Marketing retainers have been around for decades, but the way businesses work with agencies is changing. We explore why continuity, flexibility and access to experienced people are becoming just as important as the work itself.

Mention the word retainer in an agency and you'll probably get quite a few different answers.

For some, it's a bank of hours used for the smaller jobs that inevitably crop up each month. For others, it's a way of managing regular marketing activity, whether that's content, social media, email campaigns or website updates. And then there are the more strategic arrangements, where clients are paying as much for experience, advice and ongoing input as they are for the work being produced.

Having been a part of the agency world for nearly 20 years, we've seen all of these approaches, and the reality is that they can all work perfectly well.

The important thing is that both sides understand what they're getting from the relationship, and that the arrangement genuinely works for the business.

It's something we've been thinking about more recently at Blumin, particularly as the way businesses manage their marketing continues to change. Internal teams have access to more tools than ever before, AI is making certain tasks quicker, and businesses are understandably taking a closer look at where their marketing budgets are being spent.

None of this makes the traditional agency retainer redundant, but we do think it's worth asking what a good retainer should look like today, and where an agency can add the most value.

A retainer doesn't have to be limited to the smaller jobs

There's always been a perfectly sensible argument for using retainers to manage the steady stream of everyday marketing requirements.

Nobody really wants to raise a new quotation every time a website needs updating, an email campaign needs building or a piece of artwork requires an amendment. It's inefficient for everyone involved, and a retainer makes that process considerably easier.

The client knows there's resource available, the agency has some visibility of its workload, and work can generally move forward without unnecessary administration.

We still see plenty of value in that arrangement.

Where we think the conversation becomes more interesting is around the assumption that a retainer should only cover relatively straightforward delivery, while anything involving strategy or more senior thinking automatically needs to become a separate project.

Of course, strategy has value. Good advice comes from experience, understanding and often a considerable amount of work behind the scenes. It shouldn't simply be given away.

But that doesn't necessarily mean it can't form part of an ongoing retainer. Surely that's a question of what's been agreed, how much resource is available and what the client is paying for?

If a business has engaged an agency because it values the team's experience and expertise, it seems reasonable that some of that thinking should be available as part of the relationship, provided the arrangement has been structured to accommodate it.

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There's a lot to be said for knowing a business properly

One of the things we value most about long-standing client relationships is the understanding that develops over time.

When you've worked with a business for several years, you get to know far more than its brand guidelines and preferred tone of voice. You understand its products, customers, competitors and commercial priorities. You know the personalities involved, the challenges it's faced and why certain decisions have been made.

You also start to recognise the things that might not be immediately obvious to someone coming into the business for the first time.

That knowledge makes a difference to the work, but also to the conversations you're able to have.

A client might ask for a particular campaign or piece of content, and because you understand the bigger picture, you're in a better position to suggest a different approach, connect it to something else that's happening or question whether it's really the best use of their budget.

And sometimes, because you know the business well enough, you can identify an opportunity before anyone has actually asked you to look for one.

For us, that's one of the real benefits of a retained relationship. You're not starting from scratch with every brief, and the client isn't having to explain the same background information repeatedly.

It's particularly valuable in B2B marketing, where products and services can be complex, buying decisions take time and the relationship between marketing activity and commercial results isn't always immediate.

It's also increasingly relevant as businesses reconsider how they use external agencies.

Research from Forrester published back in July, found that 93% of B2B brand and communications respondents still use agencies in some capacity, but that AI-driven efficiencies are enabling businesses to bring more activity in-house and become more selective about external spending.

We don't necessarily see that as a negative. If businesses can do certain things more efficiently themselves, why wouldn't they?

But it does mean agencies need to be clearer about the value they're providing beyond simply completing tasks.

It's something the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has explored in its Partnering for Growth report, which looks at what makes long-term agency and client relationships successful and sustainable. Interestingly, much of it comes back to shared understanding, how the relationship is organised and a willingness to learn together. All things that sound relatively straightforward, but can make a considerable difference in practice.

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Flexibility is important, but it has to work both ways

Anyone who's responsible for marketing will know that even the best-laid plans rarely survive an entire month unchanged.

A product launch gets delayed, a sales opportunity comes out of nowhere, an event suddenly needs supporting or something happens in the industry that creates an opportunity for timely content.

Sometimes a business simply changes its priorities, and that's fine too. This is where we think a more flexible retainer can be particularly useful.

Rather than committing to an inflexible list of deliverables every month, there can be real value in agreeing an amount of resource and then deciding together where it's best spent. One month might involve more content creation or campaign delivery. The next could require website updates, research, reporting or some additional time spent planning future activity.

The overall commitment remains broadly the same, but the work reflects what the business actually needs at that point.

Of course, flexibility shouldn't mean an unlimited amount of work for a fixed monthly fee. Agencies have people, schedules and costs to manage, just like any other business, and it's important that both sides are realistic about what's achievable.

We think the best arrangements are the ones where there's enough structure to provide clarity, but enough flexibility to accommodate the inevitable changes.

That also requires open conversations. If a new priority comes along, something else might need to move down the list. If a piece of work is significantly bigger than the available resource, it may need to be scoped separately.

There's nothing wrong with that, provided everyone understands the position.

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Strategy isn’t something you do once and then put on a shelf

We've all seen the traditional approach to marketing strategy. A business commissions a strategic review, everyone attends workshops, a plan is developed and eventually there's a presentation setting out what needs to happen.

Sometimes that's exactly the right approach, particularly when a business is repositioning itself, entering a new market or making significant changes to its marketing.

But the reality is that strategy doesn't stop once the presentation has been approved.

Markets change, competitors introduce new products, customers behave differently and campaigns don't always perform as expected. Internal priorities shift too, sometimes quite considerably.

All of those things require decisions, and those decisions benefit from experience and an understanding of the wider business.

That's why we believe ongoing strategic thinking can sit quite naturally within a retained agency relationship.

We're not suggesting that every retainer should include a complete brand strategy or major marketing review. Those are substantial pieces of work that may quite reasonably require their own budgets.

But there's a difference between a major strategic project and the regular thinking, planning and judgement needed to keep marketing moving in the right direction.

And we're not alone in thinking that clients value more than simply having work delivered. Research published by the IPA and Tracksuit in July 2026 found that while the majority of brand leaders recognised the commercial value of their agency relationships, there was still an opportunity for agencies to contribute more of the strategic thinking clients value. For us, that's an interesting finding, particularly when thinking about how retained relationships might evolve.

For businesses that want an agency to act as an extension of their marketing team, or effectively become their outsourced marketing resource, we'd argue that this ongoing input is often an important part of the value.

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There’s also something to be said for the collective experience of an agency

One of the things that's perhaps easy to overlook when talking about agency retainers is the breadth of experience a client can draw upon.

Take our own team at Blumin. Between us, we've spent decades working in marketing, including senior management and board-level roles. We have designers who've spent many years learning and refining their craft, published copywriters, award-winning creatives and developers with extensive hands-on experience of building websites, software and digital platforms.

Collectively, that's an enormous amount of knowledge and experience across very different disciplines, and it's something we think is worth recognising.

Because the value isn't simply that we have someone who can write a piece of content, design a brochure or build a website. It's that those people can work together, bringing different perspectives to the same challenge. A developer might see an opportunity that a marketer hasn't considered. A designer might question how something is being communicated. Someone with commercial marketing experience might recognise that the original brief doesn't quite address the underlying business problem.

And often, it's those conversations between disciplines that make the work, well, ‘better’.

Of course, not every business needs access to all those skills every month, and not every retainer will justify involving everyone. But having that breadth of experience available within an established relationship can be enormously valuable, particularly for businesses that don't have those capabilities internally.

It's also worth remembering that much of this experience has been built over years of doing the work, making decisions, solving problems and learning what does and doesn't work. It's not just about the ability to produce something. It's about the understanding and judgement that sit behind it.

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And then there's AI

We couldn't really have a conversation about the future of agency retainers without acknowledging AI, because it's already changing the way both agencies and their clients work.

Tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs), Canva, and increasingly sophisticated marketing platforms mean businesses can now do things themselves that might previously have required external support. And we completely understand why they're using them. If a marketing manager can make a straightforward amendment, produce an initial draft or pull together some campaign ideas in a fraction of the time, that can only be a good thing for their productivity.

We're using AI and automation within agency workflows too, where they genuinely make sense. But it does raise some interesting questions about how agency time is valued.

If something that previously took three hours can now be completed to the same standard in one, it wouldn't be reasonable to continue charging for three hours simply because that's how long it used to take. At the same time, we don't believe that automatically means the value of the agency has reduced by two-thirds. The value may simply be shifting.

There's also the question of quality and accuracy. AI can produce remarkably convincing content, but as most people who use it regularly will know, it doesn't always get things right. Hallucinations, where AI generates information that sounds plausible but is actually incorrect, are a recognised limitation. And even when the facts are accurate, the output isn't necessarily original, appropriate for the audience or consistent with a brand's positioning.

That's not an argument against using AI. Far from it. We think these tools have enormous potential, and it's entirely understandable that businesses want to make the most of them. But there still needs to be someone applying sound judgement to what's being produced, checking the details and recognising when something needs more thought or a different approach.

If technology reduces the time needed for some of the more repetitive elements of delivery, that creates an opportunity to spend more time understanding the brief, improving the creative thinking, checking accuracy, interpreting performance or considering how the work fits into the wider marketing plan.

Of course, that doesn't happen automatically. Agencies have to make a conscious decision to use those efficiencies well, rather than simply producing more content because they can.

And we think clients are becoming increasingly aware of the difference. They may not need an agency to produce every social media graphic or write every first draft. But they may still value an experienced team that can help them decide what to say, who they're trying to reach, which channels deserve attention and whether the activity is achieving anything meaningful.

That feels like a much more interesting conversation than simply comparing how many hours it takes to produce something.

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So what should a modern retainer include?

We're not convinced there's a single answer to this, because different businesses need very different things.

A company with an established marketing department might need additional creative or technical resource, while another might be looking for someone to take responsibility for much of its marketing activity. Others may primarily want access to experienced people who can help shape their plans and challenge their thinking.

Those are all perfectly legitimate requirements, but they shouldn't necessarily be packaged or priced in the same way.

Whatever the arrangement, we think there are a few things worth looking for.

• Clarity is probably the most important. Both sides should understand what the retainer covers, how much resource is available, who is responsible for what and how additional requirements will be managed. A good working relationship shouldn't depend on either party making assumptions about what's included.
• There should also be room for priorities to change. Marketing isn't static, and a retainer that becomes too prescriptive can end up encouraging activity simply because it was agreed months earlier, rather than because it's still the right thing to do.
• Continuity matters too. One of the benefits of working with an agency over time is that the relationship becomes more efficient and the thinking more informed. Ideally, the agency should become increasingly familiar with the business rather than needing a fresh briefing for every task.

And we'd always encourage regular, open conversations about what's working and what isn't. That includes being able to challenge ideas, suggest alternatives and occasionally acknowledge that something might be better handled internally.

There should be transparency around how time and budgets are being used, but also an understanding that value isn't always measured by the volume of work produced.

A month involving fewer deliverables but some genuinely useful planning or problem-solving may be every bit as valuable as one involving a long list of completed tasks.

Ultimately, a good retainer should evolve with the business. What was needed when the relationship began may be quite different twelve months later, and it's worth reviewing the arrangement rather than assuming the original scope will remain appropriate indefinitely.

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Perhaps we need to think differently about what we're actually retaining

When you strip everything back, a retainer is simply a commercial arrangement. It doesn't automatically define the type or value of work being provided.

For one business, it might be a practical way of securing reliable support for regular marketing tasks. For another, it might provide access to a multidisciplinary team that can contribute ideas, offer advice and deliver activity across several channels. Neither is inherently better, and both have their place.

But we think the real opportunity with a retained relationship is to move beyond the traditional client and supplier dynamic towards something that feels much more like a partnership.

For us, that means being involved in conversations, not just receiving the resulting briefs. It means understanding the commercial challenges behind the marketing activity, knowing what's happening across the business and being comfortable enough in the relationship to offer an alternative perspective, even when it isn't necessarily what the client was expecting to hear.

Of course, that works both ways. An agency needs to earn that trust through the quality of its work, its understanding of the business and its willingness to be accountable. And clients need to be prepared to share information, involve their agency in the right conversations and recognise the value of the thinking as well as the doing.

That's where the collective experience of an agency can really come into its own. Not simply as a group of people available to complete different tasks, but as a team whose combined knowledge, skills and perspectives can help a business make better decisions.

And as technology continues to make the practical elements of marketing more accessible, we think that distinction becomes increasingly important.

The value of a good agency shouldn't simply be that it knows how to press buttons the client can't press. Increasingly, those buttons are available to everyone. The real value lies in knowing which are worth pressing, understanding the implications of pressing them and having the experience and confidence to question whether they're the right buttons in the first place.

Because ultimately, a good agency partnership isn't just about getting the work done. It's about having the right people around the table, applying their experience and judgement to make sure it's the right work to be doing, and always in the interest of their clients and their business objectives.

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Need an extra pair of hands, or a fresh perspective?

At Blumin, we've been working alongside businesses for nearly 20 years, supporting everything from brand strategy and marketing planning to content, design, websites, digital campaigns and ongoing communications.

Some clients come to us for specific projects, while others work with us on a retained basis, either alongside their internal marketing teams or as a more comprehensive outsourced resource. 

We don't believe there's a one-size-fits-all approach. What matters is finding an arrangement that works for your business, your priorities and your budget.

If you're thinking about how best to structure your marketing support, or simply want to explore where an agency could add value. get in touch with Blumin. We'd be happy to have an initial chat and talk through some options.

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