What Benchmarking Actually Tells You

Marketing Procurement benchmarking has moved well beyond cost cutting. Procurement is now looking toward influence, value and longevity, and benchmarking is how it gets there.

Yet our research shows around a third of global brands still don’t compare their marketing spend against industry benchmarks. That leaves a significant gap, especially as marketing investment becomes more complex and more digital.
Used well, benchmarking shows how your agency costs compare with what others actually pay, across markets, industries and agency types. It gives you the facts to start a fair conversation with your agencies, and the evidence to show where your marketing budget can deliver more.

What makes a marketing benchmark credible?

A benchmark is only as credible as the data behind it.

You can benchmark with your own data: internal records, historical spend and desk research into publicly available information. But this only gives you part of the picture.

Your own records show what you have paid. They don’t show what others in the industry are paying, what a wider pool of agencies charges, or what is being charged regionally in different markets. Essentially, you are in an echo chamber of your own insight.

Public data has its limits too. It shows rate cards and the fees agencies publish. It doesn’t show negotiated rates: the fees brands actually pay once contracts are agreed.

A credible benchmark draws on data that covers:

• negotiated agency rates across service categories, not just published rate cards
• global markets, with market-specific pricing variations and adjustments
• a range of industries, deliverables and agency types
• staffing rates and production costs
• cost trends over time

With that breadth, you get a detailed line of sight into every dollar spent, the value it provides, and how it measures up against the agencies on your roster and the industry as a whole. That is what lets brands reshape their strategy and marketing budget to deliver more growth and ROI.

The RightSpend platform is built on this kind of data. It is vetted, customer-driven and assesses more than $10 billion in agency fees each year, across multiple agency types, deliverables and global markets.

What does it mean when an agency is above benchmark?

A variance is just a starting point.

Benchmarking isn’t about squeezing costs right down. It’s about starting the conversation.

Say an agency sits 20% above benchmark. That number alone doesn’t tell you whether the fee is right. It tells you to ask what additional value you may, or may not, be getting for that premium.

The answers shape what happens next.

You might be happy to meet in the middle and pay above benchmark, based on the facts presented. Or, with all the information at hand, you might want to negotiate the fee down if they are unable to explain why.

Either way, the benchmark helps you find the fair point for all parties.

This matters because choosing an agency on price alone carries real risk to quality and reliability.

A lower fee doesn’t guarantee the same performance. Often, it means the opposite. Benchmarking gives you visibility into agency quality and performance alongside cost, so you get a balanced view of the relationship and choose value over price.

It also shows how an agency’s performance and capabilities compare with others in very specific markets, regions and industries. That visibility helps refine spend and lays the foundations for long-term relationships.

How to use Marketing Procurement benchmarking

Using benchmarks in agency negotiations

Negotiation is a crucial skill for both Marketing and Procurement. It involves persuading stakeholders, resolving conflicts and securing resources for your budget. But it isn’t only about making demands or compromises. It is about using data and evidence to support your proposal and gain value for money.

Before any negotiation, be clear on what you want to achieve and the criteria you will use to judge the outcome. Clear goals keep you focused on results. Benchmarking data then makes sure you raise the most relevant questions with your agencies.

Benchmarking helps you set fact-based negotiation parameters, develop performance-based compensation models and agree accountability metrics. When agency selection is supported by benchmarking, contracts are built on transparent and achievable foundations. You can choose agencies on proven performance across multiple KPIs (key performance indicators), and make those KPIs part of the contract.

Data works in both directions. Brands need to be clear about their expectations and the metrics they will assess, and share them with their agency. When both sides can see how each part of the work fits together and the value it offers, they stay aligned and can deliver best practice performance.

What agency costs can you benchmark?

Benchmarking data lets you take a closer look at:

• project scope and schedule of works
• agency costs and staffing rates
• deliverable costs across markets
• campaign costs across countries and regions
• risks to the project or budget
• quality of deliverables
• performance of an agency

For brands running campaigns in several markets, it also supports centralized performance monitoring, cross-market campaign optimization and consistent best practice across regions.

Benchmarking agency performance and ROI

Benchmarking helps you analyze cross-market campaign efficiencies, agency performance, scope of work effectiveness and ROI across your marketing investments.

Look for strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, and quantify the value and ROI of each project or scope of work. That shows where to move resources toward high-performing initiatives, and supports investment decisions based on performance.

You reach your goals on facts and figures, not assumptions.

The efficiencies can take many forms: savings, more marketing, more creative or more deliverables. In our experience, Marketing Procurement benchmarking saves brands an average of 20% on every dollar of marketing spend. That money can be reinvested into more campaigns, or used to experiment with channels you are not yet exploring.

Getting buy-in from Marketing and Finance

Benchmarking isn’t only for Procurement. Marketing and Finance should be interested too, and open conversations with colleagues help everyone see the role it can play in the business.

The best way we have found to win buy-in is to let the data do the talking. Present it clearly, so it highlights the areas of change, efficiency and improvement. Align it with the business and department goals, vision and budget. Draw comparisons with industry norms.

A data-driven approach puts everyone on the same page, with clear evidence of what is working well and where improvements can be made. When colleagues can see exactly where they can make improvements and get more bang for their buck, buy-in follows.

For CMOs, benchmarking also helps prove Marketing’s financial impact to the board. Read more in Why Marketing Benchmark Data Is Vital to the CMO Role.

The technology behind Marketing Procurement benchmarking

Technology has become an invaluable asset for Marketing Procurement benchmarking. It streamlines manual processes, improves accuracy, reduces human error and increases visibility. It also helps set new standards in best practice.

The right platform makes it far easier to run relevant, accurate benchmarking that delivers the results teams need.

RightSpend is designed specifically for Marketing Procurement. It gives teams data-driven decision making within clearly defined metrics and KPIs, so they gain visibility and control while keeping agency relationships and contracts fair and sustainable.

Benchmarking beyond cost: the strategic value for Marketing Procurement

Marketing Procurement is now both a strategic ally and a performance optimizer, making sure marketing spend and agency selection align with business objectives and budgets.

The future of Marketing Procurement lies not in tactical cost reduction but in strategic value creation, with benchmarking as the cornerstone of that evolution.

As Marketing Procurement continues to evolve, benchmarking has become an indispensable tool for senior professionals seeking to deliver strategic value. By moving beyond simple cost comparisons to comprehensive performance analysis,

Marketing Procurement leaders can drive transformation through data-driven decision making and strong partnership management. Senior professionals who take this approach are better placed to show the strategic value Marketing Procurement brings to their business.

Benchmark your agency spend with RightSpend