Only 14% of business decision-makers say their agencies fully meet their needs. At the same time, three-quarters say finding the right agency partner is an issue. So what would make clients feel more confident about the agencies they choose?
Mustard’s Richard Walker reveals the headlines from the latest market research conducted with budget holders and decision-makers and offers advice on how to build client confidence.
The marketing industry has never had more capability. Every year we see it as we help Prolific North compile the top agency rankings. There are more specialists, more technologies, more channels, and more ways for agencies to create value. AI has added another layer of possibility, promising greater efficiency, effectiveness and creativity.
Yet our latest research confirms that capability alone is not enough to create client confidence.
In collaboration with Agency by Agency and Prolific North, Mustard surveyed 52 business decision-makers and marketing budget holders across UK professional services organisations, covering sectors including technology, financial advisory, HR and legal services.
The findings offer a useful health check for both sides of the agency relationship. Clients have revealed to us what gives them confidence, what they value most and where there is more work to do.
The confidence challenge
The headline statistic from the survey results is alarming at face value. Just 14% of those surveyed say their agencies “fully” meet their needs. A further 40% say they largely meet their needs, while:
- 25% say their agencies meet their needs in some areas but not others
- 14% say they only partly meet their needs
Finding the right partner is also proving difficult. 75% say this is an issue, including 21% who describe it as a “big” issue and 15% who say it is a “massive” issue.
For Tom Salmon, co-founder of agency intelligence platform Agency by Agency, those figures should serve as both a warning and an opportunity for agencies.
“There’s something in this research that I don’t think agencies will want to hear, but they should. Three quarters of clients say finding the right agency is hard work, and only 14% feel their current agencies really deliver what they need. You could read that as bad news. I’d read it the other way round – that’s half the market sitting with an agency they’re not that happy with, quietly wondering if there’s someone better out there.
“There usually is. The UK has no shortage of brilliant agencies. The problem is that the market is hard to navigate, so clients can’t see them properly.”
So, what is going on here? The market is full of agencies with impressive capabilities, yet clients can still struggle to identify which partner is most likely to deliver what they need.
That makes confidence increasingly important. How can agencies make their value easier to see, understand and believe?
Reliable delivery is the foundation
When we asked clients what they value most, reliable delivery came out on top, selected by 37% in their “top three”. It also ranks first – i.e. the most important of all – for one in five of those surveyed.
That sounds like a basic expectation, and perhaps it should be. We can only surmise whether this is being driven by clients experiencing unreliable agencies. But reliability is fundamental to confidence. Clients need to know that an agency will do what it says, understand the brief, manage the detail and keep things moving when priorities inevitably change.
The spread of the data, however, proves there is much more to the relationship between clients and agencies than just reliable delivery. Looking at what else they value most (i.e. their top 3 priorities):
- 35% value attention to detail and accuracy (14% ranked first)
- 33% value competitive fees and value for money (14% ranked first)
- 33% value proactive leadership (12% ranked first)
- 33% value trusted partnership and collaboration (4% ranked first)
- 31% value Clear ROI & demonstrable impact (12% ranked first)
The pattern is revealing. Reliable execution creates the foundation, while partnership, commerciality and leadership determine how much value clients feel they are getting from the relationship.
The 2025 What Clients Think research from Up to the Light and the DBA found a similar emphasis on the relationship itself, with the report highlighting that client relationships often break down around servicing rather than the quality of creative work.
For agencies, the practical takeaway is straightforward: delivery is something you have to prove repeatedly, not simply promise in the creds, proposals and pitches.
Proof is more powerful than promises
When we tested some of the statements agencies commonly use to describe themselves, one rose clearly above the rest.
“Here are the results we get for our clients” mattered most to 40%.
Other statements had appeal:
- “We’re strategic” – 29%
- “We’re creative” – 25%
- “We’re specialists in…” – 23%
- “We’re an extension of your team” – 23%
Meanwhile, “we have the accreditations”, often very prominent in agency credentials, was selected by just 4%.
“They’re definitely not looking at your accreditations – only 4% of people cared about those. What they want is proof. Four in ten said the thing that mattered most was simply ‘here are the results we get for our clients.’ They do value good strategy and specialist know-how, but only when it comes with evidence and the real people who’ll actually be doing the work,” adds Tom Salmon.
“So it’s not about shouting louder. It’s about being easy to find and easy to trust at the exact moment someone starts looking – and this research suggests plenty of them are.”
Strategy, creativity and specialist expertise clearly have value. But clients appear to gain more confidence when those capabilities are connected to evidence rather than process.
This is particularly important in new business. An agency can tell a prospective client that it understands their sector. A case study can demonstrate how that understanding changed the outcome. But it has to be done right. The DBA’s 2025 research found that 66% of clients felt agency case studies failed to tell them what they needed to know, with clients wanting greater clarity on the business problem and the effectiveness of the solution.
The lesson is simple but easy to overlook and worth remembering: show the work, but spend more time and effort showing what happened because of it.
Clients value agencies that bring something to the conversation
There is another clear opportunity around proactivity.
We asked how valuable it is when an agency thinks beyond the day-to-day and proactively shares fresh, challenging and innovative ideas.
40% said this is invaluable. A further 50% called it nice-to-have.
Only 4% saw it as a distraction.
That creates a fairly compelling mandate for agencies to bring more of their expertise into the relationship. Clients have businesses and departments to run. Their agency should have a perspective on what is happening in their market, what competitors are doing, where customer expectations are moving and where opportunities might exist beyond the brief.
The value comes when that perspective is relevant and useful enough to change the conversation. For agency leaders, this could mean building more deliberate time and opportunities for challenging plans and sharing ideas, rather than relying on individual account teams to find the time.
The people still make the difference
Agency people matter enormously, but clients see them more as the “how” rather than the “why” in the relationship. They are a critical part of the relationship, but clients judge them through the value they create.
Earlier, one in four (26%) told us they most value “industry leading talent” when judging agencies. Clients appear to have a fairly demanding definition of what “good people” means.
73% say having the right skills is “essential”.
Then come:
- 69%: the right attitude
- 58%: relevant sector experience
- 54%: commercial acumen
- 44%: experience of similar briefs or challenges
- 30%: low staff turnover
This reinforces the wider finding around confidence. Clients want to know that the people working on their business can understand the challenge, navigate the complexity and apply their expertise to the situation in front of them.
That puts pressure on agencies to introduce the actual people who will do the work, demonstrate their relevance and explain the contribution they will make.
The agency team has to be a part of the agency value proposition. But the strongest proposition is the confidence that team brings.
And then there is AI
Inevitably, AI needs a mention too. It is 2026 after all. AI is clearly changing the agency landscape. But interestingly, it is not the headline story in our research.
Professional services and organisations are already using AI, with around a third saying their organisation has built a bespoke AI solution.
Attitudes are broadly positive, although respondents are slightly more positive about AI in their own roles than when agencies use it:
AI in their own role
- 23% very positive
- 50% fairly positive
AI used by their agencies
- 17% very positive
- 44% fairly positive
The use cases tell us why. Clients see AI as particularly important for:
- Efficiency – 56%
- Effectiveness – 44%
- Improving experiences – 40%
- Creativity – 37%
- Knowledge – 37%
For agencies, this creates another test of confidence versus capability. AI can make an agency faster and potentially more capable. But clients still need to understand how that capability improves the work, the experience or the outcome.
And we asked them about budgets. Are clients planning to spend more or less?
I imagine that got your attention.
Across a range of service areas, we asked whether they expect their agency spend will increase, decrease or stay the same over the next 12 months.
And it’s good news! For some services, clients say they expect agency spend will increase. These include:
- Experience (inc. Digital product development, Digital transformation, E-commerce, Web design)– 48% said agency spend will increase
- Digital (inc. PPC, SEO, Amazon, Retail media, Conversion, Data and analytics)– 46% said agency spend will increase
For all the services listed, the proportion saying agency spend will increase was consistently greater than those saying agency spend will decrease. Albeit, for many services, it is most likely that individual budgets will be the same.
- Creative: (inc. Advertising, Copywriting, Design, Branding, Video and production)– 50% said agency spend will stay the same– 37% said it will increase.
- Communications: (Inc. Internal comms, PR, Social, Influencer)– 48% said agency spend will stay the same – 27% said it will increase.
- Marketing: (inc. Direct marketing, Experiential, Events, Media)– 42% said agency spend will stay the same– 37% said it will increase.
- Strategy: (inc. Brand strategy, Behavioural science, Market research)– 40% said agency spend will stay the same – 35% said it will increase.
The Agency Blueprint
Clients in the professional services sectors are still spending, and this research gives agencies a fairly practical blueprint for strengthening client relationships:
Reliable delivery. Getting the basics right consistently.
Proving your impact. Putting outcomes and evidence at the heart of new business and account development.
Bringing perspective. Creating opportunities to challenge, inspire and add value beyond the immediate brief.
Putting the right people in the room. Skills matter, but so do attitude, commercial understanding and relevant experience.
Using AI with purpose. Demonstrating the benefit to the client, rather than simply the technology.
For clients, there is a useful counterpart to this. The research should provide a framework for articulating what “good” looks like when choosing, briefing and managing agencies.
Ultimately, the agency market does not have a shortage of capability. The opportunity is for agencies to make that capability feel more relevant, more tangible and more dependable to the people making the buying decisions.
That is how capability becomes confidence.
The full report can be downloaded directly from the Mustard website – https://mustard-research.com/thinking/
