Hiring a Marketing Agency vs Employing In-House

This unbiased guide is for any senior marketer or business leader currently weighing up whether to employ a marketing agency or in-house personnel to solve their marketing challenges.

Hiring any marketing resource, whether agency or in-house, is a large investment of both time and capital.

So, it’s important you make the hire that’s best suited to your business.

This unbiased guide is for any senior marketer or business leader currently weighing up whether to employ a marketing agency or in-house personnel to solve their marketing challenges.

Hiring a Marketing Agency

Typically marketing agencies will provide an agreed number of days for marketing activity per month, either as part of a project or long-term retainer.

When investing in a marketing agency, you are gaining access to a wider pool of specialist resources than what would be available when trying to employ in-house, however, this expertise comes at a price.

This means, that if you require extensive levels of support, it might be more suitable to supplement this with a junior internal hire to help manage the day-to-day operations, reducing workloads.

Pros of hiring a marketing agency

  • Access to a wide range of marketing talent without any salary, NI or tax fees to consider.
  • All expertise skills delivered that marketing managers typically partner with agencies over.
  • Access to technologies and marketing tools that your business may not be willing to invest in.
  • No recruitment, training, managing or time off, reducing the impact on your business.
  • Ability to be flexible in utilising specific resources as required.
  • If greater time is required, you have the flexibility to scale with your requirements, rather than commit to further internal personnel.
  • Can offer fresh perspectives and unbiased feedback, as they’re not ingrained in day-to-day activities.

Cons of hiring a marketing agency

  • Investing externally could take away from marketing budgets and could make the approach restrictive.
  • You will not have someone focused on delivering your marketing every working day.
  • Less oversight over their day-to-day activities and marketing management.

Employing In-House

When hiring an in-house marketing professional, you are gaining access to a marketer who will live and breathe your brand, day in and day out.

This can have a number of benefits, as you will have an internal brand champion or can push forward a marketing strategy in-line with your business objectives.

However, sometimes marketing managers are spread too thin, as they will often have to wear many hats instead of focusing on a specific task. When this happens, this can have a detrimental impact on the performance of your marketing.

Pros of employing an in-house marketing professional

  • You will have someone focused on delivering your marketing every working day.
  • Will have greater control over management and delivery of marketing strategy.
  • They will be ingrained in your business environment wither greater awareness of priorities.
  • Can become a brand champion within your organisation, pushing forward with your message via internal and external campaigns.
  • Access to internal teams and resources for quicker communication and collaboration.

Cons of employing an in-house marketing professional

  • Comes at a cost for recruitment time, fees, salary, NI, Tax, benefits, training, reviews etc.
  • They may not have specific expertise in areas and may need to call upon an agency, doubling costs.
  • Employees may be impacted by their environment and lose focus on their core objectives.
  • May be difficult to understand and document the ROI in the first year due to multiple costs.
  • If they do not perform after probation, there are additional challenges to replace.

Agency vs In-House: Which should you choose?

There isn’t a right or wrong answer to this question.

At the end of the day, it’s important you make the hire that’s best suited to your business and its current marketing requirements.

It might be that you just need an agency in the short-term as you grow your output, with a view to making an internal hire to manage more of the day-to-day marketing operations and activities in the future.

Or, that you already have an in-house Marketing Manager, and simply need a specialist team to support them with particular activities rather than invest in a junior marketer to learn on the job.  

If you are thinking about hiring a marketing agency to help your organisation grow through marketing, we’re here to help.

About Generate UK

We are a full-service digital marketing agency that empowers industry-leading B2B & professional services companies to generate growth online.

We help brands grow at all stages of the funnel, with the expertise to support your organisation, whether you are looking to:

  • Boost your awareness
  • Improve demand
  • Get more leads
  • Generate more sales

As the UK’s only digital marketing agency to hold the Customer Service Excellence+ Accreditation, we are committed to achieving clear, measurable returns from your marketing, delivering engaging designs and smart development solutions, all whilst providing you with the highest level of customer service.

Let’s have a chat to discuss how we can help you generate growth through marketing.