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New Business Is Your Agency’s Biggest AI Risk
New Business Is Your Agency’s Biggest AI Risk Over the past year, I have observed ad agency leaders discuss AI with visible excitement and underlying apprehension. Many agree: “This changes everything.” The problem is that…
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The AI Marketing Operating System
The AI Marketing Operating System For decades, marketing ran on a familiar structure. Leadership sets direction.Analysts processed data.Strategists planned campaigns.Creatives brought them to life.Media teams executed.Account people managed the process. People were the engine. But…
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Agency Core™ 2026 Is Live
Agency Core™ exists to help agencies make better decisions by giving them clearer context. It is the passion project of Susan Baier, Co-Founder, Agency Core, and CEO, Audience Audit, and Brian Gerstner, Co-Founder, Agency Core,…
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Are you using AI in New Business
Are you using AI in New Business If your answer is some variation of “we’re experimenting,” that time has passed. I treat AI like a Swiss Army knife strapped to my belt. Not a novelty,…
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Is AI Coming For You
Is AI Coming For You As an ad agency owner, you face tremendous competition. Google the term “Ad Agency” and you get 4,570,000 results. Google will likely show you only 40 pages of results. I…
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10 BD Problems and How to Bury Them
10 BD Problems and How to Bury Them If you’re running an agency in 2025 and your new business pipeline feels thin, inconsistent, frustratingly quiet, or deceased, you’re not alone. I talk to agency owners every…
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Some Agencies Are Winning Now: How About You
Some Agencies Are Winning Now: How About You Let’s not sugarcoat it. 2025 tested every agency leader’s grit. Margins are under pressure. Marketers are in triage mode. Headcounts are leaner. Budgets are delayed. And the…
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The New Ad Agency Search
The New Ad Agency Search If you’re an ad agency owner or business development leader, now’s the time to rethink how you’re tracking and engaging in the search process. While legacy consultants hold on to…
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Are you using intent data in your prospecting
According to an Adweek survey fielded Oct – Nov 2020 among 70 brand marketers, 41% said they plan to retain their agency/agencies, 31% said they plan to make changes to their roster, and 22% weren’t…
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Short term thinking is the headline
2020 is over, and what a year it was. Despite the pandemic, economic crash, social unrest, and a presidential election that continues to drag on, most agencies have managed to hold on, and many of…
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2020 Trends – Marketer Priorities
I believe it is more important to know what a marketer wants rather than what an agency wants to tell them. By knowing what they want; their top challenges, pain points, and goals, an agency…
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2020 Trends – Agency Priorities
What will agencies do in 2020 to break through the clutter and capture the attention of those elusive, increasingly skeptical marketers? What can agencies do to separate themselves from the growing herd of competition? How…
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Can you grow your agency with a blog
One of the hottest trends over the last ten years is blogging and its impact on marketing is profound. At a recent agency seminar, I had a surprising number of agency leaders ask me if…
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Survey: What prospects think about your business development practices
There is no shortage of opinions from marketers about advertising agency new business development practices. And their opinions are not very flattering. I surveyed marketers at the beginning of the year to get beyond opinions…
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New Business Planning for 2017
No doubt you are in the 4th quarter scramble to capture everything you can from your current clients before the buzzer sounds. At the same time, you try to schedule meetings with your leadership to…
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Ask the Google how to win ad agency new business
Ask Google “how to win an ad agency pitch” (without quotes) to see how many people have an opinion on this subject. I did this a few years ago, and there were over 14 million…
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Does creativity matter anymore
As we hunker down with our tech stack, marvel at the efficiency of our programmatic ad buy, and get intoxicated from endless gulps of data, have we lost the magic in advertising? Technology is great…