Use a weighted scorecard to choose an agency across several brands: eight criteria, a 1 to 5 score for each, a weight that reflects your priorities, and evidence you ask for before you look at the pitch. Give every agency the same test brief, have two people score separately, and compare. That removes most of the charm from the decision and leaves the work.
TLDR: Score agencies on strategy, brand governance, creative, workflow, reporting, team, platform expertise and commercial terms. Weight them to total 100. Ask for evidence for every score and run a paid test brief with your shortlist of three.
The scorecard
Adjust the weights to fit your needs. These are a starting point for a multi-brand team.
| Criterion | Weight | Score 5 looks like | Evidence to ask for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy | 15 | Ties content to your goals and audiences per brand | A strategy for your test brief, with reasoning |
| Brand governance | 15 | Handles several voices without cross-contamination | How they store voice, assets and rules per brand |
| Creative quality | 15 | Distinct, on-brief work in your category | Two relevant case studies and unpublished drafts |
| Workflow and approvals | 15 | Clear stages, named approvers, turnaround times | A walkthrough of one live approval flow |
| Reporting | 15 | Reports tie to goals and compare brands fairly | A real anonymized report |
| Team and capacity | 10 | Named people, backup coverage, realistic load | The org chart for your account, with hours |
| Platform expertise | 10 | Knows the native quirks of each platform | How they would handle your top two platforms |
| Commercial terms | 5 | Clear scope, change process and exit terms | Draft contract and rate card |
Multiply each score by its weight and divide by 5 for a total out of 100. Treat anything under 70 as a no, and any single 1 as a stop.
Run the test brief before you score
Pitches are a poor guide because agencies pitch their best people. Instead, give your three finalists the same one-week test, paid or at least scoped:
- One real brand, one real campaign goal.
- A two-week content plan, three sample posts and a one-page reporting outline.
- A deadline of five working days.
Score what comes back. Include the questions they asked you: good agencies ask about audience, approval chain and what failed before.
What to ask about each criterion
Brand governance. For a multi-brand client this is where agencies differ most. Ask: "How do you keep brand A's voice from leaking into brand B?" The answer should involve separate workspaces, per-brand guidelines and review steps, not "our writers are careful."
Workflow and approvals. Ask how a post moves from draft to live and who can stop it. Audit your own side too: the approval-to-publish scorecard checks handoffs on your end. For reference, in Mydrop's data on posts that went through client approval, the median time from submission to approval was 6 hours and 66% cleared within 24 hours.
Reporting. Ask to see a real report. Reports should answer "did this move our goal?", compare each brand against its own median and be readable without the agency in the room. White-label reports with share links and scheduled delivery are a good sign. See social media reports for what that looks like.
Red flags
- No named team. "Our team will be assigned after signing."
- Metrics that stop at reach and followers, with no link to leads, sales or the goal in the brief.
- Guaranteed growth numbers. No one controls the algorithm.
- No references you can call, or only references the agency chose.
- Own tools only. You cannot see the calendar, approvals or analytics yourself.
Make visibility part of the contract
Whatever scorecard result you get, ask for read access to the calendar, approvals and reports. If the agency works on a shared platform, you can see what is scheduled and what is waiting for sign-off without a monthly deck. Mydrop's client portal is built for this: clients review and approve posts without a login. If you are an agency reading this, the same scorecard is a good checklist for your next pitch, and our agency solutions page shows the tools.
After you pick, use the onboarding checklist and ramp plan to set SLAs, and put goals from the creative brief KPI list in the contract.
Next step: copy the table into a sheet, set your weights, and send the same test brief to your shortlist this week. Score each response separately before anyone discusses it.
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