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Specialist life science agency or generalist B2B agency?
The specialist label matters less than whether the team can talk to your buyers. A bioreactor, a TFF system or a CDMO service is bought by a committee where process engineering, quality and procurement each read your website looking for something different. An agency that has never written for that committee will need months to learn it, and you pay for those months.
A generalist B2B agency can work well if someone in your company checks every technical claim and knows the buyers. A specialist pays off when nobody on your side has time to brief, review and correct. Decide which of the two situations you are in before you shortlist anyone.
A word on who is writing this. crida studio is itself an agency that offers marketing for biotech and bioprocess companies, so we have an interest in the answer. That is why this guide ranks no agencies and why our own prices appear only as one reference, clearly marked as ours.
What to put in the brief before you ask for proposals
Proposals can only be compared if every agency answers the same brief. Without one, each agency sells what it does best, one a new website and another a LinkedIn campaign, and you end up comparing different projects.
An agency that plans to measure marketing by quote requests will ask early for access to your CRM and your sales team, which is a good sign. A brief of one or two pages is enough if it covers these points.
- The business goal in figures you already track, such as qualified quote requests per quarter or demos booked, rather than visits or followers.
- The products, applications and markets that matter most in the next twelve months, in order of priority.
- Who buys, by role, from process engineers and QA managers to procurement and principal investigators.
- What already exists, including the website, the CRM, the Google Ads account, the content library and the trade show calendar.
- Who on your side reviews technical and regulatory claims, and how long that review takes.
- A budget range for agency fees and a separate one for media, trade show space and production.
- The timeline, the decision date and who signs.
Should I ask agencies for free creative work in the pitch?
You can, but it costs them a lot. The 2025 annual report of the EACA, the European association of communications agencies, cites a survey of 412 agencies that spend an average of €650,937 a year each pitching for new business. A written approach to your brief, or a short paid diagnosis, tells you more than speculative designs.
RFP questions that show whether an agency knows the sector
Send the same questions to every agency and ask for written answers before any presentation. Written answers show what each agency proposes, without the effect of a polished pitch. Google suggests something similar before hiring an SEO, asking for examples of previous work, experience in your industry and how success will be measured.
The Google Ads question works as a quick filter. Google's healthcare and medicines policy restricts prescription drug terms in ads, landing pages and keywords, and pharmaceutical manufacturers must be certified by Google to advertise prescription drugs where that is allowed. An agency that has worked in the sector will bring this up without being asked.
- Who exactly will work on our account each month, and what has each person done in life science or industrial B2B?
- Can you show us two pieces you wrote for engineers or scientists, and tell us who checked the technical content?
- How would you speak to process engineering and to procurement on the same product page?
- How do you handle claims about GMP, EU GMP Annex 1 or 21 CFR Part 11 that we have to approve?
- Which Google Ads policies affect our category, and how would you work within them?
- Which figures will you report each month, and how do they connect to quote requests?
- What will you need from our sales team and our CRM, and how often?
- How would you plan content, ads and follow-up around a trade show such as ACHEMA or CPHI?
- Which tools and accounts will you set up, and in whose name?
- Which tasks do you subcontract, and to whom?
- What is the minimum term, and what happens to our files and accounts if we stop?
- What would you do in the first ninety days, and what would you leave for later?
Should I pay the agency a percentage of ad spend or a fixed fee?
Either can work, but put it in writing. A percentage of spend gives the agency a reason to recommend spending more, while a fixed fee does not move with the budget. In both cases, pay for ads directly to Google from an account in your company's name, so ad spend and agency fees stay as separate lines.
A weighted rubric to score agency proposals
Score every proposal against the same criteria, from 1 to 5, before you discuss price with anyone. Multiply each score by its weight and divide by 5, so the maximum is 100. The weights below are our proposal for a mid-sized equipment maker or CDMO. Adjust them to your situation, but fix them before you read the proposals.
Ask two people to score separately, for example the managing director and the sales director, and compare the results before meeting the agencies. Where the two scores differ by two points or more, you have found the question to ask that agency. The rubric also shows what a more expensive proposal gives you for the extra money.
| Criterion | Weight | What earns a 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding of your buyers and sector | 25 | Answers describe your buying committee and use technical terms correctly |
| Measurement and link to sales | 20 | Quote requests or qualified leads are the main figure, with CRM access planned |
| The team that will do the work | 15 | Named people with relevant work and hours allocated each month |
| Plan for the first ninety days | 15 | Clear priorities with dates, and what is deliberately left out |
| Regulatory and data care | 10 | A review process for claims and a data processing agreement ready to sign |
| Price and terms | 15 | Fees broken down by task, media kept separate and a reasonable notice period |
Want us to look at your brief before you send it to agencies? Leave your details and we will tell you what we would add.
Review my briefHow much a life science marketing agency costs in Europe
There is no open, dated survey of life science agency fees in Europe. ISBA's agency hourly rate benchmarks are only available to members who contribute data, and most price lists that rank in search come from US agencies. The most honest reference is the prices agencies publish themselves, compared line by line.
As one example, these are crida studio's own starting prices, published in November 2026 and excluding VAT. A marketing diagnosis with a twelve-month plan starts at €2,500. A fractional marketing director, two days a month, starts at €2,100 a month. An outsourced marketing department of forty hours a month starts at €5,000 a month. Both monthly services have a six-month minimum term.
Trade shows can be the largest line in the budget, and the agency fee is only part of it. For ACHEMA 2027, from 14 to 18 June, the exhibition fee runs from €378 per square metre for a stand along a hall wall to €529.20 for a stand with at least two open sides, plus VAT. Start-ups and academic institutions pay €239.
The minimum stand at ACHEMA is 12 square metres, so the space alone costs €4,536 along a wall and €6,350.40 with two open sides, before stand construction, travel or any agency work. When an agency quotes for preparing ACHEMA or CPHI, ask it to show these lines separately from its own fee.
| Stand type | € per m² |
|---|---|
| Outdoor area | €150 |
| Start-ups and academia | €239 |
| Along a hall wall | €378 |
| Other aisle stands | €453.6 |
| Two or more open sides | €529.2 |
Does a Google Partner badge mean an agency knows life science?
No. Google checks three things for the badge, an optimisation score of at least 70%, $10,000 of ad spend over 90 days across managed accounts and at least half of the account strategists certified in Google Ads. It shows that the agency runs Google Ads at some scale, not that it understands your buyers.
What to put in writing before you sign
If the agency will work with your CRM, forms or email lists, it processes personal data on your behalf. Article 28 of the GDPR says that processing by a processor must be governed by a contract or another legal act. Among other points, it must say that the agency acts only on your documented instructions and deletes or returns the data when the service ends.
Accounts need the same clarity. Ask for the Google Ads account, Google Analytics, Search Console, the domain and the website to be registered to your company, with the agency added as a user. If an SEO offers an audit, Google advises granting read access to Search Console only, not write access.
Finally, agree in writing who keeps the source files, such as 3D models, video projects and design files, and what is handed over if the relationship ends. Add the minimum term, the notice period and how fees change when the scope changes.
How long before I can judge an agency's work?
Agree it in the brief, not afterwards. Google's own advice before hiring an SEO is to ask what results to expect and in what timeframe, and how success will be measured. A sensible review point is the end of the first phase, measured against the quote request figure you defined at the start.
Red flags in a life science agency proposal
Some warning signs show up in the proposal itself. Google states that no one can guarantee a number one ranking and advises finding someone else if an SEO promises first place. It also says it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its search results.
Treat lists of the best life science marketing agencies with care. On 12 November 2026, the lists that came up for these searches were published by agencies or software vendors, not by independent bodies. They help you find names, but they are not a neutral ranking.
- A plan to publish dozens of near-identical pages, one per application or country. Google's spam policies define scaled content abuse as many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings, however they are made.
- Link packages. Google lists buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam.
- Campaigns that advertise a prescription-only medicine to the general public. Article 88 of Directive 2001/83/EC, as amended in 2004, asks member states to prohibit that advertising.
- A senior team at the pitch that you never see again after signing.
- Monthly reports that count visits and impressions but never quote requests.
Should I use a freelancer or hire someone in-house?
If you need one skill, such as Google Ads, a specialist freelancer can be enough. If you need direction and several skills, from the website to trade shows, an agency or a fractional marketing director covers more with less management time. An in-house hire makes sense once the workload is steady and someone senior can direct that person.
What to do tomorrow
Work the timeline back from your next big trade show. Leave enough time between the brief and the signature for the agency to start well before it, because a stand prepared in a rush rarely brings qualified contacts.
- Write a brief of one or two pages, with the goal in quote requests and a budget range.
- Agree the rubric weights with sales before anyone reads a proposal.
- Shortlist three or four agencies and send them the same brief and the same RFP questions.
- Score the written answers separately, then meet only the two best.
- Ask each finalist for its contract, its data processing agreement and the list of accounts it will create in your name.
- Start with a diagnosis or a first phase of three months with a clear deliverable before committing to a longer term.
