<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/6a29d6973bf4574eb7d652cb_top-10-brand-signals-banner-6a073c3b9383e132273576.jpeg" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>Growth</span> <h1 class="gn-title">Top 10: Things Procurement Won&#39;t Tell You During a Pitch</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>27 May 2026</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>5 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-body"> <p class="gn-lede gn-reveal">Procurement is not the enemy. It is a buyer with its own incentives, its own pressures, and its own playbook. Agencies that treat the function as a partner, ask the questions that matter, and price the work with discipline tend to do better in process-led pitches than agencies relying on creative firepower alone.</p> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#01</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">They Already Have a Target Saving in Mind</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Before procurement issues a brief, a saving target has usually been agreed internally. Five percent. Twelve percent. Sometimes more. That number is rarely shared, but it shapes every commercial conversation that follows.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">If your pricing comes in close to the incumbent rate, you are not competing. The agency that wins is often the one that lets procurement evidence the saving back to finance, not the one with the best creative.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Knowing this does not mean racing to the bottom. It means pricing the work properly, then giving procurement something to show, whether that is a structural saving, a different commercial model, or value built into the package.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#02</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">The Rate Card They Asked For Is Going to Be Compared Line by Line</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">When procurement asks for day rates by role, those rates are not being read in isolation. They are being lined up against every other agency in the process and against benchmark data procurement teams now buy from third parties.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Outliers stand out. A senior strategist priced fifty percent above the median triggers questions. A junior account manager priced at senior strategist rates triggers more.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">If your rates are deliberately high, justify them in the same document. If they are accidentally high, you have just lost commercial credibility before the negotiation has started.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#03</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Payment Terms Are Negotiable, but Only If You Ask Early</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">The standard 60- or 90-day payment terms are written into the procurement template, not the relationship. Many of those templates can flex. Few procurement teams will tell you that voluntarily.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The window to push back is in the questions phase, before the commercial submission lands. Once terms have been signed off internally on the buyer side, unwinding them takes far more political effort than agreeing them differently up front.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Ask, in writing, whether shorter terms are achievable for SME suppliers. The answer is often yes.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#04</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">They Will Score Your Submission Against a Weighted Matrix You Have Not Seen</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Most procurement-led pitches use a scoring matrix. Quality. Commercial. Cultural fit. Capability. Each is weighted, and those weightings vary widely between processes.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">One pitch might score commercial at thirty percent. Another at fifty-five. Without knowing the weighting, agencies pour energy into the wrong sections. Glossy creative work in a process where commercial is weighted at sixty percent is effort wasted.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Asking for the evaluation criteria is reasonable and often answered. Not asking is the more expensive choice.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#05</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">The Final Decision Often Sits With Someone Procurement Has Not Named</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Procurement runs the process. They rarely make the final call alone. A CMO, CFO, or operating board signs off the appointment, and that person frequently has not been in the pitch room.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">That changes how submissions need to land. The marketing director responding to your work is one audience. The unseen sign-off is another, and they are reading a one-page summary built by procurement.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">If your submission cannot be summarised in a paragraph that travels well, you are leaving the most important reader to guesswork.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#06</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">They Are Quietly Tracking Which Agencies Are Easy to Work With</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Procurement teams keep informal scorecards. Speed of response. Quality of paperwork. Reasonableness in negotiation. Whether the agency causes friction with finance or legal in the contracting phase.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">This data follows you. Procurement teams move between brands. Procurement consultants run multiple processes a year. Being known as a difficult supplier costs invitations you will never see being declined.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The agencies that get reinvited are not always the most creative. They are often the easiest to buy from.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#07</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">The Brief You Were Sent Was Edited After Marketing Wrote It</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">The brief in your inbox has usually been through procurement before it reaches you. Budget bands removed. Decision criteria softened. Specific brand context stripped out for confidentiality.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The version marketing wrote contains information you would find useful. Asking targeted questions in the clarification phase often surfaces what was edited out, especially if the marketing lead is on the call.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Treat the brief as a starting point, not the full picture.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#08</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Reference Checks Will Happen, Even If You Are Not Asked for References</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Procurement teams check. They call brands you have worked with, ask peers in their own network, and increasingly use third-party platforms that aggregate agency reviews.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The conversations you have not been asked to broker are often the most influential. A lukewarm response from a current or former client can quietly close a process before final negotiations begin.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Knowing what existing clients would say about you, and resolving anything that would land badly, matters more than how you describe yourself in the deck.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#09</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">They Want a Reason to Say Yes Inside the Business</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Procurement is rarely the bottleneck people assume. The buyer-side teams running these processes need to defend their recommendation internally, and a defensible recommendation makes their job easier.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">That means clear value. Clean documentation. Commercial structures that hold up under finance scrutiny. A story that lands beyond the pitch room.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Agencies that help procurement build the internal case usually win the close ones. Agencies that treat procurement as the obstacle find themselves arguing with the person who could have been their advocate.</p> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#10</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">They Remember How You Behave When You Lose</h3> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">How an agency responds to a loss is part of the long memory of procurement. The graceful exit, the request for proper feedback, the willingness to stay in touch without lobbying, all of these get noted.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Brands re-pitch. Procurement leads change roles and run new processes elsewhere. The agencies that handle losses well are the ones invited back when the next opportunity emerges, often within twelve to eighteen months.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The pitch you lost is rarely the last conversation. Behaviour after the decision is usually what determines whether there is a next one.</p> </div> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal">What This Means in Practice</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">The pitches we see won are rarely the loudest. They are usually the ones where the agency understood how the buyer needed to buy, and made that easier than the alternatives.</p> </div></div>