# How the Scout Score works

Last updated September 2026

Every agency is ranked by the Scout Score, computed the same way for everyone and published here in full. Nobody can pay for a position, and we don’t adjust scores by hand.

## 1. Where the data comes from

We collect public Google Business Profile listings for marketing agencies in each city we cover: name, website, address, phone number, Google rating, number of reviews, business categories and the topics Google extracts from reviews. Agencies without a website are left out. The data is refreshed monthly, most recently in September 2026.

Each agency is tagged with the services its listing evidences, such as SEO, Google Ads or web design, based on its Google categories and listing details. An agency appears in a service ranking only if its listing supports that service.

We also read each agency’s own website for evidence of its work: dedicated service pages, case studies and partner or award claims. Section 3 explains how it is found and checked.

## 2. The Scout Score

Every agency gets a Scout Score from 0 to 100 for each service it offers:

```
Scout Score = 70 × client satisfaction + 10 × track record + 20 × evidence
```

Each of the three components is a number from 0 to 1.

| Component | Points | What it measures |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Client satisfaction | 70 | The Google rating, weighted by how many reviews support it |
| Track record | 10 | How many Google reviews the agency has |
| Evidence | 20 | A service page, case studies and credentials for the service being ranked |

Client reviews dominate by design. Evidence an agency publishes about itself can add at most 10.0 points, so self-published claims can’t lift an agency above better-reviewed rivals.

### Client satisfaction (70 points)

A raw star rating is misleading on its own: a 5.0 from three reviews says far less than a 4.8 from a hundred and twenty. We use a Bayesian average, the method behind well-known film rankings, which pulls each rating toward the average for all agencies until it has enough reviews to stand on its own:

```
weighted rating = (v / (v + m)) * R + (m / (v + m)) * C
```

- **R** is the agency’s Google rating (1 to 5).
- **v** is its number of Google reviews.
- **m** is the prior weight: **15** reviews.
- **C** is the mean rating of the agencies that qualify to rank (currently 4.74).

The weighted rating is then placed on a 0 to 1 scale, in a straight line from 3 stars to 5:

| Weighted rating | Client satisfaction | Points |
| ---: | ---: | ---: |
| 3.0 | 0.00 | 0.0 |
| 3.5 | 0.25 | 17.5 |
| 4.0 | 0.50 | 35.0 |
| 4.5 | 0.75 | 52.5 |
| 5.0 | 1.00 | 70.0 |

An agency with no Google rating is scored at the mean, C. It can only rank with verified evidence (section 5).

### Track record (10 points)

Review volume on a log scale, with full marks at 200 reviews:

```
track record = log10(1 + v) / log10(1 + 200), capped at 1
```

| Google reviews | Track record | Points |
| ---: | ---: | ---: |
| 3 | 0.26 | 2.6 |
| 20 | 0.57 | 5.7 |
| 50 | 0.74 | 7.4 |
| 100 | 0.87 | 8.7 |
| 200 | 1.00 | 10.0 |

### Evidence (20 points)

Evidence is scored for the service being ranked, so an agency’s Google Ads score counts its Google Ads evidence:

```
evidence = 0.35 × specialism + 0.35 × proof + 0.3 × credentials
```

- **Specialism (7.0 points):** a dedicated page on the agency’s website for the service. For digital marketing, service pages for at least three other channels also count, at the self-published rate.
- **Proof (7.0 points):** case studies with at least one measurable result, for this service or for the agency as a whole. 3 verified case studies earn full marks. Self-published ones count half each and at most 3 of them count, so self-published proof tops out at half marks.
- **Credentials (6.0 points):** partner status in a programme relevant to the service, or an industry award. An award counts 60% as much as partner status. The best single credential counts.

Partner programmes we count, and the services each one is evidence for:

| Programme | Counts for |
| --- | --- |
| Google Premier Partner | Google Ads & PPC, Digital marketing |
| Google Partner | Google Ads & PPC, Digital marketing |
| Microsoft Advertising Partner | Google Ads & PPC, Digital marketing |
| Meta Business Partner | Social media, Digital marketing, Advertising & creative |
| TikTok Marketing Partner | Social media, Advertising & creative |
| Shopify Partner | Web design, Digital marketing |
| HubSpot Partner | Digital marketing, SEO |

## 3. How evidence is found and checked

Every piece of evidence has one of three statuses:

- **Self-reported:** found on the agency’s own website. It counts half.
- **Verified:** checked against an independent source, such as the programme’s own partner directory, the award organiser’s list, or a client who confirms a case study. It counts in full.
- **Rejected:** checked and found to be untrue or not relevant. It counts for nothing.

Evidence is found by reading each agency’s website. An AI model, Jev from TypeSafe, reads each candidate page and judges whether it is a genuine case study with a measurable result, a dedicated service page, or a real partner or award claim. What it accepts is recorded as self-reported, with the model’s confidence kept for audit. The model never marks anything verified. People and agents working for Agency Scout check claims against independent sources and mark each one verified or rejected.

Agencies can send evidence for us to verify: see [how verification works](https://www.agencyscout.co.za/list-your-agency.md).

## 4. Worked example

Three Google Ads agencies in the same city, scored against a dataset mean of 4.74:

- **Agency A**: 4.9 stars from 120 reviews, with verified Google Partner status, a Google Ads page and two case studies on its own site.
- **Agency B**: 5.0 stars from 3 reviews, with a Google Ads page, three case studies and a Google Partner claim, all self-published.
- **Agency C**: 4.6 stars from 45 reviews, with no service page, case studies or partner status.

| Agency | Google rating | Weighted rating | Satisfaction (/70) | Track record (/10) | Evidence (/20) | Scout Score |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Agency A | 4.9 from 120 | 4.88 | 65.9 | 9.0 | 11.8 | **86.7** |
| Agency B | 5.0 from 3 | 4.78 | 62.3 | 2.6 | 10.0 | **74.9** |
| Agency C | 4.6 from 45 | 4.63 | 57.2 | 7.2 | 0.0 | **64.4** |

By Scout Score, the order is Agency A, Agency B and Agency C. Agency B’s perfect rating rests on 3 reviews, so it is pulled down to 4.78 stars, and because all of its evidence is self-published it earns 10.0 of the 20 evidence points. Agency A’s verified partner status counts in full: its credentials earn 6.0 of 6 points, where a self-reported claim would earn half.

## 5. Who gets ranked

- An agency qualifies with at least **3 Google reviews**, or with **any verified evidence**. Agencies that don’t qualify still get a profile page and appear in their city’s A to Z directory.
- A ranking page for a service in a city is published only once at least **5 agencies** qualify. Below that, a comparison isn’t meaningful.
- Agencies are ranked only against others in the same city offering the same service. City-wide lists use each agency’s best Scout Score across its services.
- When two agencies have the same score, the one with more reviews goes first, then alphabetical order decides.

## 6. What we don’t do

- We don’t sell positions, badges or “featured” slots in rankings, and we don’t charge to verify evidence.
- We don’t move agencies up or down by hand. Corrections fix data (a wrong address, a service tag, a piece of evidence), not scores.
- We don’t publish agencies’ own marketing copy as our assessment. Summaries are written from the data above.

## 7. Limits of the data

Google reviews measure client satisfaction, not every aspect of an agency’s work, and review profiles can be manipulated. New agencies and those that don’t ask clients for reviews are at a disadvantage, which verified evidence partly offsets. Self-published evidence can overstate an agency’s work; that is why it counts half until it is checked. Treat a ranking as a well-evidenced shortlist, then talk to the agencies. Our ranking pages include questions to ask before you sign.

## 8. Corrections

If a listing or a piece of evidence is wrong, or you run an agency and want it corrected or removed, email [hello@agencyscout.co.za](mailto:hello@agencyscout.co.za) or read [how listings work](https://www.agencyscout.co.za/list-your-agency.md).

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Canonical page: https://www.agencyscout.co.za/methodology. Agency Scout: independent rankings of South African marketing agencies. No paid placements.