Seven Advertising Agency Directories That Will Help Generate New Business
For brands, finding the perfect agency for a new project is often as challenging as executing the project itself. Thankfully, advertising agency directories have popped up to make the agency search process easier. These directories boast useful features like advanced filtering based on geography and skillset, contact information, reviews and even sample creative work.
Without further ado, we share the seven best advertising agency directories worth getting listed on to help generate new business.
AdForum
AdForum boasts an impressive collection of over 24,000 agency profiles for its users to discover. These profiles include a comprehensive list of awards, case studies, portfolios, client work, insights and leadership teams. The search database utilizes a variety of filters—including location, client industry, ad specializations and competencies, like branding or digital marketing. AdForum also functions as an influential content hub, attracting visitors and industry specialists to its site every day.
Clutch
Part agency and part Yelp board, Clutch is the go-to directory if you want first-hand accounts and reviews of the best advertising, digital marketing, SEO and content marketing agencies in the world. It’s easy enough to find relevant categories to discover new agencies (dig into the actual database to use filters), but Clutch’s real power lies in its reviews.
Here’s how it works: Clutch contacts your references, conducts a short phone interview, and publishes their feedback while keeping your clients’ names and contact information confidential. Along with client feedback, Clutch publishes important information like services, portfolio and projected quotes for past and ongoing projects. If you utilize everything it has to offer, it’s one of the most user-friendly and comprehensive databases out there.
The Creative Ham
The best, most admirable aspect about The Creative Ham database is that it isn’t aiming to create the largest directory of advertising agencies. Nor is the database trying to create the definitive directory of advertising agencies. Their sole criteria? Creativity. The Creative Ham’s “forever incomplete list of agencies” focuses on the best creative agencies, both big and small, in top cities around the world. Divided by region and city in America (and a handful of renowned international cities), The Creative Ham invites users to explore dozens and dozens of agencies. They even have a breakdown of the agency called “the goods” in which they summarize what the agency does best creatively, of course.
Agency List
Perhaps the most straightforward agency database on this list, Agency List is exactly what it sounds like—a list of top, trusted agencies. Agency List breaks these down by two main categories: geography and type. Scrolling over a map, you can find the best agencies in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Boston and Miami, and then find the best agencies in those cities for advertising, digital marketing, SEO, web design, animation, public relations, video production and more.
4A’s
If you’re looking to hire the agency that produced the coolest viral video around for GE or Ford, this is the place to look. 4A’s is a great tool if you want nitty and gritty details about clients or possibly even competition. Search results turn up revenue, past clients and brands, specializations, office locations and hours, and service offerings. For agencies, it’s an effective tool for business development, marketing, outreach and competitor research. Put up a profile hear if you want to compete with the best.
Winmo
Winmo combines lead generation tools with an agency directory to do the work of finding a reputable agency for you. Winmo allows you to search for the usuals—industry, media spend, geography, titles—but it excels because it uses this search information to make personalized lead recommendations for you. As a sales intelligence software company, Winmo also specializes in predictive business development, in which they use their database to forecast the next 3-18 months with 81 percent accuracy. That’s not too shabby. If you need an agency database with some lead generation power, Winmo is probably right for you.
Redbooks
Unlike many of the other database directories on this list, Redbooks is a premium service for agency sales and brand procurement professionals. Redbooks’ directory has over 14,000 agencies, 250,000 decision makers and 100,000 brands. On the agency side, the tool is helpful to access contact information for poential leads. Brands, on the othr hand, use Redbooks to find contacts at agencies they are interested in hiring. Whether or not you throw down for a premium Redbooks account, it’s worth adding your agency to the database for procurement pros to find.