Agency new business
Agency prospect research: a template for a stronger first meeting
Leave with one useful point of view, three facts to confirm, and a clear request for the next meeting.
The direct answer
Research an agency prospect by checking its offer, buyer decisions, competitor messages, and conversion path. Record a source for each observation. Turn the strongest gap into one testable opportunity and a short list of questions. Account performance stays unverified until the prospect shares account data.
1. Start with the decision the prospect needs to make
A useful brief answers a commercial question: what should this business investigate before it spends more? Choose a specific offer, service area, and customer type. A broad review of everything the company does makes the opening less useful.
Write down the likely business goal as a question. For example: can a regional service company attract more replacement enquiries without increasing low-value repair enquiries? Confirm that goal in discovery. The website alone cannot establish the owner's priorities, capacity, or economics.
- Confirm the business name, domain, offer, location, and source date.
- Separate the prospect's own claims from your observations.
- Check service, product, pricing or quote, contact, and cancellation pages when available.
- Record missing information as a question. Do not fill gaps with a market average.
2. Build a small evidence ledger
Collect evidence that changes the next decision. Save the exact URL, page title, date, and relevant passage. Public ads show messages and visible creative. They do not reveal the advertiser's budget, results, or most profitable audience.
Choose competitors that sell a comparable offer in the same market. Confirm the list with the prospect. A search result can be a directory, a publisher, or a company in a different geography. Keep those separate from direct competitors.
| Source | Useful observation | Question to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Offer and service pages | Who the offer serves, price terms, proof, exclusions | Which offer can the team deliver more of? |
| Search results and competitor pages | How alternatives explain the same buying decision | Which alternatives do buyers actually consider? |
| Public ad libraries | Current messages, formats, destination pages | Which campaigns and audiences produce qualified demand? |
| Reviews and public discussion | Repeated concerns, decision criteria, objections | Does the sales team hear the same concern? |
| Mobile enquiry path | Visible steps, friction, service-area clarity | Where do real prospects abandon or fail qualification? |
3. Separate observation, hypothesis, and proof
Use three fields for every opportunity. Observation states what you saw. Hypothesis explains what might follow. Validation names the evidence that could confirm or reject the idea. This keeps a confident presentation honest.
Review language can reveal a useful question even when the sample is small. It cannot establish how common that concern is across the market. Record the source count, dates, and selection limits. Avoid building a persona around one vivid comment.
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Observation | The replacement page lists equipment features but does not explain repair versus replacement. |
| Hypothesis | A comparison section could help undecided homeowners choose a useful next step. |
| Validation | Review enquiry reasons, sales notes, search terms, and qualified appointment rates. |
| Proposed test | Add a repair-versus-replacement decision section to one relevant landing page. |
| Success measure | Qualified replacement enquiries per landing-page visit, with the current page as the comparison. |
4. Turn the ledger into a one-page prospect brief
Lead with the opportunity in one sentence. Follow with three source-backed observations, one proposed test, and the evidence needed to assess it. Put source links beside the observations so the prospect can check them.
Keep the proposed test within the team's control. A new offer requires approval and delivery capacity. A new landing page needs an owner. An ad change needs account evidence. A proposal should show those dependencies before it presents a timeline.
- Business question: which growth decision are we trying to improve?
- Opening: what specific buyer question does the current journey leave unanswered?
- Evidence: which three observations support that opening?
- Test: what would change, for whom, and on which page?
- Measurement: what qualified outcome would justify further work?
- Next step: what access, confirmation, and owner does the test need?
5. Use discovery to challenge the idea
Present the source before the interpretation. Ask the prospect to correct the business context. An opening that disappears after a useful question has still improved the decision.
Use the meeting to establish one conversion definition, one commercial constraint, and one owner for the next evidence review. If the prospect agrees to share Google Ads data, use the account audit checklist as the next stage. Keep the public brief available so the team can see which assumptions changed.
- Which customer or job would you most like to win more often?
- What makes an enquiry qualified, and where do you record that decision?
- Which offers, regions, or services currently have spare delivery capacity?
- What have you already tried against this problem?
- What would we need to see before you approve the proposed test?
Put it to work
Keep the evidence beside the decision.
An editable CSV with fields for sources, observations, hypotheses, and discovery questions. No email required.
Download the prospect research worksheetCommon questions
Can you audit a prospect without Google Ads access?
You can assess public positioning, visible ads, buyer questions, and the website journey. You cannot verify spend, conversion quality, ROAS, or account configuration. Describe the work as prospect research or a public growth read.
How many competitors should an agency research?
Start with a small set that represents real buyer alternatives. Three confirmed competitors can be more useful than a long list of loose matches. Add another only when it changes the opportunity or reveals a different buying choice.
Should the brief include a revenue forecast?
A public brief should not claim account-backed revenue potential. Establish baseline volume, qualification, close rate, economics, and constraints before presenting a forecast. Label later scenarios as forecasts and show the assumptions.
Sources and method
This guide combines the linked sources with Ad Prophet's editorial methods and original decision aids. Numerical examples are illustrative. They do not describe client results or industry benchmarks.