If you run a search for “the best online marketing agency in the world”, you’ll come across lots of listicle-type posts. Some sites have listed agencies with reviews left by clients, minimum project size, services offered, and other details about the agency which a prospective client might want to know.
There are now innumerable quantities of digital marketing agencies. And there isn’t necessarily a “best digital marketing agency in the world”. Undoubtedly, some agencies are better than others, and many offer a range of services to cater for different business needs.
In this post, we give you an overview of what digital marketing agencies do, and explore what you should consider before choosing an agency for your organisation.
What do (good) digital marketing agencies do and why do businesses use them?
As we mentioned earlier, there are limitless quantities of digital marketing agencies out there. Some are bigger than others, and might only cater to whales, with millions, or, billions to spend on marketing, while others might focus on SMEs.
A good agency will grow your business and base their work on a solid digital marketing strategy that acts as a roadmap to success, and includes agreed, measurable goals. They should be transparent, and send you regular reports on campaign performance.
And all of that comes at a cost, meaning that if you want to compete with other businesses in your industry, you’re going to need a similar-size budget, and a strategy which out-performs your competitors on search engines and social media.
A report from eMarketer shows that by 2027, digital ad spending worldwide will reach $870.85 billion.
If you decide to do all of your digital marketing in-house, you need an experienced team of marketers and technical experts to generate leads and win sales online. Many businesses of all sizes lack these technical expertise, so instead they choose to outsource to a digital marketing agency.
That’s not to say that you can’t learn lots about digital marketing by reading online, or by reading books on digital marketing. But when it comes to the technical side of configuring and managing your customer data, and social media accounts, you will probably decide that you’re better off outsourcing to an agency.
How to choose a digital marketing agency that’s right for you
Think about your goals
Before you look at other agencies online, or look on a marketplace for business services, you should first think about what your goals are, and what expertise, tech and tools you need to reach them.
Then there are other aspects you might want to think about. Would you prefer to work with a local agency, where you can regularly meet face-to-face? Perhaps you’re based in Sydney, or Mumbai, and you’d rather be able to meet somewhere local, and regularly with your agency to discuss the performance of your campaigns.
Perhaps you feel that you need to work with an agency with specific skills and experience in a particular area. Or, with an agency that specialises in a certain industry. These are all things to consider before signing a contract.
An example scenario
Maybe you’re an eCommerce start-up, with a Shopify store, and while you’ve seen some results, you’re not anywhere near the levels of sales and growth you hoped to achieve. You might have tried to increase your ad spend on social media, or pumped out more content on your website. But still, you’re not even close. And you lack the expertise of a marketing team to get you there.
In the above scenario, you might consider hiring a digital and social media marketing agency, like TDS, who can target your customers on a social media channel they hang out on. Here at TDS, we collect data on user behaviour from your website, and use it to target prospects on social media. Before doing so, we carry out a full audit of the technical setup of your ad accounts, analytics platforms and website configurations, and work with you to build a solid marketing funnel.
As experts in eCommerce marketing and management, with expertise in Shopify and social media advertising, we use server-side tagging, which allows us to collect first-party customer data on your behalf across every touchpoint of your brand. This enables us to optimise campaign performance according to the customer journey that’s been mapped out from your data streams, leading to more conversions and sales, and higher levels of ROI.
From this, we can see that signing with the biggest agency, with the the strongest online presence doesn’t guarantee that they’ve paid close attention to your needs. Each business is unique, with its own individual set of circumstances and challenges. So, when it comes to choosing an agency you want to work with, it’s better to go with the one which has taken the time to understand your business, and caters to your specific set of challenges.
Do you really need the best digital marketing agency in the world?
No one digital marketing agency is necessarily better than another. If you want to work with what’s recognised as the best digital marketing agency in the world, it may not be the right fit for you. Instead, think about where your business is now, where you’d like it to be in the near future, and what you think you need help with to get there. Then explore your options.
TDS is a digital and social media marketing agency with clients in the eCommerce, entertainment and sports industries. We work on a fully transparent basis, where we send you regular reports on performance, and collaborate with you on strategy and results. You can learn more about the services we offer by going here.
