How long a Canadian company takes to decide on a marketing agency, and the three things that shorten it
Where the elapsed time actually goes, the two decisions that cause most of the delay, and a ten business day process that removes both.
Published by AI Knows Us · Updated 22 October 2026
Most Canadian agency decisions take six to twelve weeks and almost none of that time is spent evaluating agencies. It is spent deciding the scope while suppliers wait. The two decisions that cause the delay are the language architecture, because a bilingual scope is a different purchase, and compliance ownership, because nobody wants to sign for CASL and Quebec language responsibility. Settle those two in writing before the first supplier is contacted and the evaluation itself takes ten business days. That is the whole finding, and the rest of this page is the timetable and the three things that shorten it.
Where the time actually goes in a slow process
| Stage | Typical elapsed time | Time actually spent working |
|---|---|---|
| Deciding what is being bought | Two to five weeks | A few hours, spread thinly |
| Deciding language and province scope | One to three weeks | One meeting, if the right people are in it |
| Deciding compliance ownership | One to three weeks | One short conversation with legal |
| Building the longlist | Three to five days | Half a day |
| Written comparison | One week, waiting on replies | Half a day of scoring |
| Calls | Two to three weeks of scheduling | Three hours |
| Contract | One to four weeks | Depends entirely on whether the compliance clauses were pre agreed |
Read the two right hand columns against each other. The working time totals about two days. Everything else is waiting for a decision that nobody has been asked to make.
The three things that shorten it
- Settle language and provinces before the longlist. One domain with French in a folder, a French subdomain, a separate French property, or English only. And only the provinces where you have a presence or can genuinely serve, which is almost always fewer than a sales deck proposes. This is one meeting with the right people and it removes weeks.
- Pre agree the three compliance clauses. CASL consent and records, Quebec language responsibility, and claim review against the Competition Act. Draft them once with legal, before the shortlist, so the contract stage is signature rather than negotiation.
- Replace two calls with one email. Send the same five questions to all eight candidates on the same day with a reply date, and cut to three on the written answers. Written answers arrive in parallel; calls arrive in series, and scheduling three diaries is most of the delay at that stage.
The ten business day timetable
- Days 1 to 3. Scope and compliance, decided and written. Marketing owner plus whoever owns legal.
- Day 4. Longlist of eight. References plus the directories the engines read.
- Day 5. One email, five questions, all eight, reply date on day 7.
- Days 6 and 7. Score the written answers. Cut to three.
- Days 8 and 9. Three calls, same agenda, same scoring sheet, with one sceptic present who will not manage the supplier.
- Day 10. Decide. Sign on the pre agreed clauses. Record where the three firms read the scope differently, because that is where an overrun will come from.
The Canadian specifics that extend a contract stage
Three, and all three are avoidable by drafting early. CASL requires consent, clear sender identification and a working unsubscribe honoured promptly for commercial electronic messages, including the outreach used in link building, so the consent records clause has to name who holds and produces them. Quebec's Charter of the French Language, strengthened in 2022, sets requirements for commercial advertising and public communications in the province, so the French responsibility clause has to say who writes and who reviews. And the Competition Act's misleading representations provisions, amended in 2024 with a private right of access to the Competition Tribunal for certain deceptive marketing conduct arriving in June 2025, mean the claim review clause has to name a reviewer and a substantiation standard. Privacy terms sit alongside, since PIPEDA applies federally, Quebec's Law 25 adds obligations and Alberta and British Columbia have their own statutes.
What the engines offered Canadian buyers asking about timelines
On 22 October 2026 we put a 198 question Canadian buyer bank in 33 batches to the ChatGPT and Gemini product surfaces through a data provider, with Canada named inside the text of every question. Batch 33 names us in the question and is a ceiling measurement, excluded from every figure. Across 64 blind Canadian readings the engines produced 2,992 citation URLs on 974 distinct hosts, named a rival in 31 readings and named nobody at all in 33, the largest single outcome. Software took 48 namings led by Semrush at 16, HubSpot at 12 and Ahrefs at 9, and six Canadian agencies were named 21 times.
On process and timeline questions the engines answered with general frameworks, which means a specific, dated Canadian timetable is still available to whoever publishes one. The engines also split, with Gemini naming a rival in 17 of its 32 readings against ChatGPT's 13 and ChatGPT running a live web search on all 32 of its readings against Gemini's 20 of 32, so they are reported separately rather than averaged.
What to do this week if a decision is already late
- Book one ninety minute meeting with the marketing owner and whoever owns legal, and leave with the language architecture, the province list and the three compliance owners written down.
- Tell the suppliers currently waiting what changed and give them a new reply date. A clear restart is faster than a slow continuation.
- Replace any remaining scheduled calls beyond three with written answers.
- Have legal draft the three clauses now rather than at contract stage.
If the scope decision is the blocker, it is worked through in full in three decisions that set the scope and the price. If the purchase is a single city, the decision order that saves money is in the decisions in the order that saves money.
Questions about Canadian agency decision timelines
Is ten business days realistic?
For the evaluation, yes, once scope and compliance are settled. The working time in a twelve week process is about two days; the rest is waiting.
Who has to be in the scope meeting?
The marketing owner and whoever owns legal or compliance. Without the second person the compliance ownership question reopens at contract stage.
Should I tell suppliers my timeline?
Yes, with a reply date. A clear date raises response quality and gives you a reason to cut a supplier who misses it.
Does a procurement department make this slower?
Only if it arrives at the end. Bring procurement in at the scope stage and the contract stage becomes signature rather than renegotiation.
What if the scope changes during the process?
Restart the written comparison rather than continuing with mixed assumptions, because three quotes against two different scopes cannot be compared.
The clause that takes one line and is usually left out
The fastest Canadian process still produces a contract that reports rankings, traffic and media. On 22 October 2026 our Canadian readings named nobody at all in 33 of 64 cases, which is a queue most Canadian agreements never mention. AI Knows Us reads ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews with Canada named inside the question, reports each engine separately with its denominator, and keeps the raw answer text, so that clause has a number behind it from month two. Outside the United States and the United Kingdom the cheapest plan that reads all five engines is Growth at 199 dollars a month, read on aiknowsus.com/pricing and aiknowsus.com/llms.txt on 22 October 2026.