How should healthcare CMOs evaluate marketing agencies?
Healthcare CMOs should evaluate marketing agencies on four things: proven work in regulated healthcare categories, privacy and BAA readiness, measurement tied to patient volume or revenue, and the actual team who will do the work. Run a structured scorecard, ask for a working session instead of a polished pitch, and start with a defined pilot before signing a long contract.
- Write the brief before the RFP: agencies can only be compared against outcomes you have defined.
- Test compliance in the room: ask how they handle tracking on booking flows and what a BAA would cover.
- Meet the delivery team, not only the pitch team: the people in month six matter more than the people in week one.
- Use a paid pilot: a scoped first phase with agreed metrics reveals more than any credentials deck.
- Every practice welcome — retainers from $499/mo, Goals-Driven engagements, Performance-Linked Payout Models available.
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“They were able to get all my ideas and work with me over a period of three to four months and create this amazing website. It's super customized, very modern, and it incorporates all the elements that I had wanted — the patient portal, nice pictures, a very interactive website, patient reviews. I would highly recommend their company to anyone who wants to make an excellent website.”
What should a CMO define before talking to agencies?
Define the business outcome, the scope, the budget range, the internal owner and the compliance boundaries before any agency meeting. Without that brief, every proposal answers a different question, and the comparison collapses into which presentation felt most confident.
A one-page brief is enough. It should cover:
- Outcome: for example new patient appointments in two service lines, qualified demos for a healthtech product, or referral volume from physicians.
- Scope: which channels the agency owns, which stay in-house, and who approves content.
- Constraints: legal and clinical review steps, brand standards, systems the agency must work within.
- Data access: whether the agency will see protected health information at all, which decides whether a BAA is needed.
- Decision process: who scores, by when, and what happens after selection.
If your team lacks time to write this, that is a signal in itself. Our page on fractional CMOs versus agencies explains when strategy support should come before an agency hire.
What criteria belong on a healthcare agency scorecard?
A healthcare agency scorecard should weigh category experience, compliance practice, measurement, team quality, commercial terms and data ownership. Score each agency on the same criteria, using evidence you saw rather than claims you heard, and have more than one person score independently.
| Criterion | What good evidence looks like | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Healthcare depth | Can discuss your service lines, referral patterns and payer mix in specifics | Case studies all from retail or software outside health |
| Privacy and tracking | Explains how it keeps PHI away from ad and analytics tags, and offers a BAA where needed | "Our pixel setup is standard" with no mention of HHS tracking guidance |
| Claims and review discipline | Describes a workflow for clinical and legal sign-off | Promises fast publishing with no review step |
| Measurement | Reports booked appointments, pipeline or revenue, with clear attribution limits | Leads with impressions, clicks and keyword counts |
| Delivery team | Named strategist and specialists in the final meeting | Senior people disappear after signing |
| Ownership | Ad accounts, analytics, domains and creative stay in your name | Agency-owned accounts you cannot export |
Weight the criteria to suit your situation. A health system with a mature analytics team may care most about execution capacity. A Series A healthtech company may need strategic judgment first.
Which questions separate strong agencies from weak ones?
The strongest questions ask the agency to show its reasoning on your actual problem. Ask what they would stop doing, not only what they would add. Ask how they would know in the first quarter that the plan is failing. Agencies that answer in specifics, including uncomfortable ones, usually perform better than those that answer in slogans.
- Walk us through how you would measure success in the first quarter, and what you would change if it slips.
- Which of our current activities would you cut, and why?
- What would a BAA with you cover, and which of your subcontractors would touch our data?
- Show us a recent monthly report, with client details removed.
- Who exactly will work on our account each week, and what is their other workload?
- How do you handle a clinical reviewer rejecting content close to a launch date?
Check references by asking former clients what went wrong and how the agency responded. Every agency has a success story; recovery behavior is more revealing.
How should the first engagement be structured?
Start with a defined pilot of one or two quarters with agreed metrics, clear deliverables, a named team and a reasonable exit clause. Long minimum terms before an agency has proven itself shift risk onto you. A pilot also tests working rhythm: approval speed, reporting quality and how problems are raised.
Put the essentials in writing: account and data ownership, the BAA where PHI is involved, reporting cadence, the review process for claims, and what happens to creative and content if the relationship ends. Our comparison of agency and in-house teams helps decide which work should stay internal.
Pricing models to compare
- Monthly retainer: predictable, but tie it to a written scope and monthly goals so it does not drift.
- Project fee: suits defined work such as a website rebuild, a brand refresh or a tracking audit.
- Percentage of ad spend: common in paid media, but it can reward spending more rather than spending better. Ask how the agency guards against that.
- Performance-linked fees: useful when the metric is clean and the agency controls enough of the funnel to influence it.
Whichever model you choose, ask for the fee to be shown separately from media spend, so you can see exactly what the agency is paid for its work.
Where can a fractional CMO help with agency selection?
A fractional CMO can write the brief, run the scorecard, sit in pitches and then hold the chosen agency to its plan. This is useful when the CEO or a lean marketing team is doing the hiring without someone who has managed healthcare agencies before.
At Ichelon Consulting US, Santosh Reddy, Partner, Ichelon Consulting US, serves as fractional CMO. The Growth plan at $1,500/month includes agency and vendor oversight, campaign approvals and a monthly board-ready report; Advisory is $1,000/month and Embedded is $2,000/month. Execution is scoped separately, and we sign a BAA with every US client. Learn more on our fractional CMO for healthcare page, or book a call.
Related pages from the US team
Fractional CMO for Healthcare Companies
Senior marketing leadership for US healthcare organizations, by the month.
Fractional CMO vs marketing agency
How the two roles differ and when you need each.
What a fractional CMO does
The responsibilities of a fractional CMO in a healthcare company.
Agency vs in-house team
Deciding which marketing work to keep internal.
Every practice welcome — Goals-Driven engagements from $499/mo
We benchmark your last 90 days, agree monthly goals with you, and track them live on Ichelon Agency OS with a report every Monday. Performance-Linked Payout Models are available. Our US leadership is based in Dallas, and strategy calls run in US business hours.
Common questions
Should a healthcare CMO run a formal RFP for a marketing agency?
A formal RFP helps larger organizations compare agencies fairly and satisfy procurement, but it can reward polished writing over real capability. Many CMOs combine a short written brief with a working session, where shortlisted agencies discuss your actual data and problem. Either way, score every agency against the same criteria.
Does a healthcare marketing agency need to sign a BAA?
An agency needs a BAA when it creates, receives, maintains or transmits protected health information on your behalf, such as form submissions, call recordings or patient lists. Agencies limited to brand work with no access to PHI may not. Define data access in the brief, then confirm the requirement with counsel.
What metrics should a CMO hold a healthcare agency to?
Hold the agency to outcomes the business values: booked and kept appointments by service line for providers, or qualified pipeline and revenue for healthtech companies. Supporting metrics such as cost per lead, conversion rates and speed to contact help diagnose problems. Agree the definitions and the attribution limits before work starts.
How long should a pilot with a new marketing agency last?
Most pilots run one or two quarters, long enough for setup, testing and early results, but short enough to change course. Paid search can show signals quickly, while SEO and content take longer. Set milestone metrics for each phase so the decision at the end is based on evidence.
What is the biggest mistake in choosing a healthcare marketing agency?
A common mistake is choosing on the pitch rather than the delivery team and the measurement plan. Another is letting the agency own ad accounts, analytics or domains. Insist on meeting the people who will do the weekly work, and keep every account in your organization's name from day one.
A note on this guide: it explains marketing practice, not legal advice. Rules on privacy, advertising and insurance change and vary by state, so confirm anything compliance-related with your own counsel.
Hiring an agency and want an experienced second set of eyes?
Our fractional CMO can write the brief, score the pitches and hold the chosen agency to agreed goals.