How To Outsource Digital Marketing: A Complete Guide
If you want your business to succeed, online marketing should be one of your top priorities. But digital marketing can be a lot to handle, so many companies outsource digital marketing.
Outsourcing digital marketing, or hiring someone else to market your business online, can help you reach your goals and grow your company more efficiently.
So, should you manage your marketing in-house or hire a marketing agency? The answer to that question depends mainly on your company’s specific needs. Even so, there are many significant benefits to outsourcing that you should consider.
On this page, we’ll explain everything you need to know about outsourcing digital marketing, including:
What does it mean to outsource internet marketing?
Outsourcing digital marketing involves hiring a third-party expert to help you market your company online. Instead of hiring and maintaining an in-house team, you’ll turn to a digital marketing agency to help you reach your online marketing goals.
A good agency will get to know your business and create custom strategies to help you reach your goals.
8+ benefits of outsourcing digital marketing services
Expert insights from
Nicole ThuemmelWebFX Sr. Web Strategy Consultant
When you hire one person internally, it’s not likely that person has the knowledge across everything in the digital landscape. Even if that person DOES possess that knowledge, do they really have the time in the day/week/year to accomplish your business growth goals? The answer is probably not. A digital marketing agency, on the other hand, can bring you full service resources for the cost of one internal salary.
A large corporation has enough financial resources to employ a professional, in-house marketing team. But for small- to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), that’s usually a much less viable — and useful — option.
Instead, hiring an outside agency to handle your marketing needs is likely in your best interest. Even so, you may hesitate to hire one — what does hiring an agency offer you that an in-house marketing team can’t?
Take a look at some of the many benefits of outsourcing your digital marketing to a professional agency:
One of the most significant benefits an external marketing agency brings is expertise. First, most agencies have been driving marketing results for years, giving them abundant experience that’s hard to beat.
Specialization is also a factor. You may have your own marketing experience, but marketing likely isn’t your sole focus. Agencies, however, center their entire business around digital marketing, giving them a degree of specialized knowledge that’s unmatched.
In some cases, these firms will focus on specific sectors. A franchise marketing agency, for example, will tailor its services to the unique needs, challenges, and key performance indicators (KPIs) of franchises.
When you combine experience and specialization, you get a level of marketing prowess that you’d have a tough time achieving with an in-house team. If you want your online advertising to be in the most capable hands, you should outsource to a marketing agency.
2. Advanced tools and resources
Another reason to outsource digital marketing is that agencies often come equipped with advanced digital marketing tools for managing your campaigns. Whether those tools are paid ad platforms or email management software, they can greatly boost your marketing.
One reason this feature is so advantageous is that many marketing tools cost money. While your business can budget to pay for a few resources, it’s improbable that your budget leaves room for you to purchase as many tools as an agency offers.
The other factor to consider is proficiency. Even if you managed to get all the marketing tools you needed, you may not be intimately familiar with them or have the time to learn everything about them. You could grasp the basics but may not have time to learn how to use those tools to their full potential.
When you outsource to a marketing agency, you get a team that has access to all the right tools and knows exactly how to use them. When it comes to marketing resources, it’s far more beneficial to hire an agency.
Meet MarketingCloudFX:
One platform tracking countless metrics and driving stellar results.
Outsourcing online marketing makes you more likely to end up with a cost-effective campaign. An agency’s increased proficiency allows you to drive more revenue for less cost than if you did your marketing.
When you handle all your marketing in-house, you work with less experience and fewer resources. Under those conditions, mistakes are bound to happen — and since digital marketing requires financial investment, those mistakes will cost you.
A professional agency, on the other hand, knows exactly what they’re doing. They drive marketing results daily, so they know how to avoid the pitfalls you might encounter on your own.
They can also use their expertise to generate a higher return on investment (ROI), meaning you pay less and earn more! Ultimately, partnering with an agency can lead to much higher revenue for your business.
4. Results that matter
When you do all your marketing in-house, it can take far more time than needed. Without a rich background in marketing, you won’t always know exactly what to do, and it may take a long time to figure it all out.
Working with an agency can alleviate that problem. Agencies have gone through the marketing optimization process countless times, so it’s second nature for them to optimize your company’s website and ads. Not only that, but they’ll be able to devote more time to it, meaning they’ll get more work done in less time.
Let’s be clear — marketing can still take time. Results won’t come overnight, and if an agency says it can drive immediate results, that agency isn’t trustworthy. But an agency’s experience can prevent you from dragging the process out far longer than necessary.
5. Larger teams
In-house marketing teams have some disadvantages, but their size is one of the biggest ones. Unless you’re a large-scale corporation, you may only have a few people on your marketing team.
Agencies, on the other hand, often have larger teams — sometimes over 100 people. Having such a large team allows you to accomplish tasks you never could with a smaller group.
With so many more hands on deck, you can afford to give more focus to the details of your campaigns. Rather than one employee handling three different strategies, you can assign each strategy to a separate group of experts who can give it their full attention.
All these experts allow for a broader, more diverse array of viewpoints. Having multiple perspectives on your campaigns can lead to a more robust approach that drives better results.
6. No learning curve
Another reason to outsource digital marketing is that you don’t have to spend time going through the learning process.
If you try to handle your marketing alone, there will inevitably be a learning curve. Even if you have marketing experience, you need to learn more about how strategies work and what campaigns are most effective for your business.
A professional agency won’t have that issue. They’ve managed so many marketing campaigns that they know the best approach to each marketing strategy. When you partner with them, they can set right-to-work driving results.
7. More time
If you have experience with marketing, it can be tempting to think you don’t need the help of an agency. But even if you’re a marketing expert with access to all the right tools, agencies can still offer you something you won’t have on your own: Time.
Marketing is just one component of your business. You can’t afford to spend all your time planning campaigns because you won’t have time to dedicate to other important business matters. With so many responsibilities, you only have so much time for marketing.
If you hire an agency, though, that problem vanishes. Agencies can afford to devote plenty of time to your marketing, leaving you to handle the other aspects of your business. That way, you won’t have to worry about making time for your advertising — they’ll have it covered.
8. Up-to-date digital marketing knowledge
A final benefit of agency partnerships is up-to-date knowledge of marketing trends. If you try to handle your marketing yourself, your marketing knowledge may be fresh when you start, but it can be difficult to keep up with all the constant trends over the years.
Agencies, in contrast, are constantly immersing themselves in the latest marketing trends. Their business revolves solely around the marketing world, so it’s vital for them to know which practices are outdated and which are just coming into style.
Knowing the latest marketing trends is incredibly valuable, as it can help you keep ahead of your competitors and determine which ad formats will be most effective. For that reason, outsourcing online marketing is very much to your advantage.
9. Improve your marketing ROI
The decision to outsource digital marketing can also lead to a higher ROI.
With a team of industry experts behind your campaign, as well as artificial intelligence technology like MarketingCloudFX, your business can drive more traffic, sales, and leads.
When you accomplish that goal, you earn the praise of company decision-makers, plus increased investment in your marketing initiatives. The investment to outsource your marketing can help you launch new strategies across different channels, leading to further gains for your business.
10. Get your campaigns off the ground more quickly
Another benefit of outsourcing your marketing is that you can get started with your new marketing strategies more quickly. To assemble an in-house marketing team, you must spend a good deal of time and energy finding and hiring applicants, and then training them for the job. As a result, it can take a long while to start getting any of your marketing off the ground.
When you outsource, on the other hand, you don’t have that issue. As soon as you hire a marketing agency, you have a fully assembled team ready to dive right into the optimization process. That means you can start driving results right from the get-go!
11. Scale your marketing plan
Scaling is one of the biggest marketing challenges.
It’s often difficult to scale your marketing plan with in-house marketing because you need to find, hire, and train new people. That takes time. Not to mention, bringing more people in-house increases your marketing costs, which can limit your ability to scale your marketing strategy.
For perspective, the average marketing staff member costs $70,000 each year. When you opt to outsource your marketing and hire a marketing firm, however, you can scale your strategy instantly. Full-service agencies like WebFX, for instance, include all the skillsets you need to market your business across channels, from search to social to email.
12. Minimize your overhead
Cost is a critical factor when looking to outsource marketing.
When you compare the costs of in-house marketing teams vs. full-service agencies, you’ll find that agencies offer the more cost-effective option. Compared to in-house marketing teams, which cost around $250,000 per year, marketing agencies typically cost $20,000 to $200,000 per year.
You also gain more flexibility in your costs when you outsource your marketing. When you hire in-house marketers, you accumulate several fixed costs, most notably salary and benefits.
Regardless of the extent of your budget or the success of your marketing results during a given period, you must consistently spend a given amount of money on your employees. When you outsource your marketing, on the other hand, your costs become far more flexible. You can adjust how much you spend based on the plan you choose and the strategies you want to use.
Besides offering a lower price point and flexible costs, your marketing agency will provide all the advantages of outsourcing your marketing. You’ll work with experts, get access to multiple marketing strategies, and receive advanced software to monitor your strategy and track your ROI. So, are you ready to outsource your marketing?
3+ signs it’s time to outsource your marketing
It might be time to outsource marketing if you find yourself struggling to balance your company’s marketing strategy with your normal workload. No matter the industry, a strong marketing strategy is essential for a company’s success.
Even the best business in the world can’t operate without customers.
Attracting new ones is the only way to grow your scope and revenue. That being said, it can be highly stressful for small business owners and understaffed marketing departments. Spending hours coming up with and implementing new ways to attract clients can be frustrating, especially if you aren’t seeing results.
Which leads us to the question: How can you tell if it’s time to outsource online marketing? Here are four signs that hiring an outside agency would be a better use of your resources:
Keep reading to learn more about each sign and help you make your decision!
1. If you’re struggling to keep up with your normal workload, partner with an agency.
The biggest indicator that it’s time to outsource marketing is that the time you spend on marketing is taking away from your ability to do your job. If you’re a business owner, think about why you started your business.
Was it so that you could learn and use marketing skills? Probably not.
Running your business should be your top priority. If you notice that the quality of your products or services is slipping, it’s time to outsource. Although a marketing strategy is important for growth, it can’t make up for a poorly-run business.
If you’re a part of your company’s marketing department, outsourcing your marketing can be an even more difficult decision to make. As someone who works to market a company, you may think that outsourcing marketing means that you aren’t skilled at your job.
The truth is, even the best marketing departments have trouble keeping up with the constantly changing landscape of internet marketing. Outsource some of the work to an agency that specializes in keeping up with those changes and developing new strategies around them.
You will be able to focus on your job and be confident that your marketing is sound.
2. Hire an agency if your marketing strategy isn’t producing results (or you aren’t sure if it is).
The Internet can be one of the most cost-effective ways to attract customers.
Your company’s success with digital marketing depends on your strategy. If you aren’t sure whether or not your online efforts are producing results, it’s time to make a change.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to outsource your marketing. If you’re willing to spend time learning about Google Analytics and monitoring your site, that could be all it takes to figure out which parts of your strategy are working.
That being said, if learning to analyze and adjust your strategy isn’t something you’re willing to do, it’s time to outsource digital marketing. Even the best plans need to be adapted on a regular basis in order to keep up with new developments.
If you simply continue to do what you’ve always done (regardless of the site traffic, leads, and conversions you’re seeing), you are wasting your business’ time and money.
3. Outsource online marketing to keep up with new Internet trends and strategies.
In addition, it’s critical for your business to stay on top of the changes taking place in other forms of digital marketing. As algorithms change, search engines release updates, new marketing platforms emerge, and the ways in which consumers interact with businesses online evolve, simply understanding what is going on can be a challenge in itself.
If you struggle with this, your first step should be signing up for Feedly, or another RSS reader. Add sites and blogs about SEO, marketing, and social media to your feed, and check it daily.
If you outsource online marketing, knowledge of current marketing trends is never a bad thing to have. As you learn about new practices and techniques, it’s important to test out at least a few of them. Not every social platform or PPC campaign will be right for your business. Avoiding them completely could mean missing out on substantial revenue.
If you have a decent-sized internal marketing team, it could be possible to delegate these new tasks as they develop. If you don’t have a team to work with, however, outsourcing marketing may be your best option. Working with marketing professionals who make it their job to keep up with the industry can be a lot easier and cost-effective for your company.
4. If you aren’t able to put your ideas into action, then outsource marketing.
The idea of telling people about your company is probably pretty exciting.
You likely have many ideas that you want to share, and some may even have the potential for campaigns. If you aren’t able to get these messages out to potential clients, outsourcing your marketing might be the right decision.
If you aren’t able to put your ideas into action yourself, a dedicated marketing agency will be able to use them for blog posts, free resources, or campaigns. It can be intimidating to hand the marketing reins over to someone outside of your company.
Especially if you are the type of business owner or marketer who likes to have complete control of your professional image. However, an agency that will work with the existing vision you have can be just the right tool to help you get your ideas out.
The costs of outsourcing internet marketing
So, how much does it cost to hire an agency for social media marketing? That depends. The cost of outsourcing will depend on your marketing tactics, how much you rely on an agency, and — above all — your budget.
This table highlights the overall costs of outsourcing digital marketing:
If you want to find a digital marketing agency, there are different factors you can look for when deciding on the best fit.
Businesses should consider the cost of hiring one employee with one very specific skill set vs. hiring an agency that has a diverse skill set and can fill multiple needs at the same cost. Businesses should also consider the type of agency they partner with. WebFX can pivot based on our client needs and resources, while some agencies are only focused on one area. This flexibility allows for businesses to truly experience a strategic extension of their internal team when working with a team like WebFX.
If the cost seems too good to be true for outsourcing, it likely is. Businesses should always ask an outsourced vendor how the work is complete and detailed questions during the vetting process to ensure it aligns with their internal goals + vision.
Nicole Thuemmel, WebFX Sr. Web Strategy Consultant
Here are a few things to consider when trying to outsource digital marketing:
Cost: Does this agency fit within your budget? Are they flexible in their plans?
Agency experience: How long has this company been around? What do their other clients have to say about their work?
Personality: Does their company culture mesh with yours? Are they easy to talk to and work with?
Capabilities: What services does the company offer? Will you have to work with multiple agencies if you want different digital marketing strategies?
Our digital marketing campaigns impact the metrics that improve your bottom line.
WebFX has driven the following results for clients:
$10 billion
in client revenue
24 million
leads for our clients
7.14 million
client phone calls
Outsource digital marketing to WebFX for top-tier results
Looking for an agency to handle your digital marketing? Choose WebFX! With over 25 years of digital marketing experience and over 500 experts on our team, we know how to optimize your marketing for maximum results.
When you partner with us, you’ll even receive a dedicated account representative to keep you in the loop about everything we do for you. Call us at 888-601-5359or contact us online to get started today!
Outsourced marketing can take a few different shapes. You can outsource only some aspects of your marketing for a hybrid outsourced and in-house approach or use a full-service outsourced marketing agency. When you outsource your marketing to an experienced agency, you have a team of experts working on all your marketing efforts while you have time to focus on your business.
Outsourcing your marketing saves you time and money compared to hiring an in-house team to cover all your marketing strategies. When you use an outsourced marketing team, you are placing your business’s online presence and marketing in the hands of professionals who have likely worked with companies like yours and know where to focus the most energy.
We measure our success by how much we can “WOW” our clients with data-driven marketing that delivers actual, measurable results powered by tech, AI and an entire team of experts who personally work on your campaigns to get you the best results. We have experience in over 200+ industries and generated over $10 billion in revenue for our clients in the past five years.
Depending on the service provider, you can expect to be able to outsource your search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, social media marketing and email marketing. When you partner with a full-service agency such as WebFX, you can have all your marketing needs taken care of under one roof. We offer
