What does a digital agency do? 

A digital agency can offer you a variety of digital services. Here are some of the main ones. 

Content marketing

A content agency would usually do three things: 

• Content development - come up with a content marketing strategy and a list of topics to write about for the next 3-6 months
• Content writing - write various types of content for your blog, website, and social media pages
• Content management - manage the team of writers and editors who would bring your content from ideation all the way to execution

Search engine optimization

An SEO agency specializes in getting you more organic traffic through optimizing your on-page content, link building, digital PR, and building out a content strategy for your business.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing services can do a variety of things including - optimizing your social media channels, increasing your engagement, creating and publishing posts, doing video marketing, and working with influencers on your behalf. It's all about increasing the online presence of your business on a variety of social media platforms and it takes a lot of skill and experience to know 

Email marketing

Your email list is the best way to keep track of your customer data and connect with your potential customers. An email marketing agency can help create a comprehensive list of email strategies to improve your open and click-through rates and increase your email revenue. 

Site optimization

Most digital agencies would also help you improve your website. They would run data analytics to find areas of improvement, provide design services to help you make minor modifications to your site based on that data, or manage an entire website redesign if needed. A good digital agency would also help you monitor the user experience and optimize every part of your sales funnel to improve those conversion rates. 

To optimize your site, an experienced agency would look at the following basic metrics:

• The bounce rate
• Session duration
• Traffic metrics (traffic increases and decreases in the last 3-6 months)
• Customer retention
• Page loading speed

Pro tip: SEO services can get pretty vague on paper, so make sure that you know exactly how your SEO agency will optimize your ranking for each search query and how much traffic and SEO efforts they can bring to the table in the long term.

Performance marketing

Another important aspect of what digital marketing agencies do is running ads. This could be on social media platforms, search engines, marketplaces, or online publishers. Some people choose to work with smaller agencies that have experience with a specific channel - like boutique Google Ads agencies. So it really depends on the size of your project, the scope, the marketing budget, and the industry.

Digital marketing strategy

So many business owners rush to fix their ads and forget everything else. Sometimes your digital advertising campaigns aren't the problem and what you should be focusing on is building a better online marketing strategy. Having a better strategy in place will help you focus your digital marketing efforts on those areas that will impact your ROI the most. A strategy could include a SWOT analysis, a competitor strategy review, or a thorough analysis of your digital footprint.

Graphic design services

A full-service agency would usually have a design team with decades of experience that is able to offer design services to clients. This could include ad creatives for your social media advertising, banners for your PPC advertising, or branding collateral.

How much do digital marketing agencies cost? 

The top digital marketing agencies usually charge a monthly retainer which could vary from $1,000 all the way up to $5k-$10k per month depending on the scope of the project. The price could vary based on their expertise and they often have a minimum project price that you should ask for. 

Some agencies charge hourly rates for their digital marketing services and in the US that could cost around $100-$175. If you hire a company overseas you may get a rate of as low as $40/hour. 

How to select the best digital agency to work with?

Here's a step-by-step process of finding the perfect agency for your project.

Determine your business goals

First, you should determine what your goals are. Are you trying to improve your click-through rate on your email promotions? Improve your conversion rate? Get more organic traffic? Improve the engagement on your social media campaigns? Create better content for your target audience? Each one of these goals will require a different set of expertise. 

Select your marketing channel(s) 

Next, select the marketing channel or channels that you would like to work on. Look over your list of goals and pick the channels that will help you hit each of those targets. If you're going for a specific channel like Facebook ads then you might want to work with Facebook ads agencies that have a proven track record in your niche. If you're not sure where to start then look at the primary methods by which you acquire customers first.

Determine their area of expertise

Now that you've determined your digital marketing goals and picked the marketing channels you would like the agency to manage it's time to determine the type of expertise you'd want them to have. 

For example, if you're looking at an advertising agency you should ask to see their past campaigns and their actual results. If you're looking to hire a digital marketing analytics agency you should make sure they have experience with the particular analytics tool you're using (whether that's Google Analytics or Simple Web Analytics)

View their professional portfolio

It's equally important to look at the type of clients your prospective agency has worked with. Don't get distracted by customer reviews or the agency's average review rating. You want to narrow down your list to agencies that have achieved substantial business growth for similar companies to yours. You want to make sure that they've worked with clients in a similar niche, similar target markets, and advertising budgets to yours. 

Look for a team of experts with a proven track record

Now you're ready to begin looking for a qualified agency to run your project. The most important factor is their past experience. For example, if you need some Shopify development you don't just want to work with any development agency, you would want to work with an expert Shopify agency that has the experience you're looking for. Don't be wowed by a fancy sales deck or 5-star reviews, ask each agency for their client list, practical experience, and past successes with brands in your industry or niche. 

Questions to ask your digital marketing agency before hiring them

• Which digital marketing solutions do you offer? 
• Which advertising services do you offer? Display advertising? Social media advertising? 
• How do you plan to grow our customer acquisition?
• What's your process for managing digital campaigns?
• Could you build us a custom strategy before beginning to work on the project?
• Which channels do you specialize in? (direct marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, PPC, etc.)
• How big is your team? 
• Have you worked with similar companies in my industry? 
• What's your workload? How many other digital marketing projects are you currently working on?

Find the best agency with Mayple

Want to work with a digital marketing company but not sure which one to pick? Find the perfect one on Mayple. We have a community of some of the best digital marketing firms and performance marketers on the planet.

We do a thorough vetting of each marketer and match them to your business based on their proven success record of working with similar companies to yours. You will also get a personal marketing strategist that will help monitor the marketer's work and give you helpful suggestions on how to grow your business even further. 

Don't settle for less. You deserve to work with the best. With Mayple, you can find the world's top digital marketing companies for your specific project.