platforms. The problem is not dishonesty, it is that this figure does not measure what it claims. Google itself states that its incrementality measurement tool intentionally ignores standard attribution rules, which amounts to admitting that attribution does not establish causation. The subject is covered in our article on incrementality tests.
The question to ask fits in one sentence: where will the figure come from that says whether it worked, and who will produce it?
Five phrasings that should alert you
"We guarantee results." With no definition of the result and no measurement condition, a guarantee commits to nothing. Ask what concretely happens if it is not met.
"Detailed monthly performance report." The word detailed often stands in for an answer to line 3. A report is not a result measure.
"We handle everything." No serious engagement works without the client providing data, decisions and time. A proposal that expects nothing from you has not planned for what it will need.
"Twelve-month commitment." A long commitment is sometimes justified, especially when the sales cycle stretches out. It must then come with a mid-term review condition, otherwise it is a lock-in.
"Media budget to be determined." Total cost is line 11. A proposal that leaves the main line item open does not let you decide.
None of these phrasings is disqualifying in itself. Each is a question to ask before signing, and the quality of the answer will tell you more than the document itself.
What is missing and should be there
The absences are more revealing than the content.
The lack of any question about your margin. A provider that recommends a budget without knowing what you earn per sale cannot know whether that budget is profitable. This is true in advertising as much as in content.
The lack of any question about your capacity. Generating more requests than you can serve destroys margin, as explained in our article on the capacity ceiling. A proposal that never asks how much you can deliver offers a volume, not a result.
The lack of any clause on ownership and handover. This is the most reliable signal of all, because it takes no technical skill to spot. The detail is in our article on digital asset ownership.
How to compare three proposals
The method comes down to three moves and takes an hour.
First, fill in the grid for each one, marking simply present or absent. Do not rate quality, only presence. You will see immediately that the documents do not cover the same lines.
Then bring the three to the same scope. If the $2,500 proposal includes neither measurement nor content production, add what those elements would cost elsewhere. The gap often closes by half.
Finally, ask the three providers the same question: where will the figure come from that says whether it worked? The way each one answers in thirty seconds will teach you more than the three documents combined.
What to settle before signing
These five questions are put to the provider, in writing, before signing. The answers are worth more than any reference.
- Where will the figure come from that says whether the engagement worked, and who will produce it?
- How long before a first measurable result, accounting for your sales cycle?
- Will the accounts be created in your name, and what is the handover clause?
- What must you provide in data, decisions and time each month?
- If the result is not there after twice your sales cycle, what changes, and who makes that decision?
The answer that holds up names a data source and a timeline in months. A weak answer talks about support and partnership. A provider that asks you neither your margin nor your delivery capacity is not steering your budget, it is spending it.
Having your proposals read by someone who did not write them is exactly what a paid audit makes possible.
What is never delegated: the final decision, the knowledge of your margin and your capacity, and the insistence on ownership clauses. What is delegated: the technical reading of the proposals, the leveling of scopes and the preparation of the questions to ask. A company that fills in this grid across three documents chooses in an hour and rarely gets it wrong. A company that compares three prices with no grid chooses the middle, which is a decision by default rather than a judgment call.
This point sits inside the plan described in building the marketing budget.
Want to know how we work before consulting us? See our way of executing.
Frequently asked questions about reading a proposal
Should you choose the cheapest proposal?
No more than the most expensive one. First bring the three to the same scope: if the cheapest excludes measurement, content production or media management, add what those elements would cost elsewhere. The gap often closes by half, and the comparison finally becomes possible.
Is a results guarantee a good sign?
Only if the result is defined, measurable and paired with a specific consequence if it fails. A guarantee with no definition commits to nothing and serves mainly to win the decision. The question to ask is simple: what concretely happens, in dollars or in work, if the objective is not met?
How many proposals should you request?
Three are enough, and the comparison work already takes an hour with the grid. Beyond that, the reading load outweighs the gain, and the process drags on to the point where the best providers walk away. Three documents read carefully beat six skimmed.
How do you check the references given?
Ask to speak with a client whose engagement has ended, not only a current one. The way a relationship ends says more about a provider than the way it unfolds. Also ask what that client had to provide on their side, which reveals the real division of tasks.
What if the proposal does not mention account ownership?
Ask in writing and require an answer in the document before signing. It is the easiest point to check and the most expensive to overlook. A provider that agrees to write that the accounts are created in your name settles the matter in one sentence. A provider that hesitates tells you something.
Is a twelve-month commitment unreasonable?
Not necessarily. On a long sales cycle or content work, twelve months are sometimes the minimum to observe a result. What must come with that commitment is a mid-term review with written criteria, otherwise the duration protects the provider rather than the work.
- Google Ads Help Center, Understand Conversion Lift measurement data, official documentation, accessed July 2026. Source of the statement that the tool intentionally ignores standard attribution rules.
- Falia working framework, composition of the twelve-line grid and arithmetic of the gap between proposals. The amounts are explicit hypothetical cases.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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