Guide
How to find digital marketing and advertising RFPs
This page is AI-assisted content. Counts, codes, and source rules come from this site's listings and source code.
A digital marketing RFP, a government advertising RFP, and other marketing RFPs for agencies are public notices for campaign, media, or search work. They show up on SAM.gov, on a state procurement portal, and on a city or county bid board. The title may say advertising, media buying, public relations, or consulting, or the notice may carry a code instead.
AgencyBids reads SAM.gov, the NYC City Record dataset, and the LA County open-bid RSS. It does not crawl every state portal or city board. Counts below come from listings stored in this project.
SAM.gov
SAM.gov is the federal contract system. Open Contract Opportunities. Search digital marketing, advertising, media buying, public relations, or social media. Then search one NAICS code. This project calls the Opportunities API at https://api.sam.gov/opportunities/v2/search. It does not scrape sam.gov HTML.
Each run searches 541511 plus one of 541810, 541430, 541613, 512110. The extra code changes with the UTC day and with whether the run is before or after 18:00 UTC. A non-federal key can be limited to about 10 requests a day, so the job does not search every code every time. Awards, inactive notices, and past deadlines are dropped.
Of the six codes below, this job searches 541810 and 541613. It does not send 541820, 541830, 541850, and 541890. A notice under an unsent code is missing here even when it is open on SAM.gov. 541511 is kept only when the title or description matches a keyword. One ncode cannot carry five codes: a five-code search returned HTTP 200 with totalRecords 0. Search one code, then the next.
State procurement portals
State agencies post on their own system. This site does not crawl them. Search digital marketing, advertising, media buying, public relations, and social media. A commodity field may be NIGP, not NAICS. If there is no NAICS box, search the title words.
These official sites are examples:
- California Cal eProcure
- New York State Contract Reporter
- Texas Electronic State Business Daily. The page says you can view solicitations without signing in.
- Florida Vendor Information Portal. It posts state advertisements.
Other states keep their own purchasing site.
City and county bid boards
Start at the government's purchasing page. It names the board, and it says whether a free account is required to open the documents.
New York City publishes Current Solicitations on NYC Open Data, dataset 3khw-qi8f: NYC Open Data current solicitations. Rows must still be due, and the title or first description must contain a fixed phrase. The marketing phrases are digital marketing, social media, and search engine. It does not ask for advertising, public relations, and media buying on their own.
Los Angeles County publishes an RSS of open solicitations: the LA County open bid feed. The job reads that document and does not open bid pages. Advertising on its own is not a keyword.
Some cities post on PlanetBids. Some counties post on Bonfire and ask for NIGP codes at registration, so a NAICS search there will not run. Use the board named on the purchasing page.
Schools usually post on their own purchasing page. This site does not crawl those pages. One stored notice is "DIGITAL MARKETING SERVICES" from City University on NYC City Record. That is a row from an existing feed, not a separate campus crawler.
NAICS codes for advertising and marketing
Federal notices often include a six-digit NAICS code. The titles below are the official 2022 Census titles, defined in the 2022 NAICS manual. Search one code at a time. Local rows here often have no code, so keywords keep those.
- 541810 (Advertising Agencies): creating a campaign and placing it in media.
- 541613 (Marketing Consulting Services): marketing plans and strategy. Consulting, not the buy.
- 541820 (Public Relations Agencies): public relations campaigns.
- 541830 (Media Buying Agencies): buying time or space and reselling it.
- 541850 (Indoor and Outdoor Display Advertising): billboards, transit, and other display ads.
- 541890 (Other Services Related to Advertising): other advertising services, not the industries above.
This site also maps 541840, 541860, 541870, and 541910 to digital marketing. Those codes are not in the SAM.gov rotation.
The digital marketing category matches: digital marketing, social media, content marketing, content strategy, paid media, email marketing, marketing campaign. A mapped code such as 541810 adds the category even when the title is vague. One stored digital marketing notice is "Opportunity to collaborate with school administration" from Navsup Flt Log Ctr Norfolk, Dept Of Defense on SAM.gov, NAICS 541613. A code on the cover can disagree with the title, so read the notice before you treat it as a campaign.
SEO
SEO has no NAICS code here. The SEO category matches: seo, search engine optimization, search engine. NYC asks for "search engine" in the title or first description. For a site or UX rebuild, read How to find website design RFPs. A campaign with a landing page can match both. Bid the statement of work.
Qualify a bid quickly
Read the official notice before you write. Summaries on this site are short and AI-assisted. The source link sets the scope, the deadline, and the rules.
Check the due date first, including questions due sooner. The fit score adds 10 when the deadline is at least 14 days out. The homepage marks a notice due soon inside 14 days. A blank date does not mean you may respond later. A campaign with a term and channels is one project. An as-needed pool is a vendor list. As-needed notices in the stored list: DBH77c, DBH77b, and DBH77a from Beaches and Harbors (LA County bids).
The fit score runs from 1 to 100 and starts at 35. A strong title adds 25. A mapped NAICS code adds 20, and 541511 does not. A second category adds 10. It is a hint, not a recommendation to bid. Sources sought is market research. A request for proposals asks for an offer. Set-asides, place, and insurance are in the notice. Price is shown only when the notice publishes a number. None of the notices in the stored list publish a contract amount, so no dollar total is shown. If the statement of work does not match the code, bid the work.
Red flags
Spec work asks for a campaign concept or sample creative before award and lets the buyer use it without pay. Past work samples are normal. Producing the campaign for free is not. A full campaign due inside 14 days is a short timeline. A title can say marketing and still be surplus sales or software. Skip it when the notice is not a campaign, a media buy, public relations, or search work for an audience.
Use the lists on this site
Open the digital marketing category and the SEO category. The stored list has 7 notices, 2 in digital marketing and 0 in SEO, across 4 states. By source: 2 from SAM.gov, 1 from NYC City Record, and 4 from LA County bids.
Browse the current feed. The free digest is one email a week after you confirm. Browsing stays free. The pricing page puts that email next to Pro alerts. The form on this page joins the digest.
Get marketing RFPs in the weekly email
One email a week after you confirm. Digital marketing is included with the other categories. Browsing the current feed stays free. Pro alerts are on the pricing page.