Last week, during a client session, one of the senior leaders looked at me and asked, “Are we a good client?” It wasn’t a question I was expecting to hear, but one that says a lot.
It wasn’t said defensively or as a throwaway line, it was genuine curiosity. We talk a lot about how agencies need to prove value, demonstrate ROI and show their worth. But the best results I’ve seen over the years don’t come from great agencies alone. They come from great partnerships.
The clients who get the most commercial impact aren’t the ones who brief the hardest.
They’re the ones who share context, set clear goals and stay open enough to let their agency make the work better.
It’s not about being an easy client or a demanding one. It’s about being a smart one, the kind that knows how to get the very best from its partners.
Partnership isn’t a soft skill
Partnership often gets talked about like something cultural or intangible, but from what I’ve seen, it’s anything but. When it works, partnership drives growth. It saves time, reduces waste and delivers results that show up on the bottom line.
According to McKinsey, top-performing companies with strong digital and operational alignment achieve up to 35% higher revenue growth and 10% higher profit margins than their peers. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because they work better together.
The best clients understand that being a good partner isn’t about being agreeable. It’s about being clear, connected and commercially aligned.
And after years of working with different leadership teams, I’ve noticed the same patterns. The clients who consistently get great results tend to the same things particularly well…and none of them rely on having the biggest budgets! Here’s what they do differently:
1. Clarity beats chemistry
Everyone talks about chemistry (myself included!), but clarity comes first.
Great clients define what success actually looks like. Not just “more engagement” or “better campaigns,” but measurable commercial outcomes.
And that level of clarity is surprisingly rare. Gartner found that only 52% of senior marketing leaders can prove the value of their efforts and receive credit for their contribution to business results.
Without shared definitions of success, even the best work can miss the mark.
When both sides are aligned on what matters, the conversation shifts from “what are we doing?” to “what are we achieving?”
2. Data creates trust
You can’t optimise what you can’t see.
The strongest partnerships I’ve seen are those where clients share the full picture, the good, the bad and the gaps.
When agencies have visibility of real performance data, they can focus their energy where it makes the most difference.
Gartner’s research shows that organisations where analytics influence more than half of marketing decisions are significantly more likely to prove value and secure investment.
Data doesn’t just measure impact. It builds understanding and understanding builds trust.
3. Empower the doers
In complex organisations, progress often stalls in process. The best clients find ways to cut through that.
They empower their agencies and internal teams to make smart decisions and test ideas quickly. They give autonomy with accountability.
That freedom doesn’t just speed things up. It creates ownership. Teams who feel trusted work harder, care more and push further.
4. Feedback is a growth engine
Strong partnerships aren’t built on politeness. They’re built on conversation.
The best clients don’t wait until the end of a project to say what worked or didn’t.
They engage mid-flight, ask questions and share reactions in real time.
That kind of feedback loop doesn’t slow things down; it accelerates them. It means fewer assumptions, fewer revisions and a better end product.
5. Shared accountability drives commercial impact
When clients and agencies take responsibility together, everything improves. There’s no “your work” or “our reporting.” There’s one shared goal and one shared scorecard.
McKinsey’s research shows that while most large organisations have digital transformation programmes in place, they only see around a third of the results they expect. The gap isn’t ambition, it’s follow-through.
When both sides are clear on targets, share data, and stay close to performance, things start to change. That’s when plans turn into progress and progress turns into growth.
So…what makes a good client?
When that client asked if they were a good client, my answer was yes.
Not because everything was perfect, but because they cared enough to ask.
That curiosity, that willingness to question, listen, and learn, is what drives progress.
Great clients don’t just demand results. They create the conditions that make them possible.
And that’s what turns partnership from a relationship into a something that genuinely moves the business forward.
