Why most RFPs fail
An RFP is supposed to filter capability. In practice, most filter for skill at writing RFP responses, which is a different skill from running paid media. The mechanism is straightforward: every agency that has been through the cycle a dozen times has a master template they paste into the RFP form, and the resulting documents are nearly indistinguishable.
The buyer reads them, finds them all credible, and ends up choosing on the basis of the pitch presentation, the senior person who showed up, and a vague sense of fit. The filter never operated. The decision is made on signals that have almost nothing to do with what the daily work will look like.
Fixing this requires changing the questions, not refining the evaluation matrix.
Replace generic questions with specific ones
The pattern is consistent. Every generic question has a specific replacement that produces a useful answer.
Generic: Tell us about your agency's experience with Shopify Performance Max.
Specific: Name three Shopify Performance Max accounts you currently manage, the monthly spend on each, the campaign structure you set up at the start, and one structural decision you made in the last quarter that changed the outcome. Identifying details can be redacted.
Generic: Describe your reporting cadence.
Specific: Attach a sample monthly report from an active client, redacted. We will read it for what is at the top, what is missing, and what kind of decisions it implies.
Generic: What is your team structure.
Specific: Name the person who would be in our account daily, their tenure on similar accounts, and how many other accounts they currently handle. The pitch lead is not the answer.
Each replacement removes a hiding place. An agency without real Performance Max experience cannot describe a real campaign structure. An agency with thin reporting cannot produce a real monthly report. An agency that staffs accounts with junior managers cannot dress that up when the question asks specifically.
The five sections every useful RFP should have
1. Commercial context. One paragraph from you on the business, revenue range, where the marketing budget currently sits, what is and is not working. Two pages maximum. The agency cannot give a useful answer without this.
2. The job. What you are hiring an agency to do. Be specific about scope: paid media management, conversion architecture, strategy, all three. State the budget range you are willing to spend on the engagement and the budget range you intend to manage through paid channels.
3. Specific questions about the work. Five to eight questions following the pattern above. Each forcing a specific answer that requires actual experience. Reject any response that is generic on more than one of them.
4. Reporting and access. Ask how the account will be set up (account ownership, admin access, billing structure), what monthly reporting looks like with a sample attached, and what the termination clause includes. Most disputes happen at the boundary; clarify the boundary in writing before signing.
5. Pricing. Ask for fixed-fee or transparent retainer with scope-of-work attached. Reject percentage-of-spend pricing for accounts above $20K monthly spend; it creates the wrong incentive.
What to do with the responses
Read for specificity first, polish second. A response that names a real account, describes the structural decision, and shows a real report is more valuable than one that has cleaner formatting and prettier slides.
Read for what is missing. If a question about senior staffing is answered with the agency's overall headcount, the question was avoided. Note it.
Read the sample monthly report against the questions in how to tell if your marketing agency is underperforming. The report you receive in an RFP response is the best version of what you will receive monthly. Apply the same standard.
Take the top two responses to a working session, not a pitch. Give them a real problem from your account and ask them to walk through how they would diagnose it in the first thirty days. The agency that walks through the problem honestly, including the parts they would need to learn, is the one who will produce real work.
When an RFP is the wrong tool
Some engagements do not need an RFP. If the budget is below $5K monthly, the overhead of running an RFP exceeds the value of the comparison. Pick someone who comes referred or run a single-vendor evaluation.
If you do not yet know what the structural problem is, an RFP will produce responses based on guesses. The right move is to commission an independent diagnostic first, then run the RFP based on the findings. The Conversion Second Opinion is structured for this; the deliverable identifies what the engagement needs to address before you go shopping for someone to address it.
If you already have an agency and are tempted to RFP as a way of testing them, name that openly. Either bring the incumbent into the RFP as one of the candidates, or skip the RFP and run the questions in this guide directly with them. Surreptitious RFPs damage the relationship without producing better information than asking directly.