An RFP (Request for Proposal) is a document a company sends to several suppliers asking each of them for a proposal in the same format, so the offers can be compared objectively before signing a contract.
In digital marketing it is mostly used to choose an SEO, paid media or content agency. Done well, it saves weeks of meetings and stops the decision from going to whoever pitches best. Done badly, it produces proposals that cannot be compared at all.
RFP vs RFI vs RFQ
The three acronyms are often mixed up, but each one belongs to a different buying stage:
| Document | What you ask for | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| RFI (Request for Information) | General information: services, experience, size, clients | You do not know the market yet and need to trim a long list |
| RFP (Request for Proposal) | Approach, work plan, team, measurement and price | You know the problem you want solved, but not how to solve it |
| RFQ (Request for Quotation) | Price and terms only | The work is fully specified and you are only comparing cost |
When an RFP makes sense for hiring an agency
It is worth the effort when several of these apply:
- The contract is significant for your budget or will run for more than a year.
- Several people are involved in the decision (marketing, leadership, procurement, IT).
- You work across several markets or languages and need to know how each will be handled.
- Company policy requires you to compare at least three bids.
It is overkill when the job is small or one-off (an audit, a one-month campaign) or when you already know two or three agencies you trust. In that case a solid SEO briefing and a conversation with each of them is enough.
What a good marketing RFP includes
- Company and context: what you do, your business model, your audience and why you are looking for an agency now.
- Current situation and in-house team: what is being done today, with which tools, by whom, and what will stay in-house.
- Services: SEO, paid campaigns, content, analytics. Say which are must-haves and which are optional.
- Objectives with measurable KPIs: not "improve visibility" but, for example, grow organic leads by 30% in 12 months. If you are unsure what to track, review the most common marketing KPIs.
- Markets and languages: countries, languages and whether there are separate sites or domains.
- Budget range and duration: a monthly or yearly range and the expected contract length.
- Timeline with dates: send-out, question deadline, proposal due date, pitches, decision and kick-off.
- What each proposal must include:
- A work plan with quarterly milestones.
- The assigned team, with names, roles and monthly hours.
- Case studies in your sector or a close one.
- Measurement method: which tools, which reports and how often.
- An itemised price by service and by phase.
- Dependencies on your IT team or systems (CMS, development, access).
- Evaluation criteria with weights: how much each factor counts in the final decision.
If you would rather not start from a blank page, use our marketing agency RFP template and adapt it to your case.
Common mistakes
- Hiding the budget: agencies propose plans of wildly different sizes and you end up comparing things that cannot be compared.
- Asking for free strategy work: demanding a full audit or a detailed plan without paying for it drives the best agencies away. Ask for the approach, not the finished work.
- Inviting too many bidders: with ten proposals, nobody reads them properly.
- No weights: without them, the decision comes down to a general impression.
- Judging on price alone: the cheapest bid usually means fewer hours or more junior people. Always weigh the cost against the expected ROI.
- Vague objectives: without figures and deadlines, each agency defines success its own way and there is no fair way to evaluate the work later.
How to compare proposals
The most reliable method is a weighted scoring table: score each criterion from 1 to 5, multiply by its weight and add up. The figures below are a made-up example with three agencies:
| Criterion (weight) | Agency A | Agency B | Agency C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work plan and approach (30%) | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| Assigned team (25%) | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| Price (20%) | 3 | 5 | 2 |
| Sector case studies (15%) | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Measurement method (10%) | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| Weighted total | 3.90 | 3.55 | 4.00 |
Agency A, for instance, scores 4 × 0.30 + 5 × 0.25 + 3 × 0.20 + 3 × 0.15 + 4 × 0.10 = 3.90. Here the cheapest agency (B) comes last, and A and C are so close that the pitch should settle it: ask about the specific people who will run the account and how they would tackle a real problem on your site.
To make the table work:
- Set the weights before opening the proposals, not after.
- Have at least two people score separately, then compare notes.
- Score price with a fixed rule, for example 5 for the lowest bid and the rest in proportion.
- Ask the two finalists for references from current clients.
Frequently Asked Questions
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RFP stands for Request for Proposal. It is the document a company uses to explain what it needs and ask several suppliers for a proposal in the same format, so the answers can be compared side by side before choosing one.
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An RFI (Request for Information) helps you learn about the market and shortlist suppliers. An RFP asks for a full proposal: approach, team, plan and price. An RFQ (Request for Quotation) asks only for price, because what you are buying is already defined in detail.
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Three to five is usually enough. With more, you cannot read every proposal carefully and agencies have less reason to invest time, because their chances of winning drop. If you start from a long list, run an RFI or a short call first to narrow it down.
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For a marketing or SEO RFP, two to four weeks is a reasonable window. Build a question round with a deadline into the timeline and share every answer with every agency, so they all compete with the same information.