Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency vs. In-House Digital Marketing [Pros & Cons]

When it comes to digital marketing for your company, you have two choices: hire an in-house manager to work with your company, or find an agency to manage your campaigns for you. But how do you know which is right for your business?

As a digital marketing agency ourselves, we clearly believe working with an agency is the way to go. However, there is a case to be made in hiring someone specifically to do in-house marketing, and you should consider the pros and cons of each option before trusting your digital marketing strategy with just anyone.

Priority #1: Your marketing needs are the main focus when you have an in-house manager working on your campaigns. You never have to wonder how much time is really being spent on your marketing.

Immediate turnaround time: When you have an in-house marketer, his/her sole job is to work on your campaigns at all times. So when you want something on your website changed immediately, it can be done in minutes.

Brand representation: Who better understands your company’s vision than someone who works for the company? An in-house digital marketing manager will have a thorough understanding of your brand because they are part of the team.

Social media expert: In-house marketers typically focus more on social media engagement than agencies do. If your aim is to increase followers and likes—something that doesn’t typically yield an ROI, but can increase brand identity—an in-house marketer is the way to go.

Less cost-efficient: Paying an employee’s salary on top of the costs that accompany digital marketing ends up being a lot of money. The average salaryof a digital marketing manager is $72,000 per year, so instead of paying a fraction of the price to hire a digital marketing agency, you end up paying thousands more for someone to work in your office.

Lack of marketing expertise: In the digital marketing industry, the best of the best usually work for an agency. So, when it comes to hiring someone to do marketing for your company, they’ll have to be a jack-of-all-trades (and master of none) in order to tackle all aspects of digital marketing. On the other hand, agencies have specialists in each area.

No creativity: Only doing marketing for one brand can make it difficult to be creative all the time. You might not end up with the best results if there’s a lack of creativity. With an agency, however, they work on several projects at once, which allows for a fresh perspective.

Team of professionals: When you hire an agency to manage your digital marketing efforts, you get an entire team of professionals working on your strategy. From a PPC manager to a web developer, every person at an agency is specialized in certain areas of digital marketing. So, you can rest assured knowing that your strategies are in the hands of experts.

Industry-related tools: Digital marketing agencies have access to plenty of tools and apps that not everyone else has the resources to use. Many of these tools give you insight into the analytics behind your efforts and help campaign managers figure out where to make adjustments.

Immediate results: Since digital marketing agencies are full of industry experts, they can recommend the best methods to help you see results quickly. Whether you want to get into paid ads or simply want to boost your organic SEO presence, they’ll have suggestions on how to achieve the results you’re looking for.

Cost-effectiveness: As mentioned earlier, hiring a digital marketing manager isn’t cheap. When you work with an agency, you’ll get a lot more people working on your campaigns for a lot less money.

Divided attention: Working with a digital marketing agency means you have to accept that you aren’t the only client they have. They won’t be working on your marketing projects 24/7, but rather, keeping an eye on things and making changes when necessary.

Time to understand your business: For someone who isn’t an employee of your company, it might take some time to really understand your business. From getting the right tone down to finding the right keywords and locations to target, it’ll take a bit of practice for a digital marketing agency to become familiar with your brand.

Obviously, we are big advocates of working with a digital marketing agency (specifically, Locallogy ) when it comes to your online presence. But the reality is, many companies choose to hire an in-house marketing manager because they believe it’s what’s best for them. Before you make a decision one way or the other, make sure you weigh the pros and cons of each option and choose what works best for your business.