TL;DR The digital agency industry has been shifting away from sub-10 FTE shops toward mid-sized agencies since 2018. This is reshaping the talent environment. Bigger agencies require more management, increasing demand for experienced Director and VP talent across the agency. Director-level hiring picks up sharply in the 25-50 FTE range, which is where most of the industry's growth is happening. Most founders haven't built the management muscle for the next size tier, and they tend to hire too...
27 days ago • 8 min read
TL;DR Get your copy of our free industry primer! The agency industry is made up of a ton of small companies, which directly impacts your strategic options as a leader. This also impacts how SaaS and PaaS firms work with agencies. We help them too. Prospects have a ton of options. They know more about pricing, and it's harder to stand out. Niching, referrals, and acquisitions are the predominant growth vectors. Quality varies dramatically from one agency to another, so demonstrating expertise...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
TL;DR NEW SURVEY: The 2Q26 launches tomorrow. Join Delphi to learn what's impacting agency sales pipelines. REQUEST: We'd love to include some quotes from agency leaders in our upcoming Digital Agency Industry Report. Reply to this email with your take on some prompts to be considered. NEW RESEARCH: Get the latest agency benchmarks in our State of Digital Services Report! Growth rates, margins, AI use, hourly rates, M&A activity, and more. There isn’t a single best pricing model for digital...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
[ARTICLE TITLE] NEW RESEARCH: Announcing our 2026 State of Digital Services readout and Q&A webinar next Thursday, 3/26. If you participated, use the link in the other email to register. If you missed the survey, you can still purchase a copy of the report and access to the webinar here! SIGN UP: The second quarter is almost here, and that means it's almost time for another Delphi pulse check. Make sure you're signed up to get the survey and private readout results. The survey goes live the...
2 months ago • 2 min read
TL;DR SURVEY CLOSING: The State of Digital Services 2026 survey closes Monday, 3/9. Be sure to participate before then to get access to the full report and live readout webinar. Agencies have largely stopped hiring entry-level and junior talent since 2022-23. That gap will show up later as a shortage of mid-level and senior practitioners. At the same time, AI is absorbing the kind of repetitive production work juniors used to do across coding, marketing, and design. Senior talent remains...
3 months ago • 3 min read
TL;DR The 2026 State of Digital Services Survey is live! Participate and get the results for free. We received more interest than expected in our new Revgen 2.0 service, so we will need to move to a waitlist for now. Join the list if you'd like to spend time on something OTHER than constant revgen challenges. AI is increasing pricing pressure, and discounting or “value engineering” scope often leaves clients with work that doesn't deliver the outcome they want. A Minimum Effective Engagement...
3 months ago • 6 min read
Building Reliable Revgen Machines Progress meetings suck when you're missing targets. They suck even more when it happens multiple times in a row. We've seen too many leadership teams have these conversations quarter after quarter for years now. So, we're designing a new service to help agency teams quickly find and fix key revgen issues. It includes a full review of an agency's: Leadership vision, alignment, and goals Positioninig Roles and responsibilities Brand Service mix Pricing...
4 months ago • 4 min read
Today’s Toughest Challenge I set out to write about today’s toughest agency challenges and got a bit carried away with the first one I came up with. Of course, it’s about the value agencies create and how they charge for it. This is something that’s so foundational and yet so misunderstood that it seems to be the root cause of most agency challenges. Not sure about pricing? Start with value. Who to hire? What’s the real value you’re delivering? Should you add a service? How’s it impact the...
4 months ago • 3 min read
TL;DR Leaders are kicking off 2026 with an aggressive push for new business, with many looking to systemize and streamline their revgen strategy and ops. If you’d like a leg up on improving your revgen strategy this year, check out our Agency Revgen Review. Alongside the rush for new clients, agencies are turning inward to streamline operations, with a considerable number of responses focused on improving internal processes and tools. Finally, there's a strong push for productization as...
5 months ago • 3 min read