A2A Research · Aligned to Act
The ground under independent agencies is moving — nationally, and in Houston, where we work. We publish free research on those shifts, for the people deciding what their agency becomes next.
Every figure traced to a primary source. Every report ends in something you can act on Monday, with a five-minute diagnostic that runs entirely in your browser. No paywall, no email gate, nothing tracked on your screen — the research is free because the point isn’t the download; it’s the thinking.
The Texas agencies whose fate is visibly bound to their clients’ — when the client wins, they win. Shown with the evidence.
Margin falls from 19% to 8% as agencies grow — yet independents keep clients longer than the holdcos. How a firm actually scales, without hiring.
Read the report →Not a value problem — a packaging one. Strategy is the only line a client can’t evaluate before buying, so it’s the one that comes off.
Read the report →The pitch isn’t where you win the work — it’s where you accept the terms, at the moment you hold the least leverage you’ll ever have.
Read the report →Logos, case studies, credentials, a polished site — every proof you use got cheap to counterfeit. What is left, and a five-sign read on which half of your pitch is doing the work.
Read the report →Every relationship runs a balance — the client gets more than they pay, or less. The ones tilted their way are the ones that last, and a five-sign read on your own book.
Read the report →A capital-allocation read for the finance chief: 95% of AI pilots return nothing, and the 5% share three conditions. Where the agency AI dollar pays.
Read the report →99% of agencies use AI and their top operational complaint is inefficient process. One operator interview against the national data on why the tool multiplies the process you already had.
Read the report →Canada's counter-tariffs take effect tomorrow. Twice in the last eighteen months the industry has cut ad budgets on tariff fear, then reversed past where it started once the fear resolved. What that pattern means before you agree to any client's cut.
Read the report →69% of agencies expected this year to be better than last. 46% expected to invest in the business. What independent agencies actually fund, and what that means for anything you are trying to sell them.
Read the report →In eighteen days Omnicom, Publicis and WPP each published what creative work is worth inside their business. One is selling it, one is shrinking it, one is still growing it. What their disagreement means for an independent.
Read the report →The money didn’t leave Houston. It stopped flowing through firms built on one model. The three shifts behind that, and a mirror to check your own.
Read the report →A wave of consumer brands is being built in Houston’s backyard. Why so few land with independents, and the signs a firm is ready to win them.
Read the report →For the leaders of America’s pioneer Hispanic agencies: a $4T market proven beyond doubt, a sub-4% budget uncollected, and how to win name-brand clients.
Read the report →Texas committed $1.5B to film through 2035. Six TV projects took 89% of the last cycle; all 39 commercials took 1.07%. The rebate is a smaller door than it looks — what it’s building is the larger one.
Read the report →Texas pays advertising agencies directly for commercial production — but the application shuts five business days before the first day of production. The gate is not eligibility. It is the calendar.
Read the report →The work behind the research
The research is what we know. A2A is what we do with it — the standing homework behind the accounts that decide an agency’s future, so the human part stays yours.
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