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Why Do Marketing Agencies Think They’re Different When the Industry Looks the Same?

Marketing agencies overwhelmingly believe their own firm is well differentiated, even while agreeing that the agency industry as a whole is not.

That gap matters even more now that AI-powered search is reshaping how prospects find and evaluate agencies in the first place, a shift we break down in Generative Engine Optimization for Agencies.

In our recent survey of marketing agencies across North America, (The State of Agency Positioning and AI Search Readiness: What Our 2026 Survey Found) more than 80% said their agency is “somewhat” or “very” differentiated from the competitors they run into most.

Ask the same group about the industry overall, and over 75% call it “somewhat” or “very” undifferentiated.

Both answers came from the same agencies, in the same survey, which helps explain why so many agency websites end up sounding alike even when the people writing the copy for them are convinced otherwise.

Is Agency Positioning Really as Similar as It Sounds?

While I do think it’s gotten better, the answer is yes.

We’ve spent 21 years talking and working with agencies who are confident their positioning is unique.

“We’re more strategic.” “Only senior-level people work on your account.” “We’ve been on your side of the desk.”

All are usually true, but many other (most?) agency sites say these same things, often in nearly identical words.

The industry, and small and mid-sized firms, have a sort of default positioning vocabulary.

And when a prospect sees/reads phrases like this, there are eye-rolls, or worse, they’re ignored.

If ten agencies on a shortlist all describe themselves this way, the words lose meaning, regardless of how true they are for any one of them.

Why Do Agencies End Up With Positioning That Sounds Like Everyone Else’s?

The answer: most agencies build and test their positioning entirely in-house, without checking it against how the market sees the industry

Our survey found 85% of agencies developed their current positioning using only their own employees.

15% brought in a consultant.

Only 20% tested their positioning statements with actual prospects, and 22% tested them with current clients.

When your firm is testing positioning with current clients, I will give you credit, at least you’re moving outside your four walls.

However, that exercise tends to produce the same handful of compliments: smart, hardworking, strategic, a great partner.

Those are things a happy client should, and ideally does say, about any agency doing solid work.

It’s useful feedback about the relationship certainly, but not useful feedback about your actual differentiation.

agency positioning

What Should Small and Mid-Sized Agencies Do Differently?

You know it’s coming.  Yes, specialization is paramount here.

Per this recent Ad Age piece (What makes a small agency successful as clients demand more than independence):

True specialization is the biggest white space for small agencies to take advantage of to win more business, Davis said, adding that they must create a point of view that holding companies can’t credibly claim.

“The biggest gaps are not creative ideas because there are so many agencies that can come up with creative ideas … We’re more inclined to see an absence of the less sexy stuff,” Davis said. Agencies that can deliver exceptional cross-cultural marketing, outcomes-based creative or strategy backed by deep data and analytics can be really competitive.

But as I’ve stated many times in these posts, specialization doesn’t have to mean a one-vertical focus.

It can be an umbrella vertical, like “healthy living” for example, that can encompass many different verticals and sub-verticals, but gives your firms a point of view as an expert in the space.

And something else to think about as an aside, from the article:

Success doesn’t always mean chasing a high-spending advertiser and going up against the holding companies, several people interviewed stressed. “You can still chase massive share of a certain kind of client,” Wieser said, i.e. “the non-sexy, regional, mid-sized or small marketers.”

We do see a fair amount of this strategy with small and mid-sized firms and it’s a smart move.

They may not all be sexy, and your team will just need to accept that, if they’re a solid client.

How Should Agencies Test Their Positioning?

Against outside, not internal, eyes.

They’re not weighing your internal sense of what makes you special against the internal sense every other shortlisted agency has of itself.

They’re comparing sites, decks, and first impressions side by side, and from that vantage point, a lot of agencies blend together.

The differences between how an agency sees itself and how it reads to an outsider usually takes an outside perspective.

Not because the people inside don’t know their agency well, but because they know it too well

Which is a big reason why (shameless plug here, can’t help myself) we’ve built an AI Brand Compass we use for every new client program we kick off.

Combined with our experience working solely with agencies and PR firms, it gives us an outside, objective look, based on hundreds of other firms, at how an agency’s positioning comes across before we start representing that agency to prospects.

(Agencies can also get this if they’re not an RSW client, more on  the brand compass here.)

So, ultimately, it’s not whether your positioning feels true to you, but whether it would still feel distinct if you read it on ten other agency homepages.

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