How do agencies get clients in 2026, and will AI replace marketing agencies?
Updated By the SalesOne research team9 min read
The short answer
Agencies get most clients from referrals by existing and past clients, then from partners, events and their own visibility. Outbound helps only when it is specific: in SparkToro’s 2025 agency survey, 59% had tried it and just 9% called it very effective. AI is not replacing agencies, but some clients now question fees, and many buyers use AI to research vendors.
How do agencies get clients?
Most agencies still get most new clients through referrals from existing and past clients. Partners, events, content and outbound add to that, with very different results.
| Finding | Source |
|---|---|
| Referrals from existing and past clients are by far the biggest driver of new business | SparkToro, State of Digital Agencies 2025 (published Feb 2026) |
| 59% of agencies have tried outbound; 9% call the results very effective, 58% moderately effective, 33% not effective at all | Same survey |
| Only 14% of agencies describe their sales pipeline as healthy | Same survey |
| 79% of agencies have no one dedicated to their own marketing | Same survey |
| Around a third of agencies have already faced “AI discount” requests from clients; nearly half expect to | Productive, survey of 180+ agencies, 2025 |
The pattern explains the feast-and-famine feeling. Referrals are high quality but arrive on other people’s schedules, and the founder who sells is also the person delivering the work.
Will AI replace marketing agencies?
AI is not replacing agencies, but it is replacing some of what clients used to buy from them, and it changes how clients find agencies in the first place.
- Fees are questioned. Clients who can generate text and images ask whether retainers should shrink, as the Productive survey shows.
- Routine production loses value fastest; strategy, judgment, specialist channels and accountability for results hold theirs.
- Discovery is moving. In a Gartner survey of 645 B2B buyers (August to September 2025), 45% said they used generative AI during a recent purchase, mainly to gather information on vendors and products.
Is the agency model dead?
The generalist retainer model is under the most pressure. Agencies with a clear niche, a defined result and a specific reason to approach each client are doing better.
| Model | Pressure | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Generalist retainer, many services | High | Hard to say what the client pays for, easy to compare with AI tools |
| Volume content and production | High | The part of the work AI imitates best |
| Specialist by industry or channel | Lower | Proof and judgment clients cannot generate themselves |
| Fixed-scope, productized service | Lower | A clear price for a clear result |
How do agencies get clients without relying on referrals?
Add a steady source you control: pick a niche where your proof applies, find companies in it with a reason to change now, and reach the person who owns the problem with something specific.
- Choose one niche where you can show two or three results.
- List the events that create your kind of work there: a new marketing leader, a rebrand, a funding round, a product launch, a new market.
- Find companies with one of those events in the last few months, and check each against your niche.
- Reach the person who owns the problem, usually the new leader, with one observation about their situation and one question.
- Ask happy clients for referrals by situation, using the same events. Our guide to asking for referrals has templates, and trigger events in sales lists the events worth watching.
This is the opposite of the volume outbound most agency owners have tried and deleted from their own inboxes. Our guide on whether outbound is dead explains the difference.
What does a better agency new-business week look like?
Here is a week for a fictional 20-person B2B marketing agency that specializes in industrial companies.
| Day | Activity | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Find industrial companies with a new marketing leader or a new plant announced in the last 90 days | 14 companies |
| Tuesday | Check each against the niche; record why each is kept or turned down | 6 kept |
| Wednesday | Confirm the new leader at each, with a dated source | 6 people |
| Thursday | Six short notes, each naming the change and offering one idea | 6 messages, each read and approved before sending |
| Friday | Follow up on earlier notes; ask two clients for referrals by situation | 2 conversations booked |
What should an agency not do to get clients?
Avoid the tactics agency owners complain about receiving: mass cold email, guaranteed-meeting services and generic case studies.
- Sending the same pitch to hundreds of companies.
- Buying pay-per-meeting services without defining what a qualified meeting is.
- Discounting by reflex when a client mentions AI.
- Leading with your service list rather than the client’s situation.
How does SalesOne help agencies get clients?
SalesOne is AI account research and qualification for B2B teams. For agencies, S1 agents do the Monday-to-Wednesday work above: companies in your niche with a dated reason to need you, each kept or rejected with a reason, and the person who owns the problem.
In SalesOne’s production research runs in October 2026, all 375 buying signals behind kept accounts link their source, and 98% are dated to the day. A person approves every message, and every approval is recorded with who gave it.
Sources
- SparkToro: Digital agency new business, State of Digital Agencies survey for 2025 (Feb 17, 2026; read October 25, 2026) (opens in a new tab)sparktoro.com
- Productive: Agencies in the AI era (2025; survey of 180+ agencies; read October 25, 2026) (opens in a new tab)productive.io
- Gartner press release: 69% of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights (May 20, 2026; 645 B2B buyers; read October 25, 2026) (opens in a new tab)gartner.com