When to Outsource Marketing (And When Not To)

Let’s be clear, not all organizations need a marketing agency. But many do. Digital marketing agencies fill vital skills and experience gaps that many in-house teams lack while absorbing taxing workloads or bringing in nuanced perspectives. Growing brands often find themselves at a crossroads, choosing between building an in-house marketing department or outsourcing content marketing or paid media management. While there’s no formula to help you decide, we put together a few reasons to hire a digital marketing agency – and a few reasons not to.

Why Work with a Marketing Agency?

There are some immediate and long-term benefits of outsourcing digital marketing to an agency or a freelancer. Just how beneficial depends on the tangible and intangible differences between your in-house team and the quality of work the vendor delivers, and nothing offsets the costs of working with a bad agency.

Advantages of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

There are several reasons to work with a marketing agency, especially if your organization’s marketing needs are evolving. Younger companies need marketing but often lack the resources to commit to full-time positions in-house, while more established firms need new perspectives and niche skillsets.  

Specialization – Your new intern may have a TikTok account, but that doesn’t make them your go-to social media expert. Marketing agencies have experienced, trained specialists who spend forty hours a week (or more) focused on their marketing specialization. You’ll get higher quality deliverables, informed insights, and a degree of insight your new intern (aka the CEO’s nephew) can’t provide.

Software – Marketing agencies invest in channel-specific research, management, and reporting software. Take search engine optimization; tools like Semrush are significant investments for an in-house team and are often cost-prohibitive for most businesses.

Flexibility – Marketing agency expertise isn’t limited to a single channel, so you get experts from design, development, and content marketing contributing to your work. This is especially valuable when you are investing in a large project, like a website redesign. An agency with SEO and development experience will set you up for success, while a specialized developer may not know the technical SEO aspects of launching a site. Additionally, many agencies offer retainer agreements, which provide a bucket of monthly hours to use however you might need. A retainer lets you pull in a design expert, a writer, or an email expert as needed, instead of trying to have all those roles on staff.

Disadvantages of Using a Marketing Agency

It’s not all green arrows and dollar signs. Marketing agency costs, miscommunication, and other factors complicate the decision to outsource your marketing department.

Cost – The cost of hiring a marketing agency takes a sizeable chunk out of your organization’s marketing budget. Even with a solid return on investment, every dollar spent on marketing agency fees is a dollar that could have been spent somewhere – anywhere – else to grow your business.

Communication – In-house marketing teams are inherently more accountable; they’re a Slack or Teams message away, and you can schedule as many meetings as needed to keep projects or campaigns on track. Effectively, timely communications with an agency can be more challenging, especially if your new agency doesn’t share the same culture, values, or time zone. Miscommunication can lead to poor quality of work, bad results, and strained working relationships.

Accountability – Some agencies fail to take responsibility for the quality and timeliness of their work. Even more frequently, they can’t accurately quantify their impact on your business. Measuring marketing agency ROI is a big factor in determining whether to fill specific marketing roles in-house or outsource content marketing, market research, or other particular responsibilities.

Other risks, such as employee turnover and a lack of market and industry expertise, make working with an agency cumbersome.

Why – and When – to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency

Every organization is different, so the decision to work with an agency depends on many factors. That said, a few common challenges push brands to find the right marketing partner.

You need results – Whether it’s stalled growth or a string of poor campaigns, ineffective marketing is a sign it’s time to hire an agency or marketing consultant.

You need expertise – You have a paid media whiz on staff, but know your email marketing is underperforming. One of the primary benefits of outsourcing digital marketing is channel expertise, bridging skills or experience gaps without overextending your payroll.

You need a hand – This is more common than you think. Agencies often work with motivated, talented in-house marketing teams that can do a bit of everything but can’t quite do it all. Having a marketing retainer or outsourcing specific projects gives your team the space to think creatively and go home on time.

You need a fresh perspective – Working with an agency gives you access to various experiences and talents that bring new ideas and solutions to your marketing challenges. From product launches to rebranding, having that outside-in perspective can unleash new levels of creativity.

You need a strategy – You might have a strong team, but agencies often provide a clear plan that improves results or unlocks new efficiencies. Whether through a series of consultations or an in-depth audit, agencies put your team in a position to succeed.

Digital Marketing Agency vs. Freelancer

Freelancers have always been a part of the marketing ecosystem, but they’re playing an increasingly influential role in how businesses operate in general. Freelancers, like agencies, provide a degree of flexibility to meet changing marketing needs. And just like agencies, freelancers’ professionalism, quality, and accountability run the gambit from ultra-professional to useless. In most cases, however, agencies provide more flexibility, a wider range of skillsets, and built-in processes to keep teams accountable.

If you think you need a digital marketing agency, find one that will propose work you need – and tell you what you don’t, even if that leaves money on the table for them. The most productive partnerships are built on trust; everything else is spreadsheets and Teams meetings.