Agency Review Consultant: How to Choose One (Australia)

An agency review consultant is an independent adviser who runs an advertising, media or digital agency pitch, or reviews an incumbent agency’s performance and fees, on the marketer’s behalf. In Australia a long-established specialist is Australian-founded TrinityP3, whose own guidance puts the pitch fee an advertiser pays each pitching agency at $10,000–$25,000 when covering that agency’s out-of-pocket costs.

At a glance:

• What they do: agency search and selection (the pitch), incumbent performance reviews, commercial and remuneration reviews, and media rate benchmarking.
• Who uses them: marketing and procurement teams appointing or re-appointing a creative, media, digital or PR agency.
• Shortlist (ranked): 1. TrinityP3, 2. Tumbleturn, 3. Madclarity. All three are based in Sydney.
• Fees: none of the three printed a consultant fee on the pages we read on 7 November 2026; engagements are quoted per project.
• Hidden cost: your own team’s time. One published estimate is around 400 internal hours for a three-person marketing team running a pitch.

Rules of thumb

• Cost your own hours before you hire anyone: 400 internal hours at an assumed $120 an hour is $48,000 of staff time (worked example below; the 400-hour figure is Darren Woolley’s estimate as reported by Mediaweek).
• Shortlist two or three agencies for the creative or strategy stage: TrinityP3 advises paying pitch fees when you engage “more than 2-3” agencies at that stage (TrinityP3).
• If the problem is price, rates or reporting, review before you pitch: a client quoted on TrinityP3’s selection page says a commercial review let it avoid “the costly disruption of a tender process” (TrinityP3).
• Plan for months, not weeks, on a full review: TrinityP3 says pitches run “from a few weeks to many months” (TrinityP3).

What does an agency review consultant actually do?

An agency review consultant manages the process of choosing, re-contracting or assessing a marketing agency, so the marketer gets an independent, structured decision rather than a beauty parade. The work falls into four types, and the established Australian firms sell different mixes of them.

• Search and selection (the pitch): building a long list, credentials, chemistry meetings, a strategic or creative brief, financial proposals, negotiation and transition. TrinityP3 describes “a complete service. From initial candidate selection to negotiation of financial terms”.
• Performance review: an independent assessment of how the incumbent agency, and the client team, are working, often as an alternative to a pitch.
• Commercial and remuneration review: benchmarking agency fees, resourcing and rates against the market.
• Media benchmarking: comparing media costs and audience delivery against other advertisers’ data.

In the 2026 State of the Pitch round reported by Mediaweek, agency fees across the 59 pitches surveyed ranged from $50,000 to $10 million, and agencies scored the way Australian marketers and procurement teams ran pitches at an average of 3.22 out of five, up from 2.99 the year before.

Frequently asked questions

What is an agency review consultant?

An agency review consultant is an independent adviser who runs an agency pitch or reviews an incumbent agency’s performance and fees for a marketer. In Australia, firms such as TrinityP3, Tumbleturn and Madclarity sell this work.

How much does an agency review consultant charge in Australia?

None of TrinityP3, Tumbleturn or Madclarity printed a consultant fee on the pages we read on 7 November 2026, so expect a quote per project. Budget separately for your own team’s time and any pitch fees paid to agencies.

Should I pay agencies to pitch?

TrinityP3 suggests $10,000 to $25,000 per agency as a reasonable guide when you cover out-of-pocket costs, and says that if you insist on buying the intellectual property rights, their commercial value is easily $100,000 or more, in its guide to pitch fees.

How long does an agency pitch take?

TrinityP3 says pitches can run from a few weeks to many months. Mediaweek reported that pitches taking six to 12 months doubled in the 2026 State of the Pitch round.

Can I run an agency review without a consultant?

Yes. A middle option is a short coaching session, such as TrinityP3’s two-hour BetterPitch Power Coaching, before running the process in-house with a scorecard agreed in advance.

The 3 best agency review consultants in Australia (ranked)

TrinityP3, Tumbleturn and Madclarity are the three Australian agency review consultancies we would shortlist in 2026, ranked by how much of the full review job each sells on its own site.

Methodology: we included only firms that (1) sell agency pitch, agency review or agency performance work on their own website today, (2) show an Australian address and named senior people, and (3) serve marketers across Australia, as stated on their own sites. We ranked on breadth of review services published, then depth of Australian presence. We read each firm’s site on 7 November 2026. No firm paid to appear. LeadsNow publishes this page but is not an agency review consultant and is not ranked.

1. TrinityP3

TrinityP3 is a marketing management consultancy founded in Australia more than two decades ago, run by founder and global CEO Darren Woolley, with its Asia Pacific office at Three International Towers, Barangaroo. Its agency selection page offers search and selection for advertising, media, brand, PR, digital and production agencies, says its process has been “tested and evolved over twenty years”, and cites a “3,000+ strong agency register”. It publishes nine pitch formats, from a full creative review to “Pitch In A Day”, and for teams running their own process it sells a two-hour BetterPitch Power Coaching session with two pitch managers. Pick it when the pitch is large, procurement-led or spans several agency types.

2. Tumbleturn

Tumbleturn Marketing Advisory is a North Sydney firm that says it works “with marketing teams across Australia”. Its three named partners list senior agency and client-side backgrounds: Jen Davidson (McCann, then GM of Media, Digital, Social and PR at Commonwealth Bank), Dan Johns (former CEO of Ikon and COO of IPG Mediabrands Australia) and Sally Kissane (former CEO of the Ogilvy Network in ANZ). Its pitch management service sits alongside a Partnership Accelerator relationship diagnostic, a marketing performance review and media benchmarking tools. Tumbleturn’s own site argues that client-agency partnerships “now average less than three years”. Pick it when you want partners doing the work and may need a relationship reset rather than a new agency.

3. Madclarity

Madclarity is an independent Sydney media consultancy that “helps leading brands across Australia achieve better media & advertising outcomes”, led by partner and chairman Eric Faulkner and managing director Mark Leone. Its services are consultancy (including “assessing agency performance”), media benchmarking built on what it calls a “half a billion dollar, multi-client data base”, process evaluation of how ad spend is managed, and coaching. It does not market itself as a pitch manager on the pages we read, so rank it for the review half of the job: finding out whether your media agency is delivering value before you decide to go to market.

What does running an agency review yourself really cost?

Running an agency pitch yourself costs internal staff time first, and one published estimate puts that at around 400 hours for three marketing people over a single pitch. The hourly rates are assumptions for you to replace with your own fully loaded salary costs.

Mediaweek reported that the number of pitches taking six to 12 months had doubled in the 2026 round. A consultant’s fee is worth paying when it is smaller than the staff time it saves plus the risk it removes. For a small business spending a few thousand dollars a month with one agency, the maths rarely supports a managed pitch; a coaching session and a tight brief are often enough.

Should you review your agency or put it to pitch?

A review of the incumbent agency should come before a pitch whenever the problem is fees, rates, reporting or the working relationship, because those can be fixed without changing agency. TrinityP3’s own selection page opens with “Going to tender is not always the right answer”. We call the decision the fix-before-you-pitch ladder: climb only as high as the problem needs.

How an agency review runs, stage by stage

An agency pitch run by a consultant moves through five or six gated stages, and TrinityP3 says the whole process can take from a few weeks to many months.

1. Purpose and scope: agree why you are reviewing, the outcome you want and the assessment scorecard before contacting any agency.
2. Long list and credentials: a consideration list submits agency credentials.
3. Chemistry meetings: a shorter list meets the client team, in what TrinityP3 calls “typically an hour-long meeting”.
4. Brief and response: two or three agencies answer a strategic or creative brief, alongside a financial and resource proposal.
5. Negotiation and appointment: commercial terms, scope of work and contract.
6. Transition: onboarding the new agency and exiting the old one.

Where it goes wrong is often the client side: Darren Woolley told Mediaweek that around 30% of pitches in the State of the Pitch round were “being run poorly”, and the report found more than 80% of pitches did not pay agencies for their time.

Where LeadsNow fits

LeadsNow is not an agency review consultant and does not run pitches; it books qualified sales meetings for consultants and agencies who want more clients. If you are a consultant whose problem is too few client meetings rather than the wrong agency, see our ranked list of lead generation agencies for consultants in Australia, the LeadsNow consultants page, or, if you run an agency yourself, how marketing agencies get their own clients. The trade-offs between paying a monthly fee and paying on outcomes are covered in pay-per-result vs retainer marketing agencies.

Sources

1. TrinityP3, Agency Search and Selection Management (read 7 November 2026)
2. TrinityP3, When should an advertiser pay pitch fees
3. TrinityP3, 9 Types of Agency Pitch Process
4. TrinityP3, why some pitches take too long
5. TrinityP3, BetterPitch Power Coaching
6. TrinityP3, AI Agency Search
7. Tumbleturn, What we do and About
8. Madclarity, What we do and About
9. Mediaweek, Darren Woolley breaks down 2026 State of the Pitch