If you want to grow your audience, you have to meet them online. We know that for a lot of businesses and companies, internal resources are limited. This is why you’ll want to learn how to hire the right marketing agency. Let us help you!
Our team saw just how important a solid online presence is when we first learned how to start an agency and made Slam Media Lab a reality! Now, we dedicate our time to helping people like you achieve their goals by showing them how to elevate their digital presence and win online.
As a leading Web design agency in San Francisco, we specialize in making brands come to life. We grew into a $2M business in the span of three years due to the hard work and dedicated expertise from our founder, Silvia Li Sam. Our success has allowed us to help startups, nonprofits, Fortune 500 companies, and everyone in between grow, too.
Whether you want to learn more about brand strategy and identity, content writing and strategy, SEO, Webflow design and development, or all the above, you can count on our experts to be there with the right knowledge and the best tools and resources.
Our Webflow SEO experts are dedicated to providing meaningful results for all our clients, ranging from venture capital firms like Worklife Ventures to nonprofits like Prepared to Teach. (Check out the rest of our case studies for yourself!)
We’re uniquely qualified to help all types of businesses with their marketing needs no matter the scope, and we’re ready to put our skills to work for you! That said, we’re not here to sell ourselves—or at least, that’s not the only reason we’re here.
We want to show you why you should learn how to hire a good marketing agency as well as walk you through the steps of how to find a good marketing agency and ensure the hiring process is as smooth as possible! Let’s dive in.
Why Should You Learn How to Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?
When it comes to marketing your business, there are a few avenues to explore: handling all your marketing in-house, finding a good marketing agency to do it for you, or a little bit of both. The right choice is wholly dependent on you, but there are clear advantages and setbacks to each option. Let’s take a closer look at them, so you can have a better idea about which is the right path for you.
Having an In-House Marketing Team
Your first option is to handle all your marketing endeavors with an in-house marketing team. An in-house marketing team exists solely to market your business. This can give you a bit more leeway in terms of creative control, brand familiarity, and easy accessibility to assets whenever you need them since you don’t need to communicate with any outside team members.
You also can have peace of mind knowing your marketing team is only focused on your brand, and your brand alone. That said, you don’t have to worry about other projects taking time away from your endeavors.
On the downside, it can be more challenging to scale marketing efforts with an in-house team. If you want to increase ad spend, it comes straight out of your pocket, and you’re responsible for tracking the results. On the other hand, if you want to pause marketing efforts altogether, you have to handle restructuring your team to ensure your employees are still getting paid.
To top it off, you’ll be responsible for the costs of all marketing software, employees, and any efforts going forward, which can get expensive quickly. Moreover, establishing a marketing department takes time and energy. It’s an investment to start an internal marketing team and maintain it over time.
Hiring the Right Marketing Agency
Instead of learning the aspects of how to start a digital marketing agency yourself, you can hire one to take care of your brand for you. If you’re reading this article, odds are you’re already leaning in this direction!
While hiring a marketing agency can be more expensive upfront, it can also be the most cost-effective solution in the long run. This is mostly because agency pricing ultimately depends on your needs. You can choose to pay for full-service marketing or pick and choose whether you need services like:
Slam specializes in all those and more, so contact our team to partner together for your marketing endeavors!
Even if you opt for full-service marketing from an agency, you can still bank on lower costs overall since you don’t have to worry about purchasing marketing tools and software. Your hired agency will often have access to these tools already, saving you time and money researching and buying them for yourself. This means you’re covered on important tools like:
- Ahrefs
- ConvertKit
- Google Search Console
- Iconosquare
- Keyword Insights
- SEMrush
- Sprout Social
- And the list goes on
That said, don’t let high initial costs scare you away. It’s important to think in the long term and weigh costs against the time you’ll be saving by not having to handle all the nuances on your own.
Another win for agencies: they can scale much more quickly to your business compared to an in-house marketing team. Increasing advertising efforts or pausing them is much more feasible with an agency, giving you more flexibility and peace of mind no matter what comes your way over the years.
The Hybrid Approach
After assessing your own goals, you may find you can tackle some of your smaller marketing endeavors on your own. For example, you may have a perfectly capable social media team on hand, but are over your head with search engine optimization. In this case, you can seek out a marketing agency that specializes in SEO, and you can take care of the rest on your own.
How to Find a Good Marketing Agency in 2025
There’s a lot to consider when figuring out how to choose a digital marketing agency. According to a digital agency industry report from Promethean Research, the number of digital agencies just in the United States has grown 54% between 2018 and 2023. That said, there’s a lot of qualified teams for you to sift through.
While it’s entirely possible to head into the research process blindly, you’ll be wasting a lot of unnecessary time and effort. To make the most out of your search, we’re going to lay out the right steps to take. That way, you know how to hire a marketing agency without all the extra hassle:
- Understand your marketing needs
- Set a budget
- Research potential agencies
- Evaluate your options
- Create pitches & proposals
- Finalize your partnership
How to Hire a Marketing Agency: Understand Your Needs
The first step in knowing how to hire a marketing agency starts with knowing about yourself. Otherwise, you’ll go into your research phase completely blind. For the sake of your time and money, you should first:
- Identify your goals
- Evaluate your own team’s marketing skills and resources
- Assess what can be done in-house vs. what needs outsourcing
By having these facets of your marketing plans in place, you can identify the best fits for your business right off the bat and cut out agencies that look good on the surface but don’t align with your goals.
How to Hire a Marketing Agency: Establish a Budget
Now that you have a better idea about what you want, you can start making a realistic marketing budget that fulfills your needs without breaking the bank. In addition to understanding your business goals, you should have a general understanding of your market as a whole, so you know what strategies to focus on and have estimates of what other people in your field are paying for similar services.
Your budget is going to be dictated by your revenue, so be sure you’re updating figures year over year to stay in line with your business’s overall performance. The U.S. Small Business Administration states that 8% of gross revenue is a good recommendation for businesses making less than $5 million in sales.
However, this figure will vary depending on your industry, marketing needs, and any other factors unique to your business. Research your competitors and have a range solidified before you start shopping around to help you weed out options from the start.
How to Hire a Marketing Agency: Research Potential Agencies
There are plenty of places to research marketing agencies when you’re ready to start looking for specific companies, including freelancer sites like Upwork, marketplaces like Clutch, or better yet, through a simple online search. If you can find a marketing agency through organic search, it’s a good indicator that they know what they’re doing with their SEO strategies!
When conducting this initial research, be sure the companies you’re choosing check all your boxes in terms of services offered and specializations. Selecting agencies with the right expertise off the bat will save you time down the road when it comes time to narrow down your options. It sounds obvious, but it can be quite easy to focus on the big picture when you’re first getting into it.
For example, you want to work with a company because they have top-of-the-line Webflow experts, but one of your primary pain points is your social media channels. Before you add them to your list, be sure they specialize in social media management, too!
You can also get a better feel for a company by checking out their portfolio and case studies. Look for projects that are similar to your vision to get the best feel for their capacity to handle your marketing needs. Good marketing agencies love to show off their success stories, so it should be straightforward to get a better idea of the type of work an agency does.
Here are a handful of things to look out for in a good case study:
- Clear product/service path
- Defined metrics & KPIs
- Internal context
- Reliable storytelling
- User & industry knowledge
A marketing agency can talk themselves up all day long, so you should go one step further to make sure they practice what they preach. Take a look at reviews and ratings both on and off their site to get a well-rounded idea of what people think.
How to Hire a Marketing Agency: Evaluate Your Options
Now that you have a shortlist of top choices for your marketing agency, it’s time to figure out which one is the best fit. At this stage, you can start getting more picky. Take some time to check out their website and marketing channels because odds are, you’ll see a similar style infused throughout your assets once you begin working with them. You should also consider overall compatibility between your teams based on your initial meetings.
You know your wants and needs best, so you should trust your gut when you’re talking with different agencies as well. How they communicate with you at the onset will be indicative of their communication and workflow, so you should have a good feeling about them right away.
Some questions you can ask yourself when deciding include:
- Can I see myself working with this agency long term?
- Do I vibe with the company itself?
- Do I like the way they market themselves?
Beyond an initial vibe check, you should also think about the scope of work the marketing agency can handle. You want to be sure they can scale with your business’s needs no matter which direction you’re headed in. They should also be using marketing agency reporting tools that track progress, so you can make marketing decisions that are backed by clear metrics.
At Slam, we make reporting a breeze with our Marketing Agency Report, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.
How to Hire a Marketing Agency: Create Pitches and Proposals
Now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty.
You’ve chosen the agencies you like on paper, and it’s time to see if they can impress you personally. This all starts with crafting an effective request for proposal, or agency RFP. This document gives agencies all the details about your project and solicits bids from marketing agencies.
This is an involved process that can take multiple meetings with stakeholders, days of work, and a lot of effort on your end, but with Slam’s Request for Proposal Template, you can cut that time in half! We include all the necessary sections and in-depth instructions to ensure you don’t miss a thing.
Once you’ve received proposals from the agencies, you can begin weeding out your final choice. Be sure to set clear criteria for selecting the best agency before you start going through the pitches. Your standards will be unique to your business, but you should be sure you’re aligned on:
- All terms & conditions
- Availability and lead times
- Pricing & price structure
- Proposed project communications
- Values
How to Hire a Marketing Agency: Finalize Your Agency Partnership
You’ve done the hard part. Now it’s time to tie up the loose ends and get ready to work with your new marketing team! Once you know who you want to work with, you’ll enter some level of negotiations on rates, services, and other details.
Once the contract is signed, you can get into the onboarding process. This is where your marketing agency will take the lead as they welcome you into their process and set everything up for effective and efficient long-term collaboration. Here are some green flags to look for in your agency onboarding process:
- Clear expectations
- Defined success metrics & reporting
- Open communication
- Personal welcoming experience
- Quality onboarding tools & technologies
- Refined onboarding process
- Smooth initial onboarding meeting
Partner with Slam and Work with Digital Marketers You Can Trust!
While it’s possible to take on your marketing efforts on your own, everything can run a lot smoother when you have a marketing agency on your side you can trust. And now that you have a better idea about how to hire a digital marketing agency, that process should be a lot simpler.
Slam is proud to work with businesses that want to learn how to start an agency or that want to know how to hire an agency and find the perfect partner for their business. And since you’re leaning toward the latter, you can partner with us!
We’re more than your average agency; we’re full-service SEO and Weblow experts that can help with brand strategy and identity, content writing and strategy, search engine optimization, and Webflow design and development. No matter your marketing needs, we’ve got you covered. All that’s left to do is contact us, and we can get started!
In the meantime, check out these Slam resources to stay on top of your digital marketing game:
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