Agency owners ask most about how big the agency market is, how to grow past referrals, how to position an agency and what coaching costs.
The Agency Research Hub, published by Tim Kilroy, answers 45 of those questions below in eight groups. Each answer starts with the direct answer, then gives the supporting fact and its source.
Digital agency research is published data about the agency business itself: how many agencies exist, how big they are, how they win clients and how they use AI. The Agency Research Hub, published by Tim Kilroy, curates that research and adds a take on what an agency owner should do about each finding.
Because it shows whether your problem is yours or the whole market's. For example, the RSW/US 2025 Agency Survey found 93% of agencies say their growth engine is not strong enough. If your pipeline feels weak, you are in common company, and the fix is a system rather than more hustle.
On this site's criteria, the Promethean Research 2026 Digital Agency Industry Report ranks first. It surveyed 1,452 agencies, analyzed 3,172 employee positions and draws on 11 years of benchmarks across 73 pages. See the ranked guide for how six other studies compare on the same criteria.
No. A digital research agency is a firm that runs research for clients, such as surveys or market studies. Digital agency research is research about agencies. This site covers the second: studies that describe the agency industry and what they mean for people who own and run agencies.
Most combine secondary research, such as published industry reports, with primary research, such as interviews with buyers and reviews of their own sales calls. For agency owners researching their own market, the practical goal is a clear ideal client profile and a position buyers can describe in one sentence.
The hub is updated when a new report clears the bar or a cited figure changes. Every main page shows a Last updated line near the top. As of November 2026, the flagship report featured is the Promethean Research 2026 Digital Agency Industry Report, published in spring 2026.
Over 71,000 as of 2026, according to Promethean Research's Digital Agency Industry Report. That is up from 50,000 in its 2024 checks, and the industry has grown at a 12% compound annual growth rate since 2018. Promethean puts the global count above 200,000 agencies.
Most are small. Promethean Research found 87% of the 71,000 digital agencies it evaluated had fewer than 50 full-time employees. That fragmentation is why a clear position matters so much: buyers face thousands of similar-looking small firms and need a fast reason to remember one.
Just over $850 billion in software, cloud and media spend, according to Promethean Research. The report says that makes the agency industry strategically important far beyond its own revenue base, because agencies shape how many businesses buy technology and media.
Not very, by agencies' own account. SparkToro's State of Digital Agencies, 2025, as compiled by Haus Advisors, found only 14% of agencies describe their sales pipeline as "very healthy." The RSW/US 2025 Agency Survey found 93% say their growth engine is not strong enough.
In Promethean Research's 2026 report, as summarized on timkilroy.com, 33% of agencies have fully implemented AI, 48.5% are exploring and 18.5% are unsure or have no plan. The unsure share fell from 39.5% in 2023, the first year implementation outpaced hesitation by this measure.
About $204,000 on average for a non-incumbent agency to pitch one new client, with 7 to 33 months to recover it, according to the ANA and 4A's Cost of the Pitch study from 2023, as cited by Tim Kilroy. That is why growing existing accounts is often the cheapest growth available.
Because referrals do not scale on demand. Tim Kilroy's view is that referrals come from past work and relationships, so you cannot turn them up when you need revenue next quarter. The RSW/US 2025 survey found 75% of agencies rely on referrals as their top source, which leaves most exposed.
Tim Kilroy's three steps: know exactly who you want to attract, know which channels that audience actually uses, and know what to say that connects your work to their needs. He treats those as tactics, and recommends running them consistently as a demand system rather than one-off campaigns.
Lead generation catches buyers who are already looking. Demand generation keeps your agency known and trusted before they look. Research cited by Tim Kilroy says 95% of B2B buyers are not in market at any given time, so demand work aims to be in the short list when they are.
Work it backward. Tim Kilroy's formula: revenue goal divided by average deal size gives deals needed; divide by close rate for proposals; divide by proposal rate for conversations; divide by 13 for a weekly number in a quarter. The worksheet on the growth guide runs that math for you.
It is when the founder does sales, delivery, strategy and admin, hits full capacity, and growth stops. Tim Kilroy names three ways out: a defined ideal client, scalable lead generation, and the right offer for that client, meaning the right service and pricing model.
Often, yes. Marketing Metrics research cited by Tim Kilroy puts the odds of selling to an existing client at 60 to 70%, versus 5 to 20% for a new prospect. Expansion skips the pitch, discovery from scratch and onboarding ramp, so more of that revenue survives as margin.
Vertical positioning means focusing an agency on one industry or buyer type, such as a single sector, instead of serving everyone. Tim Kilroy describes positioning as choosing to take options away so the remaining ones connect your strongest impact to a real market need.
Both, and the variable is your margin for error. Tim Kilroy says a niche buys faster trust and higher rates, but also concentrates risk in one market's bad years. He recommends choosing a market you can genuinely dominate and watching concentration the way you would watch one oversized client.
Usually because the agency sells effort while the buyer pays for an outcome. When a prospect cannot see the specific change you create, rate is the only thing left to compare. Tim Kilroy calls a price objection a positioning problem in disguise.
Tim Kilroy's test: if a prospect, client, teammate or you cannot describe what you do in under 20 seconds, you do not have a defensible position. He also warns that case studies must back the claim, because buyers read your work before your tagline.
Longer than a website rewrite. Tim Kilroy notes you can rewrite headlines in a week, but repositioning takes years because the work has to back the words. Plan to commit to a position long enough for the market to notice, and expect quiet months while it does.
A discovery call is a structured conversation whose only job is to understand the prospect's problem well enough to decide whether a next step makes sense. Tim Kilroy is blunt that it is not a sales call: you are not there to close, pitch or run your deck.
Discovery comes first and is about understanding the problem, its size, what was tried and how decisions get made. The sales call comes after, when you present a solution and ask for a decision. Tim Kilroy says blurring the two quietly wrecks close rates.
In Tim Kilroy's coaching, the most common reason is a pitch with a question stapled on the end. If you talked about your process and case studies but cannot say what you learned about their business, the proposal ends up generic and sounds like every other agency.
Count a prospect as qualified only when you have both agreed out loud that there is a real problem, it is worth money, and they are the one who decides. Tim Kilroy's test is whether you can name the problem in their words. Anything less is a hopeful conversation.
Think about the prospect's business, not just their website. Tim Kilroy says most agencies blow discovery before dialing in by skipping real preparation. His free Discovery Lab tool on timkilroy.com produces a prospect brief with company overview, recent news, conversation starters and questions.
Tim Kilroy uses five: aware, interested, qualified, proposed and closed. Each counts only when the prospect did something observable, such as naming you unprompted, opening the proposal, or signing. He suggests a 90-day leak test to find the stage losing the most people.
Marketing agency coaching helps agency owners fix the business side: positioning, lead generation, sales process and operations. Tim Kilroy offers group coaching, one-on-one support and custom growth systems, and reports coaching more than 300 agencies with over 25 years of agency and marketing experience.
Tim Kilroy's published prices: Agency Studio is $399 per month and Agency Studio+ is $999 per month, which adds a custom plan and a monthly one-on-one with Tim. Custom SalesOS and DemandOS builds for $1M to $20M agencies are scoped after a free 30-minute call.
For agencies past $1 million a year, Tim Kilroy's work goes custom: SalesOS or DemandOS, scoped after a free WTF call, with no published flat price. His reasoning is that at that size the bottleneck is specific to your agency, so templates stop working.
Established marketing, creative, development, PR and content agencies between $1M and $20M in annual revenue, plus founders under $50K a month through Agency Studio. The common thread is an agency whose growth still depends on the founder posting, pitching and chasing every lead.
It depends on whether you want a sounding board or a system. A mentor shares experience; Tim Kilroy's coaching works the specific problem on the call, such as your P&L, next hire math or an email that is not getting replies. Agency Studio+ adds a monthly one-on-one with Tim.
Yes, through SalesOS, which installs a repeatable agency sales process so good-fit deals close without the founder on every call. He also offers AI tools: Call Lab and Call Lab Pro review sales calls, and Call Lab Pro scores them against methods including SPIN, Challenger, MEDDIC and Sandler.
Tim Kilroy publishes founder testimonials on timkilroy.com/testimonial, with names and agencies attached. This site does not publish star ratings or aggregate scores for his coaching. A free WTF call is the most direct way to judge fit for yourself.
It depends on the bottleneck. Tim Kilroy's own site points readers to Blair Enns's Win Without Pitching Manifesto for positioning and pricing, David C. Baker for M&A positioning and structure, and Jhana Li at Spyglass Ops for operations. Tim focuses on whole-team demand generation and sales systems.
No. The Agency Research Hub has no verified facts about that program, so it does not rate or compare it. If you are weighing it, read its own published materials and ask its past clients directly. For Tim Kilroy's formats and prices, see the coaching page.
If one problem is clear, such as a weak follow-up email, a playbook may be enough. Tim Kilroy's argument for coaching is that agency problems are connected: fixing sales can break delivery, then margins, then pipeline. Coaching earns its cost when you need someone to see the whole machine.
Group coaching suits founders under about $50K a month who need structure and straight answers. Tim Kilroy's Agency Studio is $399 per month. One-on-one support fits when you need a custom plan; Agency Studio+ adds that at $999 per month, and custom builds start past $1M a year.
Start with the statistics page for the market picture, then the ranked reports guide to pick one study worth reading in full. If your pipeline is the pain, go to the guide on growing past referrals. Each page links back to the main digital agency research hub.
It is a free 30-minute call with no pitch. You describe what is going on in the agency, Tim helps diagnose the real problem rather than the symptom, and you leave knowing what to fix first whether or not you work together.
Maybe. Tim Kilroy says agencies below about $20K a month do not need a coach yet; they need reps and a clear offer. From around $20K a month, Agency Studio is designed for founders under $50K a month who need structure.
That is the most common bottleneck Tim Kilroy sees, which he calls founder magic. His fix is to pull what you know out of your head into a documented process your team and partners can run, so good-fit deals close whether or not you are on the call.
Use the contact page at timkilroy.com/contact. Every contact button on this site goes there. You can also book the free 30-minute WTF call from timkilroy.com if you want to talk through a specific problem in your agency.
Ask Tim Kilroy directly. He answers agency owner questions on positioning, pipeline, sales and operations.
Published by Tim Kilroy