When looking at where to hire a digital marketing agency, you really are spoiled for choice. There is everything from a website design agency to a social media agency to an SEO agency. This is before we even start to discuss component parts with artwork from a graphic design agency, video from a creative agency and blogs from a content agency. So, where you do start?
Read on for an extensive guide to where to hire a digital marketing agency so you know where to start.
Our guide to hiring a digital marketing agency
- What is digital marketing?
- Why is digital marketing so important?
- Why do I need a digital marketing strategy?
- Which is the best type of digital marketing?
- What is the cheapest form of digital marketing?
- Where do I hire a digital marketing agency?
- Should I hire a social media agency or hire a digital marketing agency?
- How does Pay-Per-Click advertising work?
- How does paid social media advertising work?
- How do I improve my Search Engine Optimisation?
- Is it enough to have a beautiful website design?
- What is affiliate marketing and is it advertising?
- What is the cheapest form of digital advertising?
- Why hire a digital marketing agency that is also a consultancy?
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing, also known as internet or online marketing, uses digital technologies to promote products and services. There are many channels in digital marketing, including websites, social media, email marketing, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search and display advertising, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and affiliate marketing.
Why is digital marketing so important?
Digital marketing is so important because of the large reach possible. With the majority of people having smartphones and working on computers in white collar jobs, the internet is all around us. The first choice of many is to search on the internet or visit their favourite websites and social media channels. Digital marketing allows you to promote your products and services when people search, view content or visit certain websites. Additionally, there is no geographic boundary for your digital marketing, allowing you to promote services in other countries.
Why do I need a digital marketing strategy?
You need a digital marketing strategy to ensure that your digital marketing is achieving your overall marketing goals. A digital marketing strategy is a subset of your marketing strategy which has a list of goals. The best way to manage digital marketing is with fully-prepared digital strategies and plans to achieve the digital goals that support your overall marketing goals.
We never advocate ‘jumping in’ with digital marketing as the effort to post, blog and share is substantial if you don’t know the outcomes you are achieving and advertising is expensive if it doesn’t create ROI. A digital marketing agency is not always focused on achieving your wider marketing goals or ROI, simply helping you to spend your budget.
Which is the best type of digital marketing?
The best type of digital marketing is the one that is most likely to achieve your digital marketing goals. If you seek a large reach, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a good place to start. If you seek to position products only to those that are looking for them, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is helpful. Many digital marketing strategies and plans include multiple digital channels with differing goals and measures of success.
What is the best type of digital marketing for B2C?
The best type of digital marketing for B2C is social media. There is no other platform available with the number of eyes on it as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and others. Additionally, when you include ‘online campfires’ into the mix, platforms such as Fortnite, Twitch and Roblox take your audience into billions.
What is the best type of digital marketing for B2B?
The best type of digital marketing for B2B is email marketing followed by LinkedIn. Email marketing is the undisputed king of B2B marketing, with as much as 93% of B2B marketers using it (according to HubSpot). Yes, that’s right, content delivered directly to your work inbox to encourage you to read, sign up and attend events to generate inquiries. LinkedIn is a key channel to target specific personas with advertising, regular content or simply to connect and send InMail through the platform.
Does digital marketing use intent?
Some digital channels, notably Google Ads, claim to use ‘intent’ signals to increase the chances of conversion. In reality, this means someone searching for ‘Ford Fiesta’ and then searching for ‘Car Dealership’, which it deduces as intent.
Intent-based marketing, also known as predictive marketing, is very much the preserve of B2B marketing. In general, you won’t find it offered by a digital marketing agency. It is more likely to be a specific B2B marketing agency or similar and the investment only makes sense for large deal sizes.
What is the cheapest form of digital marketing?
There is no such thing as free marketing. Social media posts, blog writing and sharing of content all require time, effort and therefore cost. The cheapest form of digital marketing in the long-term is SEO, which brings ‘organic’ visitors to your website at no cost per click. The cheapest form of digital advertising may be Display Advertising, which often has a lower Cost Per Click (CPC) than Search Ads.
Where do I hire a digital marketing agency?
It sounds blindingly obvious but many will search on the internet first. If you search for ‘marketing agency’, ‘digital agency’ or ‘digital marketing agency’, you are met with a sea of answers. But are they all the same? How are they different? Which is best? To hire a digital marketing agency, there are several things to consider.
Some will choose to look at digital marketing agencies that are near me. If you work in London but live in Milton Keynes, it is easy to imagine googling a local firm. Many people focus on local search for that very reason, bringing in agencies that are easy to reach. Others go by ads they see, networks or even word of mouth.
What types of digital agency are there?
There are many types of digital agency out there. Here are a few examples:
- Internet marketing agency
- Web design agency
- Social media agency
- SEO agency
- PPC agency
- Affiliate marketing agency
- Digital PR agency
What types of marketing agency are there?
There are even more types of marketing agency out there. Here are a few examples:
- Creative agency
- Graphic design agency
- PR agency
- Inbound marketing agency
- Content agency
- Digital marketing agency
- Communications agency
Should I hire a social media agency or hire a digital marketing agency?
It depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you want to push social media advertising, the answer may be both. If you wish to promote via regular posting and sharing of content on your channels, you may want to outsource the production of content and/or the actual posting and replying to comments with a social media agency. For those looking for a digital advertising solution, the digital marketing agency is often able to do both.
Crucially, if there is no online shop on the social media channel, your website needs to have a good experience and convert visitors. The digital marketing agency is likely to be the best option. In the case of Think Beyond, we can offer all of these options in one place.
Do I need to hire a digital marketing agency or a consultancy?
You can use one marketing agency where the agency is very large and caters for multiple disciplines or via a marketing consultancy with added services. This reduces the number of points of contact, increases consistency in brand messages and is easy to manage.
In the case of Think Beyond, we offer a range of digital marketing services supported by other strategic services. We specialise in having a single point of contact for multiple services, a little like an outsourced marketing function.
What is a digital advertising agency?
A digital advertising agency will focus on advertising platforms and the creative required to perform it. They are exclusively focused on generating impressions, site visits, clicks or conversions.
PPC requires very little in terms of creative, especially for Search Ads, but it does require creative for banners in Display Advertising. Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising are the main platforms for Pay-Per-Click advertising.
Social media ads require creative in the form of images, artwork or video, which requires some creative work. Video is costly to produce but has a higher engagement and is particularly strong for demonstrating products and services you can use. There is advertising on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
Online advertising aims is to drive additional traffic to your website to buy or sign up for something. It is also possible to encourage form-fills, app downloads or directly shop in some social channels.
How does Pay-Per-Click advertising work?
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Cost-Per-Click (CPC) advertising charges per click on an advertisement. These ads are served based on the matched keywords in a search string in the case of search advertising. Each keyword and ad are subject to a bidding process called an auction. The ad platform matches your ad to a search string and then the bidding happens automatically and determines if and where your ad appears after the auction. You can either set your bid manually or use other bidding strategies to achieve your marketing goal.
What is search advertising?
Search Advertising is PPC on a search engine such as Google or Bing. A search engine is an index of content across a large volume of websites on the internet. The content is served to a user depending on the text search string entered to perform the search. The search engine serves the content it identifies as the best answer to a user’s search. Search Advertising allows you to bypass this and pay or bid to serve your Text Ads when users enter a combination of keywords that you specify.
What is display advertising?
Unlike Search Advertising, Display Advertising is much more than a simple Text Ad. Display Advertising places images and banners on websites that match audiences and interests that you specify. For example, whereas a Text Ad appears when you search for the answer to a question, a Display Ad appears on the website you are visiting following the search. Display Ads depend on the websites being part of the Display Network and having the spaces for Display Ads to appear. The Cost-Per-Click (CPC) is often cheaper than Search Ads because the ads are not as tailored to the user’s search intention and so can attract more unintended clicks.
How does paid social media advertising work?
Paid social media advertising is advertising that appears in news feeds, banners or stories on social media channels. This takes the form of images and videos that are ‘sponsored’ and can appear in most places that you are consuming content. Some popular social media channels that allow paid social ads are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and Twitter. Similar to CPC, you pay per impression or clicks with objectives such as reach, impressions, clicks or leads.
When only 6% of your organic posts on social media are read, it is easy to become lost in the ‘news’. Twitter suffers from this more than the other platforms mentioned. In summary, to ensure that your message is heard, paid social ads cut through the ‘noise’ of busy social feeds.
Social media advertising or pay-per-click?
Pay-Per-Click and social media advertising have different approaches. Social media advertising ‘pushes’ marketing messages to users via their social media feed and stories. Pay-per-click advertising ‘pulls’ users to your marketing messages when they are searching for something they want.
If you seek the broadest possible reach, social media ads are a good way to go. If you need to narrow the audience to those looking for your solution, pay-per-click is the best way to go. You can also combine paid social ad campaigns with pay-per-click to capture both audiences for maximum reach.
Why pay for advertising when I can post on social media for free?
You should consider paying for advertising because there is no such thing as free social media posting. Posting on social media still requires time, effort and either the purchase of high-quality imagery, design of artwork and photoshoots or video production.
Your social media posting is only as good as your audience of followers or subscribers. If the people in that list are not going to buy from you or they do not see your post in their busy feed, it doesn’t matter how much social posting you do. Only 6% of organic posts are typically seen by a user.
If you are producing quality content but not enough people are viewing it, you may want to consider social media advertising. Note that services tend to have a harder time being ‘pushed’ to users so you may want to consider the ‘pull’ of PPC or the longer-term approach of SEO.
How do I improve my Search Engine Optimisation?
You improve your Search Engine Optimisation in three ways:
- Increase relevance
- Improve quality
- Increase authority
Relevance refers to the ability of your content to answer the questions of users. This makes search engines more useful to users.
Quality refers to the landing page experience. This improves the speed with which results are returned and implies usability for a user.
Authority refers to the strength of the source of information presented to users. This ensures that search results are trustworthy for a user.
Why bother with SEO when PPC is much quicker?
It is true that SEO is akin to a marathon whereas PPC is more of a sprint. For a new business, it pays to start with PPC to gain awareness of your brand and products or services. Over time, if your business depends on a steady stream of visitors from PPC, it would cease overnight if you stopped paying for ads. SEO is a long-term technique to boost your search presence and relevance to search engines without paying for expensive clicks.
For many businesses, SEO is a long-term investment with sustained results and may lead you to reduce spend on PPC.
Is SEO worth it when Google changes their algorithm regularly?
Yes, SEO is worth it even when Google changes their algorithm. Much is made of how each algorithm change makes a huge difference for SEO but it really doesn’t. There are minor changes in emphasis over the long-term but neither Google or Microsoft can afford to make huge changes to what makes their search engines so useful.
The biggest changes that are affecting SEO relate to mobile device performance. Google prioritises it’s Smartphone Crawler in search results and is also moving to penalise poor performing pages in search results. The aim remains the same, which is to make search results as relevant as possible and present a good experience to users.
Is it enough to have a beautiful website design?
It is not enough to have a beautiful website design. Although we do offer site design and development services, we always consider the objective of your website. If you need to convert visitors, it is possible to optimise for paid advertising landing pages. If you need to be found organically, there is significant configuration and optimisation required after the build. Furthermore, although a website looks beautiful, is the landing page experience and website performance good?
Nearly half of visitors never return to a poor website so it pays to have advice before a web refresh. Ultimately, it makes sense to align your strategy with your delivery partner so you don’t have to hire a digital marketing agency and other agencies.
How do I improve my website performance?
You improve your website performance in several ways. The easiest way is to ensure that your pages are served quickly to a user, which is influenced by the size and complexity of a website as well as how it is served. The easiest way to undermine your own website performance is to have lots of redirections and large files that take time to download, especially on mobile devices.
How do I increase my website authority?
You increase your website authority by creating great content that is well-written and shared by other authoritative sources. If you take an example in the scientific community, it would take some amazing work by unknown scientists to gain widespread academic awareness. A website is similar in that a new website with an unknown profile takes a long time to become a respected source of information that users trust.
What is affiliate marketing and is it advertising?
Affiliate marketing uses networks of websites that cover a range of interest topics and place display advertising on them to generate new traffic. Using native advertising, the ads should display properly on computers, tablets and smartphones of various screen sizes.
Affiliate marketing is great if you are searching for a new source of website visitors. The key is in the name. ‘Affiliate’ audiences are interested in the topics for which you sell products and services. For example, if you sell clothing, why not present your ads to a network of fashion and personal style websites? Both Google and Microsoft have their own ‘audience networks’ which are a network of affiliated sites they use to extend the reach of their advertising. Affiliate marketing is simply an independent version of an audience network for new visitors.
Why should I consider paying for affiliate marketing?
You should consider paying for affiliate marketing if you are struggling to find the right visitors for your website or you need to grow to new audiences. Affiliate marketing programmes and networks offer to serve your Display Ads to interested audiences. These are people who are consuming content in the interest areas that your business products or services serve. If you are selling fishing products, they enable you to serve ads to people visiting fishing websites for example.
Some people are not as comfortable with affiliate marketing as other forms of digital marketing. This is because the affiliate network is not as understood and the websites sometimes not recognised. It is important to make the right choice of affiliate network to support your goals.
Is affiliate marketing safe?
Affiliate marketing is safe as long as the affiliate network chosen is well understood. Ultimately, these are simply networks of websites that allocate space to banner advertising. As long as the websites have a good reputation, these are an un-tapped source of new audiences. Whereas you may struggle to reach someone with an affinity for your area of interest in a busy social post, they are browsing relevant websites. If the audience is not searching for a solution to a problem, other forms of digital advertising will not reach them.
What is the cheapest form of digital advertising?
The lowest Cost Per Click (CPC) for digital advertising is usually found on Display Advertising. Display Ads typically have a higher Click-Through Rate (CTR) to Search Ads and cost less per click. Google Ads clicks cost more than Microsoft Advertising in most cases due to both the larger audience of Google and competition for keywords.
Affiliate marketing is a cost-effective, if less tried option. The lower degree of control often means that the largest brands want full control over the position, form and audience for their brand creative. However, for those willing to try an alternative option, it represents a new source of interested traffic.
Why hire a digital marketing agency that is also a consultancy?
We believe that offering digital marketing agency services as a consultancy gives people a blend of traditional marketing techniques to get the most out of digital. For example, the foundation of marketing management is to have a marketing strategy and plan. These overarching goals feed down into your digital strategy and plan and online marketing tactics.
If you start with a digital marketing agency, you will only receive advice on digital channels and have to try different channels to see what works. If you start with a consultancy, you find out everything from your value proposition to insight into your market to inform your marketing mix.
Why ROI is important for any marketing agency, especially digital
All marketing spend is an investment. That investment is used to promote your products and services online and with digital communications. Marketing strategies and plans, including digital strategies, goals, channels and measures must be geared towards achieving ROI. We advise clients on the best channels for their needs and make it simple to find qualified advice and strategies.