There is an irony in modern marketing: an industry built around evaluating audiences often gives its own customers surprisingly few standardized ways to evaluate the people doing the work.
Marketing Crunch is launching with an attempt to change that. Described as the “Rotten Tomatoes of tech marketing,” the platform will review PR firms and individual marketers, creating a dedicated destination for people looking to assess marketing talent and providers.
The idea arrives as the economics of agency relationships are changing.
The Agency Relationship Is Being Reconsidered
For many technology companies, outside marketing firms remain an important source of expertise and execution. But the relationship is no longer automatically expanding alongside marketing budgets.
According to Forrester’s 2026 research, 93% of B2B brand and communications marketers use agencies in some capacity. Yet the percentage expecting agency budgets to increase declined from the previous year, while nearly half expected spending to remain flat.
AI is part of that equation.
As marketing teams gain access to tools capable of producing content, analyzing information and automating workflows, some work that once required external support can potentially be handled internally. Forrester found that nine in 10 U.S. marketing agencies now use generative AI and half use agentic AI for marketing execution.
That does not eliminate the need for agencies. Instead, it raises a different question: what separates one marketing partner from another?
Beyond The Pitch Deck
The traditional agency-selection process can revolve around presentations, references, previous campaigns and promised capabilities. Those remain useful, but they are largely controlled by the firms doing the selling.
A review platform introduces a different dynamic.
Marketing Crunch is designed to give PR firms and individual marketers a dedicated environment where their reputations can be examined through reviews. The model could give prospective clients another source of information before committing to a marketing relationship.
That distinction matters because marketing services are difficult to evaluate before they are purchased. A company can review a portfolio, but it cannot necessarily determine from a portfolio what the experience of working with a particular firm or marketer will be like.
The Measurement Problem
The industry is also moving toward greater scrutiny around outcomes.
Cision’s Inside PR 2026 research found that brand awareness remained the leading PR priority among respondents, while executives and agencies showed a stronger emphasis on revenue and ROI. The report surveyed PR and communications professionals on trends including measurement, AI adoption and the changing role of communications.
Meanwhile, BCG’s 2026 CMO Survey found that 96% of surveyed CMOs said AI is driving end-to-end transformation of marketing, although only about a third said they had actually completed that work.
The result is an industry navigating two forms of pressure at once: marketing teams are expected to adapt to new technology while also demonstrating business value.
Making The Market Easier To Navigate
Marketing Crunch’s premise is therefore arriving at an interesting moment.
A company searching for a PR firm or marketer may already have access to websites, LinkedIn profiles, agency case studies and client references. What has been less common is a centralized review destination built specifically around the reputation of marketing providers.
That is the territory Marketing Crunch is attempting to occupy.
The platform’s long-term relevance will depend on how its reviews are developed, how much trust users place in them and whether it can become a meaningful reference point for the industry.
For now, its launch represents a simple shift in perspective: instead of marketing firms being the ones doing all the evaluating, the marketers themselves can become part of the product being reviewed.
