Should You Hire an Agency or Build In-House? A Strategic Guide for Growth-Stage Brands

If you’ve been asking yourself lately, “Should we hire a marketing agency?” you’re not alone. In 2025, more business leaders are facing the question of whether to hire a marketing agency or develop an in-house marketing team.

The way forward is to evaluate your brand’s key priorities at this stage and weigh your options to find the marketing solution that best meets your needs. Explore the pros and cons of both sides of the in-house vs agency marketing dilemma to make your decision a bit easier. 

The In-House vs. Agency Dilemma: What’s Really at Stake?

Many teams assume they have a simple choice between outsourcing all their marketing or handling everything in-house. That’s not the case. While you can opt for either of those approaches, there’s a third choice that works for many brands: a hybrid model. 

Over time, many brands evolve into a hybrid approach of working with a marketing agency while also managing some work in-house. This allows team members to collaborate with the agency and develop the brand’s marketing strategy while the agency handles the execution. 

Pros and Cons of Building In-House

Pros

Direct Control and Brand Fluency

When business leaders consider building an in-house marketing team, retaining direct control over their brand’s marketing strategy and execution is the primary appeal¹. An in-house team supports your marketing to keep it on-brand and align with wider business goals. There’s also an expectation that in-house teams should naturally have a deeper understanding of the company’s values and brand messaging⁵. 

That said, an engaged agency can also work collaboratively to achieve your desired outcomes and provide the insights you need to keep stakeholders in the loop. The ideal working relationship should feel like a meaningful partnership that expands your capabilities and helps your business grow rather than a team that waits to be delegated to.

An agency partner that prioritizes communication and runs efficient meetings (even holding additional sessions outside the typical weekly call schedule) can become immersed in your brand for seamless execution. 

Dedicated Focus

In-house marketers work for your brand and only your brand, so you know their focus is 100% dedicated to your campaigns². The people at an agency working on your marketing are likely also developing campaigns for other clients, meaning they’re shifting gears more often. 

But what if the skills and expertise gained from working with other brands benefited yours as well? Diversification and knowledge sharing are hallmarks of the agency experience. By comparison, a dedicated focus could eventually lead to narrower thinking or stagnation.

Cons

Talent Acquisition 

You need to find, hire, and onboard marketing professionals, which can be a very expensive and time-consuming process. The average cost to hire a new employee is approximately $4,700, but this can be significantly higher, depending on your industry and other factors³. 

Additionally, your company is then responsible for the costs associated with maintaining a team. That includes compensation, equipment, and access to subscription-based tools⁴.

And if any of your internal specialists leaves, your team could end up with significant knowledge and skill gaps. The agency RFP process gives you an opportunity to understand their expertise, team structure, and culture, so you can feel confident in their ability to meet your needs and retain their own top talent. 

Limited Specialization

The in-house team members you hire may also have limited specialization across the types of marketing you want to use². It’s simply not possible for a small team to have in-depth experience and skill sets across all types of marketing, like SEO, email, and paid media. 

An agency with multiple divisions gives you a menu to choose from, allowing you to support your internal experts and access channels you aren’t currently working in.

Slow Testing Cycles

Internal teams often have to handle a campaign’s full lifespan, meaning they have slower processes and testing cycles than streamlined agencies. It will take longer to build, test, and analyze your campaigns, leading to decreased efficiency.   

This is when a specialized agency team can take work off your plate. They can handle the budgeting and reporting and collaborate on their end to produce meaningful findings and recommendations for future campaigns.

Pros and Cons of Hiring an Agency

Pros 

Channel Expertise

As for digital marketing agency pros and cons, one of the biggest advantages of working with an agency is that the team will have in-depth channel expertise⁵. You can select a smaller agency that feels holistically connected with your brand or work with a larger agency that has specialized teams in channels that might not be on your radar. 

Cross-Client Insights

Either way, your campaigns will benefit from the channel expertise and experience the agency team members have built up over time. They may have insights from working on other client accounts⁵, perhaps concurrently, that they can apply to your campaigns to improve them. 

Objectivity

The objectivity that agencies bring to your marketing work is also useful. Agencies can take an unbiased look at your marketing campaigns and make the necessary adjustments to optimize them when necessary². 

Speed

Then there’s speed. Agencies can generally move at a much faster pace than internal teams thanks to their experience and streamlined processes¹. You’ll likely see results faster when working with a high-quality agency. For example, Socium worked with fashion brand Amanda Uprichard on paid search and social campaigns and was able to drive “tremendous growth” in just six months, according to Site Manager Madeline Katz. 

Cons

Onboarding Time

Much like you need to onboard new hires, you also have to spend time onboarding a new marketing agency². It will take some time to select the right agency and establish what exactly you’re looking for and how the process will work. 

The good news is that you can ask about an agency’s onboarding and kick-off processes during the RFP stage and weed out candidates who aren’t able to meet your desired timetable.

Possible Cultural Disconnect

Some company cultures don’t mesh well with others. Whenever you’re working with an external partner like an agency, there’s a chance that the agency team members might not understand or jive with your company culture, leading to conflict.  

During your RFP, ask to meet team members outside of the sales and executive structure. You’ll be able to hear from the agency’s employees directly and get a better sense of who is likely to be working on your account.

Risk of Overpromising

There’s no denying that in an effort to sell their services, some agencies overpromise on what they can actually deliver⁶. If you choose the wrong agency, you can end up wasting significant time and resources without receiving the marketing results you were promised. 

This is an avoidable scenario if you know what to ask. Take advantage of the RFP process to learn about a few key areas of the agency’s operations:

• Strategic capabilities and resources
• Channel experience
• Ability to handle budget
• Reporting methods
• Communications and responsiveness

The Hybrid Model Is the Path Forward

Let go of the idea that you need to either outsource all your marketing or build a team to handle it in-house. The reality for most $50M–$250M brands is blended: developing your marketing strategy in-house and working with an agency that will execute that strategy⁷. 

To succeed with these hybrid models, cross-functional workflows are key. For example, you might have an in-house creative team with agency-led media buying. You can create any workflows that fit your team and the agency you hire, so weigh different options. 

Just make sure that you select an agency that supports this kind of collaboration. Socium, for example, focuses on integrating with each brand’s internal teams and always keeping open lines of communication. Jewelry brand Catbird partnered with Socium for paid social and search campaigns, and the brand’s Growth Marketing Manager emphasized how Socium acted as an extension of the Catbird team to great success.  

Key Questions to Ask Before Deciding

Before you choose between building a marketing team or hiring an agency, ask yourself these questions⁵:

• Do we have channel experts or generalists in our current team?
• Can we afford redundancy in creative, media, and analytics?
• Are we scaling or stabilizing?

Consider your marketing objectives and broader business goals as well. One option will typically stand out as the better fit for your brand. 

How Socium Fits Brands Leaning Toward the Agency Model

If you decide to go the agency route over building an internal marketing team, the next big decision you have to make is selecting your marketing agency partner. The right agency will make all the difference. 

Socium is an agency built for collaboration, not takeover. With embedded performance pods and proprietary frameworks, we are a velocity-focused creative studio designed to help take growth-stage brands to the next level. 

Looking for a performance marketing partner and not just an agency? Let’s Talk.

FAQ

What’s the ROI difference between in-house teams and agencies?

Agencies can drive faster ROI due to existing systems, but long-term, in-house teams may become cost-effective if fully optimized. However, most mid-sized brands struggle to match the velocity and channel expertise of top agencies.

How do I know if my team is ready to handle media in-house?

Ask if your team has dedicated channel leads, creative testing capabilities, and analysts who can extract directional insights. If not, scaling internally will likely stall growth.

Pros: Channel expertise, cross-channel experience, speed and objectivity.

Cons: Potential cultural disconnects, pricing, onboarding time and risk of overpromising. However, these can be solvable with an appropriate RFP process. 

What are some pros and cons of building an in-house marketing team?

Pros: Direct control and brand fluency, dedicated focus

Cons: Talent acquisition risks. If you’re hiring for one marketer, your business has a lot to lose if they leave. Limited specialization. An agency can address an in-house team’s lack of new testing ideas and frameworks.

Is it common to work with both an in-house team and an agency?

Absolutely. Many of Socium’s clients have internal brand or strategy teams while outsourcing performance execution and creative iteration to maintain speed and scale.

What should I expect from a performance marketing agency beyond media buying?

Strategy, forecasting, creative direction, testing frameworks, platform-specific best practices, and ongoing optimization across the funnel, not just ad execution.

Sources

1. Becker, J. (5 September 2024). Marketing Agency vs. In-House Team: What’s Best For Your Business? IMPACT. Retrieved June 11, 2025, from https://www.impactplus.com/blog/independent-marketing-contractors-vs.-internal-marketing-team-vs.-marketing-agencies
2. In-House Marketing vs. Agency: What Are the Differences? We Are AMNET. Retrieved June 11, 2025, from https://www.weareamnet.com/blog/in-house-marketing-vs-agency/
3. Navarra, K. (12 April 2022). The Real Costs of Recruitment. Society for Human Resource Management. Retrieved June 11, 2025, from https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/real-costs-recruitment
4. When To Hire A Marketing Agency Vs. Build An In-House Team: A Guide For Business Owners. RBOA. Retrieved June 11, 2025, from https://rboa.com/when-to-hire-a-marketing-agency-vs-build-an-in-house-team-a-guide-for-business-owners/
5. Mironov, D. (24 April 2025). Analytics Marketing Agency: How to Choose 2025. Improvado. Retrieved June 11, 2025, from https://improvado.io/blog/how-to-choose-digital-marketing-agency
6. Sylvestre, R. (12 June 2024). How to Evaluate a Digital Marketing Agency in 2025. NoGood. Retrieved June 11, 2025, from https://nogood.io/2024/06/12/how-to-evaluate-a-digital-marketing-agency/
7. (24 September 2023). “Agency or In-House?” At $5M, $25M, $50M & Beyond. No Best Practices. Retrieved June 11, 2025, from https://nobestpractices.co/2023/09/24/agency-or-in-house-performance-marketing/