How a professional services marketing review methodology is scored

What to take away

The decision this methodology supports

You are choosing a marketing provider, platform or agency, and you want to know whether a review is worth acting on. Most buyers start with search results and vendor pages. That material is written to sell, so it rarely tells you how a firm performs when a matter goes wrong.

Our approach is to make the reasoning visible. Each review states what was assessed, what was left out, and how much weight each factor carried. If a claim cannot be traced to a named source with a date, it does not enter the score.

What we assess

We look at published evidence: regulator rulings, company filings, professional body guidance, platform documentation and the vendor's own contract terms where public. We also assess how well a provider's offer maps to the buying patterns of law, accountancy and consultancy firms.

We do not assess private pricing, internal service levels or staff conduct. We do not test software, commission mystery shopping or interview clients. Where a score depends on judgement rather than a document, the review says so in the relevant row.

Advertising claims get particular attention. The independent reviews of ASA decisions show how contested rulings are handled, which is useful when a provider leans on awards or superlatives in its own material.

How the scoring rubric works

Each factor is scored out of five, then weighted. The weighted total produces the band shown in the review summary.

Weights are fixed across the section so comparisons hold. A provider can score well on fit and still lose ground on evidence quality; that pattern usually signals a young firm rather than a weak one.

Separating claims from evidence

Vendor claims are recorded as claims, in the vendor's own words where possible. Independent evidence sits alongside them: a ruling, a filing, a published standard or a dated dataset. Editorial judgement is a third category and is always labelled.

The hierarchy matters because buyers often treat all three as equivalent. They are not. A supplier selection process that works for recruitment translates well here, and CIPD guidance on selection methods sets out how to weigh evidence when choosing a partner.

Where a review touches on outbound email, calling or list buying, we check the provider's stated practices against the ICO's direct marketing and privacy guidance. A provider that cannot describe its lawful basis is marked down.

What we leave out

We do not score implementation speed, cultural fit or account-team chemistry. Those depend on your firm and your matter mix, and no desk review can judge them. We also exclude pricing comparisons, because quoted rates vary by scope and are rarely published.

Nothing here substitutes for your own checks. Before you sign, run a structured process, and our professional services marketing selection checklist gives you the questions to ask in the first meeting.

The wider review library, including how each section is structured, sits in professional services marketing reviews and comparisons.

Common questions

Do you test the services you review?

No. We assess published evidence and stated terms only. Any review that claims testing should tell you who ran it, when and on what.

How often are scores updated?

Reviews are revisited when a source changes, such as a new ruling or a revised contract. The date on the review tells you when it was last checked.

Can a provider dispute a score?

Yes. We log corrections where a provider supplies evidence we missed, and the correction is noted in the review rather than quietly removed.

Is the rubric suitable for small firms?

It is. Weights can be adjusted for your own priorities, but keep the evidence-quality factor high or the rest of the score loses meaning.