Digital Marketing Pricing: How Much Does Digital Marketing Cost in 2023?
Excited to use digital marketing for your business, but not sure what you should pay for it? We’re here to help! With our digital marketing pricing guide, you can find out what your company should pay when working with an agency or a consultant. Spoiler — the average cost for digital marketing services in 2023 ranges from $2500 to $12,000 per month, $50 to $500+ per hour, and $1000 to $7500 per project for small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs).
The cost of digital marketing in 2023
With the continued growth of digital marketing, it’s no surprise that more businesses want to partner with trusted Internet marketing agencies, like WebFX. The question is, how much should you spend on digital marketing?
That answer depends on several factors exclusive to your business, such as your marketing budget and goals. That is why we’ve created this comprehensive resource for exploring the average cost of digital marketing in 2023.
As you’re reading, keep in mind that every digital marketing price list is different, depending on the agency. The digital marketing costs that we outline are based on a combination of general research and our own pricing.
Ready to learn more about digital marketing pricing? Go ahead and keep reading, or contact us online and chat with one of our award-winning strategists about a custom Internet marketing strategy for your business — you can also give us a ring at 888-601-5359!
What is digital marketing?
The goal of digital marketing is simple — grow your business through online marketing and advertising strategies. These strategies revolve around digital technologies, from search engine optimization to social media marketing and more.
How much should a company spend on digital marketing?
| BUSINESS SIZE | PERCENT OF REVENUE TO SPEND ON MARKETING |
|---|---|
| Small business | 7-8% |
| Mid-sized business | 10% |
| Enterprise business | 15% |
No matter the size of your business, it’s important to research how much you should spend on digital marketing. Digital marketing agency pricing varies, but plenty of agencies claim that they offer extremely cheap rates — and that is what your company needs to look out for looking to hire a marketing firm.
In almost all cases, you get what you pay for in terms of digital marketing services. So “cheap” services often don’t drive the results you want.
That is why it’s critical to set a reasonable digital marketing budget. If you try to make your price range as low as possible, you’ll get what you pay for, unfortunately.
What is a reasonable budget, though?
While several factors influence digital marketing budgets, like the size of your company and the scope of your project, the average digital marketing budget ranges from $30,000 to $145,000 per year for SMBs. Keep in mind that digital marketing is an ongoing strategy, so your budget may change as you grow.
For more guidance, check out this table, which shares the percentage of revenue different industries invest into marketing:
Video: The definition of digital marketing
Learn all about digital marketing, from what it is to how to use it, in this exclusive WebFX video.
3 digital marketing pricing models
When it comes to digital marketing, one of the biggest factors influencing your online marketing costs is the pricing model of your service provider. Agencies, consultants, and freelancers typically offer one of the following models:
Monthly
With the monthly digital marketing pricing model, your business pays a monthly fee to retain your service provider. You’ll often see this pricing model when working with an online marketing company (like WebFX).
Typically, a monthly digital marketing plan will cost $2500 to $12,000 per month for an SMB.
Hourly
With the hourly online marketing pricing model, your business pays an hourly fee to your service provider. In most cases, consultants or freelancers will charge an hourly fee, though some agencies will charge an hourly rate for requests outside your service agreement.
Typically, hourly digital marketing rates range from $50 to more than $500 per hour.
Project-based
With the project-based pricing model, your business pays a flat rate to complete a project, like developing and launching a marketing campaign for a new product. You can work with both consultants and agencies on project-based initiatives.
Typically, project-based digital marketing costs $1000 to $7500 per project.
Keep in mind that the above numbers are only industry averages. Online marketing costs vary and depend on factors unique to your business, especially when referencing project-based or hourly-based work.
What determines digital marketing pricing in 2023?
A variety of factors influence digital marketing service pricing, including:
The agency’s experience
In this industry, it’s beneficial to partner with an experienced digital marketing agency — WebFX, for instance, has more than 25 years of experience. An agency’s experience demonstrates not only their knowledge of digital marketing, but also their ability to achieve client goals.
Due to the value of their expertise, agencies with decades of experience often charge more for their digital marketing services, which makes sense. That experience has value and a direct impact on your digital marketing strategies.
That doesn’t mean that experienced agencies have exorbitant prices — or that inexperienced ones have low prices. It only means that there is a slight price difference between the two, which may range from less than a hundred dollars to a few hundred dollars.
In most cases, though, an experienced agency is worth the extra investment.
Your company’s size
A significant influence on your digital marketing pricing is the size of your company. If you’re a small-to-midsized business (SMB), your digital marketing costs won’t touch the budget of an international corporation.
The size of your business typically influences the type of professional marketing agency you partner with too. The scale of their services and their prices often reflect their target audience, which means it’s unlikely you’d partner with a digital marketing agency that serves the world’s biggest brands.
For your business, as well as Internet marketing strategy, it’s also beneficial to partner with a digital marketing agency that focuses on your specific company size. Our agency, for example, offers tons of expertise when it comes to building strategies for mid-sized businesses.
The strategy’s complexity
In most cases, your digital marketing budget influences how complex your strategies become. If you’re investing a significant amount in an aggressive PPC campaign, for instance, you can expect to have higher digital marketing costs.
Why?
An aggressive strategy requires more work from your digital marketing team — a PPC campaign also requires a bigger spend, as it’s a form of paid advertising. In short, you’re paying more because you’re buying more.
The same concept would apply if you invested in an integrated set of digital marketing strategies. For example, if you invested in SEO and PPC, as well as content marketing and email marketing, you could expect higher digital marketing prices due to the quantity of services.
The agency’s services
Another influence on digital marketing prices is the services offered by an agency. In most cases, a full-service agency features higher rates than agencies that specialize in one or two services. A full-service agency, however, offers perks to coordinate with that higher rate.
By partnering with a full-service agency like WebFX, for example, you can take care of all your digital marketing needs in one place. That saves your business the time and hassle of working with multiple agencies that vary in their processes and deliverables.
Your company’s timeline
While some digital marketing strategies, like SEO, have inflexible timelines, you can expedite others. A web design or web redesign, for example, is a service that an agency could deliver faster — though it comes with an increased digital marketing cost.
When it comes to rapid or expedited services, agencies vary in their prices. Some charge a flat rate or hourly fee for their services. Others, however, base their expedited digital marketing costs on the desired turnaround time.
The agency’s benefits
Because so many factors influence the price of digital marketing, it’s important to consider the unique selling points (USPs) of each agency too. While their USPs may not affect your online marketing costs, they do impact your experience as a client.
For example, you want to partner with an experienced and trusted agency that provides real and tangible results to its clients. That kind of partnership offers assurance to your team and company decision makers that your digital marketing strategy will reach your goals.
That is a core part of our agency’s values.
We see your success as our success, which is why we measure our performance by our client’s results and satisfaction. It shows, too, as we’ve driven more than $3 billion in revenue for our clients — which is why we maintain a client retention rate of 91%.
What to look for when researching digital marketing costs
As you research online marketing’s costs, pay attention to these three critical factors:
- Deliverables: It’s essential that your business knows what it’s paying for — that’s why you want to review an agency’s deliverables before signing with them. Don’t choose an agency that’s vague about what they’ll provide, partner with one that’s upfront about their services.
- Price: A lot of agencies don’t disclose their prices online, which can lead to overpriced quotes and hidden fees. If an agency does publish their prices online, make sure their website’s digital marketing prices align with your custom quote.
- Methods: Cheap digital marketing prices often means the agency follows a “one-size-fits-all” marketing method. That doesn’t lead to the kind of return that digital marketing can offer, which is why you want to choose an agency that values a personalized approach, like WebFX.
As you compare the prices of different agencies, remember to consider their unique USPs.
What do digital marketing services include?
If you’re researching the cost of digital marketing services, you’re probably wondering what they even include. With tons of online marketing channels available, there are plenty of digital marketing services to consider.
A few of the most popular services — due to their results and ROI — include:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO services are a core digital marketing service for businesses today. What is SEO? It refers to an umbrella of strategies for improving your online visibility in search results — in other words, it helps you rank higher in search results.
If you’re a company that manufactures and sells vertical smokers, for example, you’d want to rank on the first page of search results for keywords relevant to your business. A few include, “vertical wood smokers,” “vertical charcoal smokers for sale,” and “vertical electric smoker.”
With 80 percent of consumers relying on search to find products and services, SEO is essential. It’s also extremely beneficial, as search engines have an average close rate of 14.6 percent — meaning almost 15 of the leads you earn from search will convert.
That may not seem like a lot, but it’s eight times more than traditional marketing’s close rate.
If you’d like to use SEO in your strategy, this digital marketing service costs between $350 to $2000 a month, if partnered with a digital marketing agency. For consultants, their hourly rates range from $80 to $200 an hour.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
PPC advertising is another popular digital marketing service. Like SEO, PPC also focuses on your online visibility. Unlike SEO, however, PPC improves your visibility in search results through paid advertisements.
These advertisements appear above organic search results and feature a green-outlined box that says, “Ad.” Unlike traditional advertising, the only time you pay for your ad is when a user clicks on it. This makes PPC a cost-effective option for many businesses.
On average, businesses make $2 for every $1 they invest in PPC — if you use Google Ads for your PPC campaign, that return on investment (ROI) increases to $8. That’s an impressive return, and one you can use to reinvest in your digital marketing or your day-to-day operations.
If your SMB would like to invest in PPC, you can expect to pay $9000 to $10,000 per month.
Content marketing
Content marketing offers an astounding ROI — it earns 54 percent more leads than traditional marketing — making it an asset to your digital marketing strategy. Content marketing improves your brand awareness, conversions, and revenue through user-friendly content.
That content can include everything, from guides to blog posts to infographics. While different in their appearance, each type of content provides users value. A blog post, for example, may offer guidance on how to clean a BBQ smoker, while a guide may include a list of recipes to try.
Like SEO, content marketing is an ongoing strategy.
While it can double your website’s conversions, it doesn’t happen overnight.
That’s why, when considering online marketing’s cost, you need to think about the duration of those services. For content marketing to work, you need to produce quality content on a routine basis, as well as continue to optimize it. If you make it a one-time investment, you won’t’ see the results you expect.
That is why it’s essential to partner with a trusted agency for your digital marketing services, like WebFX. We can explain our different Internet marketing services in-depth, as well as provide guidance on which services offer the most value to your business.
If you’re interested in content marketing, pricing for this digital marketing service depends on the size of your business. For SMBs, the average cost is $1000 to $20,000 a month — larger businesses often exceed that rate.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is a digital marketing service that continues to grow in popularity. This service focuses on increasing your online presence, brand awareness, and brand loyalty — benefits that can all lead to increased conversions and company revenue.
For businesses today, social media offers a massive opportunity. Only 26 percent of companies use social media in their business strategy, providing your company with an easy opening for touting your USPs.
If you invest in a competitive social media strategy, your business can offer more value to users. You can respond to questions and comments, for example, and even help users access their account or make a purchase through a chatbot, which is a feature available on Facebook.
Even if you’re a business-to-business (B2B) operation, social media marketing is valuable. Just through Facebook, more than 40 percent of B2B marketers have earned clients. Overall, 80 percent of B2B leads from social media come from LinkedIn.
If you’re considering social media marketing, pricing for this digital marketing service is between $900 to $20,000 per month. The most influential factors on social media marketing costs are the number of social networks, which can range from one to five, and the preferred ad spend.
Email marketing
One of the most cost-effective and time-tested digital marketing services is email marketing. This service also focuses on building brand awareness and brand loyalty, which lead to increased conversions and sales.
That is why email marketing offers an unparalleled ROI of $44 for every $1 invested.
It’s essential to partner with an experienced digital marketing agency for that kind of return. WebFX, for instance, offers more than 25 years of experience. We also feature an email marketing platform, EmailMarketingFX, for maximizing your results.
The best part about email marketing is that it also coordinates with other digital marketing services. If you’re investing in email, content, and video marketing, for instance, you can repurpose your videos and content to use in your email marketing campaign.
If you’re interested in email marketing, pricing for this digital marketing service is between $300 to $2500 a month. Some additional factors that can influence the price of email marketing include email design, as well as the number of monthly emails.
Voice search optimization
A digital marketing service that’s growing in demand is voice search optimization. This service focuses on earning the featured snippet for keywords relevant to your company and audience. While featured snippets appear in regular search results, they’re critical to voice search.
Why?
Because voice assistants, like Siri and Amazon Echo, use the featured snippet to answer a voice search. If someone asks, “how often should you clean your gutters,” for example, voice assistants would respond with the featured snippet shown below.
With almost 50 percent of adults using voice search each day, this service is becoming more valuable to companies. Like social media marketing, investing in voice search optimization can set your business apart from your competitors and allow you to connect with new consumers in your target audience.
If you’re interested in optimizing your content for voice search, pricing for this digital marketing service ranges from $600 to $2000 a month.
Video marketing
Another service that can influence digital marketing’s pricing is video marketing. This service is like content marketing, as video marketing increases brand awareness, conversions, and sales by creating valuable and informational content for users.
Like content marketing, video marketing is also an ongoing strategy. Investing in it can improve your conversions by more than 85 percent. That can lead to new leads and clients, which increases your revenue.
With video marketing, you can also improve your overall digital marketing strategy. If you have a content marketing strategy, for example, you can create videos to complement your content. A how-to, for instance, could feature instructional text and video.
If you’re considering video, this digital marketing service costs between $1200 to $50,000. The price of video marketing often depends on the scope of the project, which is why it has such a wide price range.
Web design
Web design is one service that businesses often overlook when investing in digital marketing. Your website, however, has a significant influence on the success of your Internet marketing strategy. It can impact your rankings in search results, as well as the first impression of users.
A brand-new website — or website redesign — also offers a noteworthy ROI. For example, if you invest in user experience (UX) testing, you can expect a $100 return for every $1 you invest. The best part about that statistic? More than 85 percent of shoppers are happy to pay for a better user experience.
In most cases, web design is a one-time investment.
It’s essential, however, that your business maintains that investment, which is where website maintenance comes into use. That is why you want to plan for this expense in your company’s overall budget.
If you’re looking into web design, the price of this digital marketing service ranges from $5000 to $15,000 for a custom website and $300 to $1000 for a customizable website from a template. For website maintenance, costs range from $50 to $2000 a month.
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“We measure our success by how much we WOW our clients.”
Bill Craig
WebFX President
5 reasons to use digital marketing
For businesses today, there are plenty of reasons to invest in digital marketing, including these five:
1. Digital marketing grows your business
Over the next four years, analysts predict the digital marketing industry will grow more than 10 percent — each year. That growth of more than 45 percent demonstrates not only the value of digital marketing services but also their ability to drive results.
With a range of services that provide an impressive return on investment (ROI), digital marketing can expedite your company’s growth. That continuous growth offers your business the chance to achieve its biggest goals, from expanding into a new area to creating more jobs for your local community.
2. Digital marketing increases your revenue
With digital marketing services, you can earn an impressive ROI and boost your long-term revenue. With ongoing strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), your business can continue to reach more customers and earn more revenue online.
That being said, you’ll want to invest in a competitive strategy to drive the best results. That’s why it’s critical for your company to partner with a trusted and experienced digital marketing agency, like WebFX.
3. Digital marketing boosts your brand awareness
By investing in digital marketing strategies long-term, your business can increase brand awareness — and even brand loyalty — of your clients and target audience. A few examples of digital marketing services that boost brand awareness and loyalty include content marketing and social media marketing.
How do content marketing and social media marketing build brand awareness?
Each service focuses on offering your target audience value, whether by creating original content that answers user questions or by engaging users across social platforms. These are digital marketing services that prioritize the experience and interests of users.
By focusing on your clients, rather than your sales goals, you improve your online brand. That reputation can build loyalty among shoppers, encouraging them to choose and stick with your company for the long-term. Their commitment later contributes to your sales goals.
While brand awareness doesn’t deliver immediate results like other digital marketing services, such as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, it does bring results in the long-term. Those results can include increased conversion and lead generation rates, which have a direct impact on your bottom line.
4. Digital marketing expands your market share
Another reason why businesses invest in digital marketing? It increases your market share, which influences your company’s growing revenues and industry leadership. With a bigger market share, you can accomplish some of your most ambitious goals.
A few digital marketing services that can contribute to increasing your market share include email marketing, as well as video marketing. With these services, you can connect with consumers in every stage of your buying funnel, which can encourage them to choose your business when buying.
For example, email marketing generates 50 percent more sales than any other lead generation method. Video marketing, meanwhile, improve conversions by more than 85 percent. In addition, 90 percent of consumers credit video for helping them make a purchase decision.
The ability of these services to drive sales and conversions help grow your revenue and market share.
5. Digital marketing keeps your business competitive
Whether your business operates offline or online, it’s a competitive market. That is why digital marketing is critical to companies today. If you want to reach your target audience, increase your revenue, and boost your brand awareness, then you need to invest in digital marketing.
With our hands-on account managers, as well as proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) software, we’ll build a digital marketing strategy that maximizes your online presence and achieves those hard-to-reach goals. With a better online presence, you keep your business competitive in a tough market.
If you’re ready to take advantage of the benefits of digital marketing, contact our award-winning strategists — you can contact us online or by phone at 888-601-5359 — to start building your custom, results-driven strategy.
Digital marketing services from WebFX
At WebFX, we’re a full-service digital marketing agency that provides a suite of integrated services:
- SEO
- PPC
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
- Video marketing
- Voice search optimization
- And more!
We also match your unique needs by offering different tiers for each of our digital marketing services. Plus, we publish our prices online, which makes it easy for you to research the costs of our digital marketing services.
The best part is that we design our digital marketing services to provide your business the best ROI. With our proprietary ROI-tracking software, MarketingCloudFX, it’s also easy to check your return in real-time.
Better yet, IBM’s advanced AI software, Watson, powers MarketingCloudFX.
The result? Actionable insight into your digital marketing strategy, leading to smarter approaches and bigger returns.
Ready to take the next step?
Want to see what digital marketing can do to your company’s bottom line?
With WebFX, you can start seeing real results from your digital marketing strategy. Our dedicated and hands-on account managers will develop a competitive and personalized strategy for your business, leading to more calls, purchases, and revenue for your business. Whether you’re looking to market your orthopedic center, manufacturing business, or ecommerce store, our experienced team can help you succeed.
Get your free custom quote today by contacting us online or giving us a ring at 888-601-5359!
