In-House vs. Agency Marketing: What’s Best for Your Business?
Ahsan Zakir
Top 5% Upwork Digital Marketer & WordPress Designer | Meta | Google | Elementor Expert
If you’re the owner of a new or growing business, chances are you’ve been wearing a lot of hats, marketing included. You know you are supposed to develop a marketing strategy, write content for your website, have an active social media presence, work with influencers in your market, and run ads—but it’s starting to take up all of your time.
You know it’s time for some help—but what does that look like?
Two traditional options are building an in-house marketing team, or signing a contract with a digital marketing agency .
In-house marketing involves assembling a team of skilled creatives that work for your company. They’ll focus on marketing activities for your company, but you can still be involved in both the development of campaigns, as well as day-to-day marketing operations and decisions.
Agency marketing is the process of hiring an outside marketing firm to strategize, develop, and execute your marketing campaigns. You’ll still give input into the overall direction of marketing campaigns and goals, but it’s a much more hands-off process than building an in-house team.
The best course of action here depends on your marketing needs, budget, and desire for involvement. Let’s take a closer look at what is entailed in hiring an in-house marketing team vs. finding an agency. We’ll cover:
In-house marketing basics
In-house marketing starts with assembling a team of marketing professionals, each with different skill sets. When you first build a team, you may want to hire one or more of the following:
It could also be helpful to hire a videographer and photographer to help you make engaging social media marketing content.
As your marketing initiatives expand and your company grows, you’ll most likely need to hire more marketing team members with additional skill sets or bring in independent marketing professionals to help on specific projects.
You may sometimes hear the term “in-house agency” used when describing a marketing team. While it contains the word ‘agency,’ this is just another way to refer to an in-house marketing department. Agency marketing, as we’ll discuss below, is different.
In-house marketing: pros and cons
One of the biggest benefits of building an internal marketing department is that they’re prioritizing your company’s projects. This means that they have more adaptability than some agencies, and it may be fairly easy for the team to pivot if your marketing needs change.
You can also be very involved in the marketing process when working with an in-house team. As a small business owner, you’ll probably be a part of selecting and hiring your team. You can also work directly with the team, track progress in real time, and provide input into how projects evolve.
On the flip side, though, building an in-house team can be expensive .
According to Payscale , the average U.S. salary for a web designer is $53,342 per year. A social media manager makes an average of $54,446 per year. And project managers command an average of $77,468. This is just base pay—you may also need to offer other benefits, like paid time off and healthcare.
Hiring a team typically takes a while, too. According to CNBC and LinkedIn, it can take as long as 40 days to hire for a marketing role .
Who can benefit from building an in-house marketing team?
If your digital marketing strategy includes a need for new marketing materials and messaging, then an in-house marketing team may make sense—if you can afford it.
If hiring a full team isn’t in your budget, or you foresee your brand consistently using the same marketing materials, then agency marketing may be a better fit for you.
Agency marketing basics
Agencies are a longstanding business model in the world of marketing and advertising . Using agency marketing services gives you access to a complete team of professionals without going through the hiring process, and without the added stress of managing a team yourself.
You can go to an agency with a goal—such as “promote my company’s grand opening”—and they’ll develop a marketing plan to help you achieve it. This might include strategy, public relations, marketing campaign development, and more.
You’ll typically liaise with an account manager or project manager who communicates your needs to the rest of the agency team.
Agency marketing: Pros and cons
A full service marketing agency will handle every aspect of your marketing efforts. This could include building a landing page, setting up pay-per-click (PPC) ads, writing content, and scheduling social media posts.
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If the needs of your project change, the agency can add or remove resources as needed. This can include access to marketing experts and specialized marketing tools that your company may not be able to justify buying on its own.
Because the agency takes care of everything, though, you might not get much insight into, or control over, how your marketing strategy is executed. Working with an agency is likely to be a much more hands-off experience for you as the business owner than it would be to hire your own in-house marketing team.
Your company probably isn’t the agency’s only client, either. Because the agency team is working on many projects at once, they may not be able to meet tight deadlines with little notice. There may also be additional charges incurred if you, as the client, change the direction of the project.
Who can benefit from working with a marketing agency?
In-house vs. agency marketing: The differences
Traditional in-house marketingAgency marketingYour time spent searchingWeeks to monthsAs little as one dayWho builds the team?Your companyThe agencyWho is the team focused on?Just your brandMultiple companiesAssociated costsOnboarding, pay, benefits, equipmentAgency feesTurnaround timesQuick; days to weeks depending on team workloadMay be days to months depending on agency client loadBest forBrands with evolving marketing needsBrands with consistent marketing needsAdditional benefitsAbility to pivot quickly; can scale team up over time if neededCan bring in specialized resources and equipment as neededPotential drawbacksTime to hire, expense of building a year-round in-house teamChanges to requests may result in longer lead times, additional fees
How to decide between in-house and agency marketing
Before you pursue the traditional routes of hiring an in-house marketing team or signing with an agency, ask yourself the following questions.
Do you need your marketing team in one physical location?
If you need your marketing team in a singular physical location, then you may need to build an in-house department or look for an agency in your town.
However, if you’re open to working with remote teams, you can expand your search for in-house marketing pros, work with agencies around the world, and explore alternatives to traditional hiring .
What’s your company’s marketing budget?
Create a detailed business case and be realistic with yourself about how much money you can spend on marketing. Hiring a traditional in-house team means paying your team year-round, and can include both paychecks and benefits.
If you aren’t sure if you can support the cost of hiring an in-house team, then you may want to price out agency contracts. While you will need to pay the agency for your work, you can then take the deliverables you receive and continue to use them until you’re ready for a refresh. (That is, of course, if such a strategy aligns with your overall marketing goals.)
What are your company’s marketing goals?
You want to have clear marketing goals before signing an agency contract or building an in-house team. This way, you’ll know if you need new marketing collateral on a regular basis, or if you can use an agency to support specific events and launches.
Assessing your marketing goals should also entail evaluating what channels you plan to use in your marketing. This could include:
The types of marketing channels you plan to use will influence the skills you need on your in-house team or the type of agency you work with.
An alternative to traditional in-house and agency marketing
There’s an alternative to traditional in-house team building and outsourcing to large marketing agencies: tapping into the world of independent talent.
When you turn to independent, remote talent for your marketing needs you gain:
Through Upwork, you can hand-pick individual talent to build a team of trusted pros or work with a remote agency helmed by an experienced independent professional.
How Upwork helps you find the right marketing team
Whether you want to work with a digital agency for one project or need skilled experts to join your startup as part of a remote in-house team, Upwork can help.