GTM engineering and RevOps for advertising agencies
Agency revenue is won in pitches, kept through annual reviews and grown brand by brand inside each client. Many agency CRMs see little of it: media spend inflates the numbers, scope grows through change requests and the forecast ignores who is free to do the work. We build the CRM, pipelines and reporting that track new business, retainers, net revenue and capacity in one place.
- 80+CRM implementations delivered
- 6 languagesfor delivery, including English and German
- 2 weeksfrom first call to work starting
What is RevOps for advertising agencies?
RevOps for advertising agencies is the revenue operations work that connects new-business pitches to retainers, scope, capacity and organic growth: one CRM where every client, brand and pitch carries its fee model, its net revenue and its review date, with pass-through media kept apart from fee income. The result is a forecast built on the revenue the agency keeps.
Agencies usually win new business through credentials decks, chemistry meetings, pitches and the occasional RFP run by a pitch consultant or a client's procurement team, and track it in a spreadsheet the new-business director owns. Revenue mixes retainers, projects and performance fees, while media and production costs passed through to clients swell the billings. Scope grows through change requests nobody prices, a few large clients carry most of the income, and resourcing sits in a timesheet tool the pipeline never sees. Nobody can say what the agency will earn next quarter, or whether the team can deliver it.
Checkpoint GTM is a Berlin-based RevOps and GTM consultancy and HubSpot Platinum Partner, and we run a client-services business on retainers and projects ourselves. We design the revenue model, build it into your CRM and data stack, and hand it to a named owner on your team. We work in HubSpot and Salesforce, next to your timesheet, resourcing, finance and proposal tools, in six languages including English and German, across DACH, Europe and the US.
Good fit
- Creative, media, performance and digital agencies selling retainers, projects and media management to brands
- Independent agencies and network or holding-group units that report new business and net revenue to founders, partners or a group
- Agencies where a few large clients carry most of the revenue and every annual review puts part of it at risk
- Teams moving new business from pitch trackers and spreadsheets into a CRM the whole agency uses
Not the right fit
- Media buying, ad operations or timesheets: we connect your resourcing and finance tools to the pipeline, we do not replace them or plan your people
- Campaign delivery for your clients: we build the agency's own revenue operations, we do not run media or creative work for brands
Six agency revenue problems, and what we build for each
Six revenue problems typical of creative, media, performance and digital agencies, whether independent or part of a network. Each play ends in something running in your CRM and data stack, not a slide.
Pitches tracked in a spreadsheet
The problemCredentials requests, chemistry meetings, RFPs and pitches run from a new-business tracker and the inboxes of a few senior people. Without source, effort and outcome data per pitch, the agency cannot tell its win rate, which sources bring winnable briefs or what a lost pitch cost in senior time and production, so it struggles to decide which briefs to decline.
What we buildA new-business pipeline with stages for credentials, chemistry meeting, brief, pitch and negotiation, the source on every deal (referral, pitch consultant, holding group or inbound), pitch effort and costs recorded per pitch, and reporting on win rate, cost per win and loss reasons.
Media spend inflating the revenue line
The problemA media or performance deal can show billings many times larger than the fee the agency keeps. When pass-through media and production costs sit in the deal amount, the pipeline looks huge, the forecast is wrong and large media clients look more valuable than they are.
What we buildSeparate deal fields for fee income, performance fees and pass-through media or production, with the forecast and every dashboard built on agency net revenue. Media budgets stay on the record as context, never as revenue.
Retainers, projects and scope creep in one number
The problemA monthly retainer, a one-off project and a performance-fee deal look the same in the CRM. Extra rounds, new markets and additional deliverables arrive as informal requests, so the work grows while fees stay flat and change orders that should have been raised go unseen.
What we buildFee model, monthly value, term and SOW reference on every deal, change requests logged against the client with an owner and a decision, approved changes turned into change orders, and reporting on scope added, priced and unpriced per client.
Large clients, annual reviews and concentration risk
The problemA few clients often carry most of an agency's net revenue, and each one runs an annual review or a contract renewal that can turn into a repitch. Review dates live in calendars, client health is anecdotal, and losing one account can reset the year.
What we buildContract end, notice period and review date on every retainer, renewal deals planned months before the review, client health signals from client services and delivery, and a concentration report showing each client's share of net revenue.
Organic growth left to chance
The problemLarge clients buy across many brands, markets and services, but the agency sees them as one account. Growth depends on who knows the client's other brand managers, and nobody can show which brands, markets or services the agency does not serve yet.
What we buildBrands and markets recorded under each client group, a whitespace view of the services sold per brand, expansion deals for new brands, markets and services, and reporting on organic growth per client.
Wins the team cannot staff
The problemA strong run of pitches overbooks the studio, a lost review leaves people on the bench, and the handover from new business to client services happens in a meeting nobody records. Resourcing and timesheets sit in another tool, so the forecast never meets capacity.
What we buildExpected start date, duration and role mix on every weighted deal, capacity and utilisation aggregates read from your timesheet, resourcing or PSA tool, and a won-deal handover to client services with brief, scope, team and start date. The CRM reads the aggregates; your timesheet tool stays the record.
How we build an agency revenue engine in four phases
The same sequence for an independent agency moving new business off spreadsheets, a growing agency adding its first growth or new-business team, or a network unit that has to report into a holding group.
Diagnose
Interviews with founders, new business, client services, resourcing and finance; an audit of the CRM, pitch records, fee data and revenue reporting per client. Output: a gap list and the motions to fix first.
Design
Lifecycles from first contact through pitch, retainer and review to the next brand or market, the net revenue and fee model agreed with finance, source and referral rules, and the reporting your founders, partners or group will see.
Build
Pipelines, properties, pitch and review stages, fee and media fields, resourcing and finance syncs, handover automation and dashboards go live in the CRM, tested on real clients before anyone relies on them.
Run and hand over
A weekly new-business and capacity review, a monthly net revenue view reconciled with finance and a trained owner on your team. Definitions and documentation sit in the CRM, next to the data they describe.
The revenue metrics agency founders, partners and groups ask for
Eight metrics, each with one definition and one source. Anything that still needs a spreadsheet to produce goes on the build list.
- Agency net revenue. Fee income and performance fees with pass-through media and production costs excluded, by client, service line and month.
- Pitch win rate. Pitches and RFPs won as a share of those decided, by source, service line, client size and pitch type.
- Cost of pitching. Senior hours at internal rates plus external production cost per pitch, and the new-business cost behind each win.
- Revenue mix. Retainer, project and performance-fee revenue as shares of net revenue, and how the mix moves over time.
- Retainer outcomes. Retainers renewed, expanded, reduced or lost at their review or contract end, with repitches reported separately.
- Client concentration. The share of net revenue from the largest client and the top five, tracked every month.
- Organic growth. Net revenue growth from existing clients through new brands, markets and services, reported apart from new-client wins.
- Capacity coverage. Hours needed for booked and weighted work against the hours your resourcing tool shows as available, by team and role.
GTM engineering for advertising agencies: the systems behind the process
We build on the stack you already run, from the CRM to the timesheet tool. These are the pieces an agency revenue system needs most.
- CRM as the source of truthHubSpot or Salesforce configured with client groups, brands, buying roles and referral sources, one pipeline per motion, and new business kept apart from organic growth and renewals.
- Fee and net revenue modelFee income, performance fees and pass-through media as separate fields, with net revenue per client and month read from your finance system, so new business, client services and finance work from the same numbers.
- Capacity and resourcing connectionCapacity, utilisation and booked hours read as aggregates from your timesheet, resourcing or PSA tool and matched against weighted deals, with won deals handed to client services with scope, team and start date.
- Proposal, SOW and change order workflowProposal and SOW stages connected to the proposal and e-signature tools you use, change requests logged per client and approved changes written to the deal as change orders.
- Source and influence attributionReferrals, pitch consultants, holding-group introductions and technology partners as sources with clear rules, plus thought leadership, award entries and events tied to the clients and pitches they influence.
- Reporting and AI automationFounder and group dashboards, net revenue forecasts, client research before a chemistry meeting, call summaries and review-risk flags built into the CRM, with AI automation your team can inspect and switch off.
Advertising and marketing technology work we have done
Our proof comes from the ad-tech and martech side of the market: the software companies agencies buy from and work with every day, not agencies themselves. Clients are anonymised, like every client on our industry pages. The first card is our founder's own background before Checkpoint, not a client engagement.
- Mobile attribution, our founder's backgroundBefore founding Checkpoint, our founder led Revenue Operations in-house at a mobile measurement and attribution company: building the RevOps department and owning the CRM, sales process and reporting for a fast-growing sales organisation. Founder experience, not a client engagement.
- Creator marketing software, fractional RevOpsFractional Head of RevOps for a seed-stage, AI-native creator-marketing and brand-advocacy software company: HubSpot aligned with finance, Seed and Series A board reporting, a multi-pipeline architecture, and outbound and ABM infrastructure.
- Direct mail automation, coaching and enablementRevenue operations coaching and enablement for the team at a direct-mail automation and programmatic print platform that plugs into the marketing automation systems its customers already run.
- App marketing software, scoring and CRM syncFor an app review management and app store optimisation software company: an inbound lead and account scoring plan, fixes to the Salesforce and HubSpot sync, form consolidation, and target lists for a move into a new customer segment.
In-house hire, generalist CRM agency or Checkpoint?
| In-house hire | Generalist agency | Checkpoint GTM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to start | 3 to 6 months to hire and ramp | Weeks, after a proposal round | Within two weeks |
| Agency context | Depends on the one person you find | Product-company playbooks that ignore pitches, fees and capacity | Pitches, net revenue, retainers, reviews and capacity modelled in the CRM |
| Cost | €120K+ a year for a senior GTM hire | Often billed by the hour | Projects from €15K, retainers from €6K a month |
| What you get | A single operator's view, often without data engineering support | Campaigns or a CRM setup, rarely the data behind both | The operating model plus the built system: CRM, pitch pipeline, net revenue model, capacity view, reporting |
| Main risk | Key-person risk if the hire leaves | Handed back without an owner or documentation | Needs a named owner on your side to take over |
Three ways to work with us
Fixed-scope project
A diagnostic, a CRM build for an agency moving new business off spreadsheets, a net revenue and fee model, or a resourcing connection added to the existing setup. Scoped and priced before we start.
€15K to €90K · fixed scope · one accountable lead
RevOps retainer
Ongoing new-business, net revenue and capacity reporting and automation work after the build, with a monthly plan agreed with your founders and finance.
€6K to €25K a month · monthly plan
Fractional Head of RevOps
A senior operator embedded in your team who runs the revenue cadence, owns the founder or group view, aligns new business, client services and finance on one forecast and helps hire the permanent lead.
From 10 hours a month up to 30 hours a week
Questions about RevOps for advertising agencies
What is RevOps for advertising agencies?
It is revenue operations applied to an agency: one CRM that follows each opportunity from credentials and pitch through retainer, scope changes and annual review to the next brand or market, with fee income kept apart from pass-through media and the forecast checked against capacity. The goal is net revenue numbers that founders, client services, finance and, where there is one, the holding group all trust.
How do you track pitches, RFPs and the cost of pitching in a CRM?
As a new-business pipeline with defined stages: credentials, chemistry meeting, brief or RFP, pitch and negotiation. Each pitch records its source, the senior hours and production spent and the decision date, and lost pitches get a reason. Reports then show the win rate by source and service line and what each win cost, so the agency can decide which briefs to decline.
How do you keep pass-through media spend out of agency revenue?
With separate fields from the first proposal. A deal records fee income, performance fees and the media or production budget the agency passes through, and only fees count toward net revenue in forecasts and dashboards. Actual net revenue per client comes from your finance system as an aggregate, so the CRM and the management accounts agree.
How do you handle retainers, projects, performance fees and change requests?
With the fee model as a required field on every deal, plus monthly value, term and SOW reference. New retainers, projects, extensions and change orders become separate deal types, change requests are logged against the client with an owner and a decision, and retainers get renewal deals planned from their review date. Scope added without a fee shows up in reporting before it shows up as lost margin.
Have you worked with advertising agencies before?
Not directly. Our closest client work is with the marketing technology companies agencies work with every day: creator marketing, direct-mail automation and app marketing software, on fractional RevOps leadership, coaching and enablement, CRM, lead scoring and sync work. Before founding Checkpoint, our founder led Revenue Operations in-house at a mobile measurement and attribution company. We also run our own client-services business on retainers and projects, so proposals, scope changes and renewals are problems we solve for ourselves. These clients are anonymised, like every client on our industry pages.
How do you connect the new-business pipeline to utilisation and resourcing?
Every weighted deal carries an expected start date, duration and role mix. We read capacity, booked hours and utilisation as aggregates from your timesheet, resourcing or PSA tool and report the pipeline against them, so leadership sees where the next quarter is overbooked or light and can hire, bring in freelancers or decline briefs ahead of demand. Timesheets stay in the tool built for them.
HubSpot or Salesforce for an advertising agency?
Both work, and we build in both. HubSpot is usually faster to set up and run for an agency team, with quotes on Revenue Hub for proposals, custom objects for brands and retainers on Enterprise, multi-account management for group setups and Breeze AI agents built in. Salesforce suits agencies with complex enterprise processes and a dedicated admin team. Our HubSpot for advertising agencies page covers the HubSpot setup in detail.
What does RevOps for an advertising agency cost, and how long does it take?
Fixed-scope projects run from €15K to €90K, retainers from €6K to €25K a month, and a fractional Head of RevOps from 10 hours a month up to 30 hours a week. A standard HubSpot build runs 6 to 10 weeks, a complex multi-hub build 12 to 16 weeks. Work usually starts within two weeks of the first call.
Running HubSpot? See how we configure it for advertising agencies
Custom objects for retainers and pitches, client groups and brands, pitch and renewal pipelines, quotes with e-signature for proposals, tickets for change requests, multi-account management and Breeze agents: the HubSpot side of the same work, on its own page.
Start with a 30-minute agency RevOps call
Tell us how new business comes in, how you price retainers and projects and where your pipeline, net revenue and capacity numbers disagree today. You get a straight answer on what we would fix first, and what can wait.
- A 30-minute call with your founder, managing director or new-business lead
- A one-page scope: problems, plan, team, timeline and price
- Work starts within two weeks