Updated October 2026
Selling a marketing agency? Its briefs and revisions have a separate buyer
Whoever buys your agency is paying for retainers, staff and client relationships. AI data companies want the written trail of the work itself: the brief, the first concept, the client's notes and the next round. The only agency deal a licensor has published is Polyshares' $110,000 license for a global marketing agency, its own claim.1
Why agencies
Agencies write down every decision
Advertising and promotions managers score 100 out of 100 on O*NET's email work-context scale, and PR specialists 99. An agency's archive is dense with reasoning: why a headline changed, why a campaign was paused, how a strategist answered a client who wanted something off-brief. That cycle of request, draft, feedback and revision is close to what buyers describe when micro1 says it looks for well defined workflows that employees execute repeatedly.2,3
Mercor lists professional services among its industries, and Polyshares names professional services too. Pewter, a broker, lists agencies and consulting as a target and names Slack, email and SOPs among the records it places.4,5,6,7
The published deal
What the $110,000 agency license tells you, and what it does not
Polyshares labels each of its four published deals a perpetual exclusive license to the operational record. It names no agency, size, data volume or buyer for the marketing deal. Pewter lists the same figure in its market table, and the research behind this site treats the two as one deal re-cited, not two.1,8
Perpetual and exclusive matter in an exit. An acquirer reviewing your agency will want to know that the record of its work has already been licensed, to whom, and for how long. Raise it early with both parties rather than at closing.9
| Fact | Value and source |
|---|---|
| Marketing agency license | Lists a $110,000 license for a "global marketing agency" |
| Exclusivity | Labels each of its four published deals a "Perpetual exclusive license to the operational record" |
Size
How many agencies clear the floors
The Census counts 4,047 US marketing consulting firms and digital agencies with 10+ employees and 1,413 with 30+; for advertising agencies the counts are 2,372 and 855. Most buyers want 20 to 30+ employees: Nyne and Cognor 20+, micro1 30+, and Jottings states no minimum. Agencies that run on contractors should check how a buyer counts heads before the first call.10,11,12,13,14,15
| Fact | Value and source |
|---|---|
| US marketing consulting firms and digital agencies (NAICS 541613) | 4,047 with 10+ employees; 1,413 with 30+ |
| US advertising agencies (NAICS 541810) | 2,372 with 10+ employees; 855 with 30+ |
Client material
Your clients' material is the hard part
Much of what sits in an agency's Drive came from clients or was made for them: their brand files, their ad account data, their customer lists. Polyshares says it excludes data held on behalf of clients outright. What usually remains is the agency's own process: briefs as written, internal critique, templates, playbooks and project histories in ClickUp or Asana.16
FAQ
Questions, answered with sources
Agency multiples are set in the sale. The data license is a separate number: the only published agency deal is Polyshares' $110,000 license, its own claim.1
Polyshares labels its deals a perpetual exclusive license to the operational record. Its data-handling page says licenses are exclusive by default for a defined term, so the two pages do not match.8
Polyshares says it excludes data held on behalf of clients. Ask any other buyer the same question in writing.16
Expect it to. One law firm writes that a prior data sale will come up in diligence, with documentation of the review, exclusions and business justification expected.9
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
Before you sign
Legal questions go to the licensing company
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company before you sign: their team reviews these with you.
Questions for this kind of business
- Who owns the briefs, drafts and reports we produced under client statements of work?
- How does an exclusive license affect what an acquirer of the agency receives?
- Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?
- How does a license affect a sale of the business: reps and warranties, change of control, earnouts, exclusivity?
Questions for any buyer
- Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
- Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
- Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
- How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
- What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
- Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
- Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?