Our answer might surprise you.

One of the first questions Marketing Leaders ask when preparing for an agency review is whether they should invite their incumbent agency to participate.

The instinct is almost always yes.

This comes from a good place. You want to be fair. You want to honor the existing relationship and give your agency every opportunity to retain the business. There may also be some uncertainty behind the decision:

• What if the agency finds out we're conducting an RFP?
• What if we don't find a better partner?
• What if they fire us first?

Those are understandable concerns.

But before automatically including your incumbent agency, we think there is a better path forward. Let us help you reframe the decision.

Start with Asking Yourself These 5 Questions

1. Why are we looking for a new agency?

What's driving the review?

Is it dissatisfaction with the partnership—team turnover, lack of strategic thinking, declining performance, rising costs—or is it driven by procurement requirements, leadership expectations, or organizational changes?

Understanding the true reason behind the review is the most important place to start.

2. Has our scope changed significantly?

Is today's engagement substantially different from the one you originally contracted?

Consider changes in budget, geographic support, service offerings, organizational structure, business priorities and the like.

If the work has evolved dramatically, it may be appropriate to give your incumbent the opportunity to compete for the new scope.

3. Are we consolidating multiple agency relationships?

If you're moving from several agency partners to a single agency model, that's effectively a new business opportunity.

Your incumbent may deserve the chance to demonstrate they can support the broader engagement.

4. If our current agency won the business again, would I be genuinely excited?

This is the hardest—and often the most revealing—question.

Be honest.

Would you be excited to continue working together? Or would the result feel disappointing?

Your gut usually knows the answer.

5. Would I recommend this agency to a colleague?

If someone you respected asked for an agency recommendation tomorrow, would you confidently suggest your current partner?

If not, ask yourself why you would ask them to compete for more of your business.

When You Should Include Your Incumbent

If your scope has changed significantly, you're consolidating agency relationships, and you would genuinely be excited to continue working with your current agency… then absolutely include them in the review.

In fact, you may even question whether a formal RFP is necessary at all. Depending on the circumstances, it may be more productive to work directly with your agenc

y to address leadership or procurement requirements without putting everyone through a lengthy competitive process.

When You Shouldn't

If you're launching an RFP primarily because you're unhappy with the current relationship—and the scope isn't materially changing—it's worth asking a different question:

What new information do you expect to learn about your current agency through an RFP?

You already know them and what it's like to work with them.

Putting your agency who is currently struggling to support your business through a months-long, expensive, resource-intensive pitch process often doesn't solve the underlying issues. It simply diverts attention away from serving your business during one of the most critical periods of the relationship.

A Better Alternative: Run Two Parallel Tracks

At Tenx4, we believe there's a better approach.

Instead of treating your incumbent agency like every other participant in the RFP, run a separate Agency Relationship Management process alongside your agency review to realign and optimize your current partnership.

That process focuses on improving the existing partnership while you evaluate the market.

Here’s how to realign your current agency relationship 

Alongside your Agency RFP, spend time with your current agency to strengthen, optimize and improve your current relationship.

Take the following steps:

Discovery

Conduct an honest assessment of what's working—and what isn't (on both sides).

Evaluate team structure, operating model, communication, workflow, strategic output, deliverable quality, pricing, overall partnership health and the like.

Then agree on meaningful changes to improve the partnership.

Renegotiate

Update the commercial agreement to reflect the optimized relationship.

A great contract shouldn't simply document fees—it should serve as the operating manual for how the partnership functions.

Align

Roll out the updated partnership across both organizations.

Bring everyone together in an all-hands meeting, clearly communicate expectations, and provide an FAQ or playbook that teams can reference moving forward.

The Best Decision Comes from Better Information

Running an agency review while simultaneously investing in your existing relationship gives you the best of both worlds.

You'll gain a clear understanding of what's available in the market while also determining whether your incumbent can become the partner you actually need.

When both processes are complete, you'll be equipped to answer the only question that really matters:

“Are we working with the best possible agency for our business?”

And you'll be able to answer that question with a highly confident, “YES!”.