You spend at least two weeks on a pitch.
Late nights. Strategy decks. Creative revisions. Internal reviews. You finally hit send — proud, exhausted, and hopeful.
And then? Silence.
No reply. No acknowledgment. Sometimes, not even a standard “thanks, but we’ve gone another direction.”
After all that effort, being left hanging isn’t just frustrating, it’s disheartening. It drains morale. It makes your team question whether the work even mattered.
This isn’t a one-off experience. It’s become a pattern in agency life. And we need to talk about it.
Behind Every Pitch: Real People, Real Hours
Behind every pitch is a cross-functional team putting billable client work on the back burner to chase a potential new partnership. Strategy, creative, ops, leadership, all reshuffling priorities to build something custom, compelling, and on-brief.
At our agency, we submitted 27 pitches in the last year. Four came with actual feedback. Four – that’s less than 15%.
We don’t expect to win every pitch. But when we get nothing in return, not even context on where we missed the mark, it’s demoralizing to say the least. It leaves us in the dark, with no way to improve or justify our efforts.
Feedback Cuts Through the Silence
We understand how things go. Timelines shift, decisions move quickly, and sometimes the only update is a short message saying the project went to another agency. That silence creates frustration and stalls progress.
But feedback cuts through that silence. Even a sentence or two like, “The creative was strong, but the tone didn’t fit,” or “Budget-wise, this wasn’t the right fit right now” turns a cold rejection into a clear learning moment.
This kind of feedback helps agencies adjust and improve. More importantly, it signals that the work was seen, considered, and valued. And that builds the trust every successful partnership needs, even when the answer is no.
Agencies Aren’t Off the Hook Either
This isn’t just a one-sided issue. Agencies play a part in how the pitch process plays out, and we have room to improve as well.
We’ve all been there: the brief is vague, the timelines are tight, and the scope is unclear, but we still pull together a massive response. Multiple strategy routes, full creative territories, detailed execution plans, even production thinking. All in the hope that something sticks.
Sometimes, we over-deliver not because it’s what’s needed, but because we’re trying to prove our worth before a real conversation has even begun. And in doing so, we burn time, resources, and often create more confusion than clarity.
We don’t always qualify opportunities properly. We get caught up in the excitement of a potential win and overlook the signs that an RFP might not be the right fit, or fully thought through. And when the outcome isn’t in our favor, we don’t always follow up in a way that invites honest feedback. Sometimes we don’t ask at all, or we ask too late, when the window has already closed.
If we want better processes and more transparency, we need to start by being more thoughtful about how we show up, and when.
How to Do Better. Without Breaking the Process
Nobody’s asking for a six-week feedback workshop after every pitch. But there are low-effort, high-impact fixes both sides can adopt:
- Set clearer expectations.
Agencies do better work when they know what “success” looks like. Tell us what matters most in the pitch. Strategy? Creative spark? Price? - Right-size the request.
Not every project warrants a 50-slide proposal or fully baked campaign thinking. Being upfront about the opportunity’s size, scope, and budget helps agencies respond in a way that’s appropriate, and focused. - Make feedback part of the process.
Even if it’s just a short email to the finalists, a bit of context goes a long way. It doesn’t need to be formal, a few honest lines about what worked, what didn’t, and why another direction was chosen can make all the difference. It shows respect for the effort and helps agencies improve, which benefits everyone in the long run. - Keep the door open.
Just because one pitch wasn’t the right fit doesn’t mean the agency isn’t right for a future one. Don’t ghost. Stay in touch.
Silence Is Not a Strategy
Agencies know the odds. We know most pitches won’t convert. But silence isn’t neutral — it’s corrosive. It undermines the work. It drains morale. It tells teams their time, thinking, and effort weren’t even worth acknowledging.
We can do better. And not because it’s “nicer”, but because it’s smarter.
A more thoughtful pitch process, one that includes transparency, feedback, and open dialogue, benefits everyone. It raises the quality of work. It strengthens agency-client relationships. It creates space for better ideas to take root, even if they don’t win the first time around.
And maybe, just maybe, we stop treating silence as a strategy. Because when feedback flows, so does progress.
