When Having Multiple Agencies Is an Asset + How to Manage Them

Most destinations don’t have a “too many marketing agencies” problem. They have a too many handoffs problem.

In 2026, marketing and sales complexity is real. More channels, more stakeholder expectations, more pressure to prove impact. The answer isn’t forcing everything through one vendor or stacking specialists until the org chart collapses. The answer is building an agency ecosystem that runs like one connected system: strategy, media, creative, content, research, web, and sales enablement working from the same plan and the same scorecard.

If you’re leading a destination organization (or any organization with multiple audiences and mandates), here’s the modern playbook to follow.

When Having Multiple Marketing Agencies Is the Right Call

Multiple agencies can be an advantage when they solve for real constraints—not preference. You typically need more than one partner when:

The point isn’t to collect agencies. It’s to cover real capabilities, without sacrificing coherence.

The Reality: Integrated Marketing Wins

DMO leaders don’t care how many agencies work with their organization. They care about:

An integrated system does three things:

This is how you reduce duplication, stop internal whiplash, and make your budget work harder.

Four Ways a Specialized Business Events Partner Strengthens the Ecosystem (Without Taking It Over)

This section matters for meetings, sports, or group travel. The work is different: longer buying cycles, higher stakes, more stakeholders, and sales teams that need usable tools that connect leisure, group, and business travel, not just awareness.

Here’s how a specialized business events marketing partner should plug into the ecosystem:

So You Have Multiple Agencies. Here’s How to Manage Them Like One System.

This is where most organizations lose time: unclear ownership, messy workflows, and reporting that can’t be trusted.

1. Set boundaries by outcome, not by channel.

Channel-based ownership (“Agency A owns social, Agency B owns web”) often creates gaps and overlap. Instead, define ownership by outcomes and decision rights:

You can still assign channels, but the operating model starts with who owns what decision.

2. Align on one source of truth.

Most ecosystem breakdowns come from teams working from different documents. At minimum, your ecosystem needs shared, current versions of:

If it isn’t in the source of truth, it doesn’t exist.

3. Install a single planning cadence.

You don’t need more meetings. You need fewer meetings that matter. A simple cadence that works:

The goal: Decisions move forward, not sideways.

4. Measure what leadership actually needs to know.

If every agency reports differently, leadership can’t make calls with confidence. Today, the core scorecard should include:

Vanity metrics can exist in the background. They do not run the business.

Bonus: Run an annual ecosystem meetup.

Once a year, reset the rules:

This is how you maintain momentum instead of re-litigating the same issues every quarter.

Example: Since 2017, Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau has hosted an Agency Love Fest, bolstered by Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Wilson’s leadership and push for a collaborative dynamic among all the CVB’s partner agencies. Most of the agencies have been working with Atlanta CVB since the first Agency Love Fest, so trust has been built between all, and they have confidence in having the autonomy to do what their mutual client needs.

Get Integrated Support for Tourism + Business Events

If you need travel and business events marketing support that plugs into your existing agency ecosystem or one holistic partner aligning strategy, content, web, media, and sales enablement to drive measurable demand, that’s what Go Fish was built to do.