Benchmarking Services for Marketing and Advertising Spend

Corcentric’s marketing and advertising benchmarking services ensures you’re getting the most from your agency, establishing best-in-class agreements at competitive rates, and properly allocating your budget.

Whether you are evaluating how your supply base ranks in the competitive landscape, looking for leverage before entering negotiations, or establishing best-in-class agreements with your vendor, benchmarking is a valuable exercise for any part of your organization.

When it comes to marketing and advertising, it is not uncommon for marketing departments to work with the same agency for long periods of time because of the close relationships they form. Over time, contracts are often simply renewed without any comparison to market standards, causing many companies to miss opportunities for more competitive contractual agreements and rates.

Benchmarking exercises specific to the marketing and advertising categories encompass more than reviewing standard terms and conditions or evaluating the competitiveness of hourly rates – there is the added element of reviewing the category-specific components of the agency relationship, including the following:

• Full time equivalent (FTE) staffing plans
• Allocation of FTE hours
• Campaign budget optimization
• Performance metrics, ROI, and SLA, including which activities are most and least effective, and how sales are impacted
• Competitiveness with industry trends.

With these elements in mind, Corcentric develops a comprehensive review of your entire agency relationship. With decades of benchmark data readily available from internal databases, partners, subscription services, white-labeled and licensed eSourcing tools, and market research, our marketing sourcing experts are equipped to provide an in-depth benchmark of your current marketing category.

Our marketing benchmarking process includes the following steps:

• Reviewing supplier contracts, SOWs, and rate cards to understand the current state of the relationship
• Comparing contract terms and conditions against market trends and industry best practices
• Analyzing FTE hourly rates compared to those seen in the market for similar services and equivalent positions
• Reviewing FTE hours from SOWs for services performed in comparison to industry standards
• Evaluating agency performance through metrics, SLAs, and ROI
• Developing recommendations for improvements in contract language, hourly rates, FTE allocation, invoicing procedures, and other value-added services
• Providing detailed report outlining current state, rate card comparison, and recommendations

Corcentric has been providing clients with meaningful market intelligence through benchmark reports for decades. Our sourcing experts have the resources necessary to provide you with the relevant information to fit your needs. Combined with our category expertise in the marketing space across a variety of industries, our marketing sourcing experts are able to develop valuable and actionable reports for your marketing category needs. Our custom benchmark reports will provide you with insight into your standing within the competitive marketplace, recommendations for areas of improvement, and leverage for negotiating a best-in-class, competitive agreement with your agency.

Corcentric understands the necessary components of benchmarking marketing services and can help your organization achieve a competitive advantage through these services. We can ensure that you have a best-in-class agreement with your agency, that your rates are competitive compared to the current market, and that your agency is allocating and optimizing your budget properly.

Contact our Benchmarking experts today to learn how marketing and advertising benchmarking can impact your marketing budget.