Services and consulting
Marketing services agreement
A services paper written for agencies and marketers, where the distinctive questions are about money that flows through and claims that go out. It says whether media spend sits with the client or passes through the agency, who owns the ad accounts and the data in them, who signs off on creative before it publishes, and who is responsible for a claim in a piece of copy. Where results are discussed at all, they are described as activity rather than promised as outcomes.
- In the catalogue
- Services and consulting
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Marketing agencies and independent marketers working on a monthly arrangement.
- Companies buying campaign work, content, paid media or search work.
- Anyone handing over the keys to an advertising account they own.
What you are deciding
- What the services are, period by period
- The fee, and whether media spend passes through it
- Who holds the ad accounts, pages and analytics, and who keeps them at the end
- Who approves creative before it goes out
- Who is responsible for claims made in copy
- What reporting arrives, and how often
- What happens to scheduled campaigns when the arrangement ends
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties
- 2The services
- 3Fees and media spend
- 4Accounts and access
- 5Approvals
- 6Content and claims
- 7Reporting
- 8Confidentiality
- 9Term and termination
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- marketing services agreement
- marketing agency contract
- advertising agreement
- social media management contract
- seo contract
- media buying agreement
Questions people ask
- Who should own the advertising accounts?
- It is a decision, not a default. Papers of this kind commonly keep the accounts in the client's name with the agency given access, so nothing has to be rebuilt when the arrangement ends.
- Can an agency promise results?
- Agreements of this kind usually describe activity — what will be made, run and reported — rather than outcomes, because outcomes depend on things neither side controls.
- Who is responsible for what a campaign says?
- Commonly the approval trail decides it: the agency writes, the client approves, and the paper records who signed off. Advertising rules themselves come from local regulators rather than from the contract.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds