Hiring an Agency vs. an In-House Team: A Cost/Benefit Analysis [Infographic]

The debate continues… The war wages on… The battle for middle earth is, like, a thing, man. And the ongoing discussion of, “Should I hire an agency or bring all of my digital marketing efforts in-house?” is very much alive and well. (Thank goodness because I was getting bored.)

At any rate, hiring an agency is a very real expense to a good number of brands. With good reason:

• How do you know you can trust an agency?
  
• What makes an agency so much better than an in-house team?
  
• Wy would you outsource your most trusted resource to a team you hardly know?
  
• WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

Totes get those worries. But maybe you’re not considering everything with those questions. Example:

• Think about the years of experience.
  
• Think about the cost of enterprise-level tools.
  
• Think about not paying for health insurance, desks, computers, entry-level onboarding, benefits, etc.
  
• Think about having one team with years of experience in your vertical just crushing it for you.
  
• Think about this infographic:

Let’s weigh a few more pros and cons of hiring a digital agency versus hiring in-house:

Hiring in-house can potentially take months to find capable team members that can deliver on campaign strategy, execution, and optimization. Conversely, an agency charges one cost for a highly-qualified team, saving brands the headache of multiple recruitment fees, salaries, onboarding and training costs, and expenses due to bad hires, etc.

41% of companies reported cost of a bad hire was more than $ 25,000. – CareerBuilder

On top of those items mentioned above, when hiring in-house, brands must also consider:

• Office supplies (including computers, etc)
  
• Multiple monitors
  
• Desks
  
• Other digital equipment
  
• Monthly online tool subscriptions
  
• Ongoing training
  
• Miscellaneous office costs, such as phone services and Internet access

With an agency, however, you’re focusing more on:

Vetted hires – Marketing pros with the background and experience necessary for the success of your marketing efforts.

5-in-1 – One cost for several individual positions that can handle SEO, Social Media, Content Marketing, Creative Design, Branding, Web Dev, Analysts, Paid Media, etc.

Trend trackers. – Teams at agencies keep their fingers on the pulse of industry trends allowing brands to focus on their growth.

Tools. – There’s a tool for everything now; they crawl sites, reveal backlink opportunities, find social audiences, create more efficient reporting, listen to digital conversations, connect brands with consumers, etc. The costs for these tools can be thousands of dollars per year (low estimate). But with an agency, these expenses are covered.

At the end of the day, you need to do what you need to do with your marketing efforts. Fair enough. But like Kayne says, “If you’re gonna do it, do it just like this.” And if you’re gonna hire a digital agency, take a second to absorb the stats from this infographic from Internet Marketing, Inc.

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