How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency: 5 Proven Steps for Your 2024 Search

What to expect from this guide

This guide provides a trusted resource for:

• Understanding what digital marketing companies do
• Learning how to select a digital marketing agency
• Finding some of the best digital marketing firms
• Getting answers to the most common questions about outsourcing marketing

Dive in now to start your search!

3 questions to ask before choosing a digital marketing agency

Use these questions to ensure it’s time to start finding a digital marketing agency:

1. What will a digital marketing company do for us? An experienced digital marketing service provider will help develop, implement, and manage an omnichannel marketing strategy that grows the business’s key metrics.
2. What are the benefits to hiring an agency vs. an in-house team? The biggest benefits are improving performance and optimizing costs. Agencies provide access to seasoned experts at rates that are 40-85% less than a three-person team.
3. How much will outsourcing our marketing cost? Digital marketing agencies cost $2500 to $10,000+ per month, though this amount varies depending on the number of services, the agency’s experience and location, and the strategy’s scale.

If the above answers align with allotted budgets and expectations, then start the search!

How to choose a digital marketing agency

Learn how to choose a digital marketing agency based on our 25+ years of experience:

1.      Create a project hub

Finding a digital marketing company is a multi-step process. Make the process easier with a project hub. This hub will provide you (and any other stakeholders) with a trusted spot for adding updates, storing resources, or reviewing progress.

Your hub should compile key project details like:

• Stakeholders
• Deadlines
• Project status
• Budget
• Project goals
• Agency requirements
• Agencies
• Agency quotes and/or proposals

You don’t have to complete all these fields now. Instead, focus on establishing the stakeholders and the timeline for hiring a digital marketing company. You’ll learn more about setting project goals and a budget below!

2.      Define goals and objectives

Next, outline the goals and objectives for hiring a digital marketing company.

In most cases, businesses will have goals specific to the digital channel (like search or paid), as well as objectives specific to the organization (like lead quality or revenue growth). For the best results, create digital marketing goals that support your organization’s objectives.

Check out the examples below for some inspiration:

While some businesses will develop specific goals, like “Generate 10% more leads in 6 months,” to present to agencies, it’s ok not to have these goals. Agencies are problem-solvers, and it’s common for brands to approach agencies with a problem to solve vs. a metric to meet.

Agencies are problem-solvers, and it’s common for brands to approach agencies with a problem to solve vs. a metric to meet.

The best digital marketing companies will develop strategies to solve these problems and goals for measuring their success. This setup lets businesses leverage the expertise of digital marketing firms while also providing input on what will make the partnership a success.

3.      Outline requirements

One of the most important steps when choosing a digital marketing agency is outlining your requirements. In our experience, businesses have the most success with this step when they categorize their requirements into the following buckets:

• Must have: These are non-negotiable for a successful partnership.
• Should have: These are important, but not essential for picking an agency.
• Could have: These are nice, but not as important or essential as the other factors.

Below is an example:

Ask stakeholders for their input, too.

Stakeholders in digital marketing projects range from marketing to IT to finance, so it’s vital to get their input before taking the time to research and meet with agencies. Stakeholders should share the “why” behind the requirement so you can better understand their needs.

Tip: Add these requirements to your project hub for easy access when comparing agencies!

4.      Finalize marketing budget

Too many businesses start the search for a digital marketing agency without a budget.

Experienced digital marketing firms will ask this question to determine if they’re a good fit, so it’s essential to have an estimated budget. It’s also important to have a realistic budget. Most digital marketing services cost $2500+ per month.

At WebFX, we’ve done extensive research into how much digital marketing costs for strategies like:

Besides the above data points, consider how much businesses spend on marketing overall:

Think about the requirements from the previous step, too.

Do the requirements create the need for a lager digital marketing budget, for example? If they do, outline the cause-and-effect so leadership can understand why the allocated budget needs increased.

5.      Compile potential agencies

Next, find digital marketing agencies to consider, like through:

• Stakeholders
• Professional network
• Reputable review and/or rating sites
• Search engines like Google or Bing

Remember to focus on creating a list of potential agencies.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are powerful, and it’s common for businesses to get a recommendation and contact that single agency vs. getting quotes from multiple companies and comparing their options.

Add potential agencies to your project hub and cross-reference their capabilities with your requirements from earlier. In most cases, certain requirements will require contacting the digital marketing provider (if they make your shortlist).

6.      Create a shortlist of top picks

Now, refine that initial list of agencies into a shortlist of top picks. Focus on the agencies that meet all or most of your must-have requirements. These companies are most likely to meet your and your stakeholders’ needs.

You can build a qualified shortlist by considering factors like the following:

Document your findings in your project hub for your and your stakeholder’s reference.

7.      Interview the top digital marketing agencies

Next, start the interview process with your top digital marketing agencies. Since some stakeholders will need to get involved in this stage, consider limiting the number of firms to the first three to five agencies.

Most digital marketing companies will start the interview process with a phone or video call. You’ll get asked some questions (and have the chance to ask some) to see whether the agency is a good fit for your project.

For example, agencies will often ask about your:

• Budget
• Objectives, goals, or problems
• Duration, like for a short- or long-term partnership
• Timeline, or when you’re looking to get started

You can also take this time to ask some initial questions from requirements, like:

• How much is the required minimum spend?
• Do you have experience with our content management system (CMS)?
• Can you work without site access?

What happens next depends on your project and the agency.

Reputable agencies that don’t fit your project will tell you. In some instances, they’ll provide recommendations for other firms to consider. If that happens, research the agency and add it to your project hub!

If the agency is a good fit, they’ll proceed with creating a custom proposal that includes:

• Deliverables
• Pricing
• Contract

You’ll often meet with the digital marketing company again to discuss the proposal. This meeting is a fantastic time to loop in key stakeholders and ask additional questions about the agency and its services, processes, and pricing.

Questions we recommend asking include the following:

• Do you work with my direct competitors?
• How much of my time will you need ongoing?
• What do you need from me to be effective?
• When should I expect to see results?
• Can you provide client references from my industry?

Your project hub can be a great place to store these questions (and the agency’s answers).

8.      Select a digital marketing company

Now, start comparing agencies.

A few initial steps to this process include:

• Eliminating agencies that do not meet all must-have requirements
• Reviewing the deliverables and pricing
• Getting a legal review of the contract (if applicable)

Meet with stakeholders to review the options and get feedback on their preferred agency. In some instances, teams are universal in their preferred digital marketing firm — in others, they’re not, which will require some compromise.

Use the requirements from earlier to compromise with teammates.

Here is where those categorizations come into use. You’ve marked what is must have, should have, and could have, and those categories can make choosing between two agencies easier by focusing on what is most valuable to you and your stakeholders.

After deciding which digital marketing firm to hire, contact them to get started!

How to start working with a digital marketing agency

Congrats! You’ve learned how to pick a digital marketing agency. Now, finish with some tips on how to start working with a digital marketing service provider and making the partnership a success for your organization:

1. Inform internal stakeholders: Alert stakeholders about the selection and expected start date. Your stakeholders can complete additional steps, like arranging payment, providing tools access (like Google Analytics 4), and anything else needed.
2. Share brand guidelines: Make getting started easy for your digital marketing provider by sharing brand guidelines, company standards, wikis, and any other relevant documentation. In some cases, agencies will provide a questionnaire to complete.
3. Block time: Set aside time for onboarding. This time can include compiling resources, completing questionnaires, setting up access, or meeting with the agency to discuss recommendations.

Choose the digital marketing agency with a 93% client satisfaction rate

With decades of experience, plus award-winning talent and tech, WebFX is a trusted digital marketing service provider. Discover how our digital marketing services deliver bottom-line growth (and a 93% satisfaction rate) by contacting us online today for a custom proposal!