Business owners are using ChatGPT to vet agencies before they even pick up the phone, writes Andrew Eshaqi of Click Click Media.
If you’ve looked for a marketing agency recently, there’s a good chance ChatGPT has been part of the process.
Business owners are using AI to compare agencies, review proposals, explain marketing jargon and come up with questions to ask before they sign anything. I see it every day. People are walking into meetings far better informed than they were even 18 months ago, and I think that’s making the industry better because they’re asking more thoughtful questions and taking the time to understand what they’re buying.
The biggest change isn’t that AI is choosing agencies. It’s that business owners are becoming more informed buyers. For a long time, choosing an agency came down to who gave the best pitch. Today, business owners are doing far more homework before they even pick up the phone. They’re checking reviews, comparing recommendations, asking ChatGPT to explain different strategies and working out whether an agency’s advice actually makes sense for their business.
That shift has happened because many business owners have been disappointed before. They’ve worked with agencies that overpromised, underdelivered or locked them into contracts that didn’t produce the results they expected. AI hasn’t created that scepticism. It’s simply given people another way to test what they’re being told before they commit, which means agencies now need to back their recommendations with evidence, experience and a track record that stands up to scrutiny.
We’ve seen the same shift in conversations around Click Click Media’s AI and ChatGPT consulting. Businesses increasingly come to us having already researched the technology and formed a view on what they need. Our job is to work out whether that solution actually makes commercial sense for their business. Sometimes it does, and sometimes the real opportunity sits somewhere else. That’s where having an informed client and an experienced partner becomes valuable.
One thing I say regularly is that many businesses think they have a marketing problem when they actually have a business problem. A business might tell me it needs more leads, but after a conversation it becomes clear the real issue sits somewhere else. Nobody is answering the phone. The sales process is leaking opportunities. The website creates friction. The business doesn’t have the capacity to take on more work in the first place.
ChatGPT can compare agencies, explain terminology and help you understand a proposal, but it doesn’t understand your business. It doesn’t know your commercial goals, your team or where the real bottlenecks are. That’s where experience and commercial judgement still matter.
The conversations that produce the best outcomes focus on where the business wants to go, what’s stopping it from getting there and whether marketing is actually the right solution. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. An agency that’s prepared to tell you that is thinking about the health of your business rather than simply closing the quickest sale.
If you’re choosing an agency today, I’d be asking a few simple questions:
The answers will tell you far more than a polished presentation ever will.
For me, that’s what separates a strategic partner from a supplier. A supplier sells a service. A strategic partner takes the time to understand the business before recommending a solution. They know what their team can realistically deliver, they’re honest about where marketing will help and they’re prepared to tell you when the real issue sits somewhere else. Those conversations don’t always lead to the quickest sale, but they almost always lead to better long-term outcomes.
Trust has always mattered when choosing an agency, but AI is raising the standard. When anyone can use ChatGPT to interrogate a recommendation or research the claims being made to them, agencies have fewer places to hide. Transparency, proven experience and the ability to explain why a strategy makes commercial sense become far more important than how impressive the pitch sounds.
My advice is to use ChatGPT as part of your research. Ask it to compare agencies, explain recommendations and help you understand what you’re being told, then use that information to have a better conversation with the agencies you’re considering. AI can help you become a more informed buyer, but choosing the right partner still comes down to finding people who understand your business, are honest about what they can deliver and are prepared to solve the problem you actually have, rather than the one you thought you had.
Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.