It is very common for businesses to hire a digital marketing agency to run their marketing campaigns. Either because they don't have the personnel to do this in-house or because they want to take advantage of the expertise and experience of professional digital marketing teams.
If you're considering outsourcing your digital marketing, this guide will help you understand how digital marketing packages work, how much they cost, and how to choose the best options for your unique business needs.
What Does a Digital Marketing Package Include?
A typical digital marketing package includes one or more services digital marketing agencies offer. These include SEO, PPC, social media, influencer, email, and content marketing. Each package is tailored to meet a company's specific business needs and the type of services the particular agency offers.
Full-service digital marketing agencies (like ours) offer a wide range of services to support clients with all their digital marketing needs.
Types of Digital Marketing Packages
Let's see the different digital marketing packages and what to expect from each type.
1. SEO Packages
Most agencies offer search engine optimization packages because SEO services are the most valuable for most businesses and, thus, in high demand. SEO can help increase your visibility in search engines for keywords that matter to your business, resulting in more leads, sales, and revenue.
A typical SEO package includes services like:
- SEO Audits
- Recovery from Google Penalties
- Keyword Research
- On-Page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Local SEO (Including Google Maps)
- Off-Page SEO (Link-Building, Digital PR)
- Ecommerce SEO
- Content Writing
- SEO Competitor Analysis
SEO packages are affordable because the different services can be used independently. For example, hiring a company to perform an SEO audit can cost as little as $500. This is a good opportunity to test a provider's quality of work before committing to a monthly plan.
2. Social Media Marketing Packages
Social media marketing packages are useful for promoting your business on social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, and others. They can help you engage with your audience, increase brand awareness, and drive traffic and sales from paid ads.
A typical social media marketing package might include:
- Social media strategy
- Social media content creation (including videos)
- Social media monitoring (including reputation management)
- Competitor analysis
- Paid ads (running Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and other paid campaigns on social networks).
From experience, to make the most of your budget, you should hire a social media marketing agency for tasks requiring experience and expertise, like running profitable paid campaigns.
There is no value in hiring an agency to post content on your profiles or monitor comments. You can easily do this with the help of a tool and a few hours of work per month.
3. PPC Marketing Packages
Besides SEO, the next best-performing digital marketing channels are Google Ads and Bing Ads (for some niches). The big problem with Google Ads is that you can easily lose a lot of money if you don't know what you're doing. So, out of all the digital marketing services you can outsource, PPC is the most appropriate.
A typical PPC package might include:
- PPC marketing strategy
- Campaign management
- Dedicated account manager
- Keyword research
- Ad creation
- A/B testing
- Analysis and reporting
When choosing a PPC marketing agency, check their reputation and experience with PPC campaigns. Google Partners are agencies certified by Google to run Google Ads, and while this doesn't guarantee success, you'll get a chance to work with the best in the industry.
4. Content Marketing Packages
Content marketing packages are usually associated with SEO. They might be offered as part of the SEO packages or as an add-on. They usually include services for implementing a content strategy and creating various content assets. Content marketing can become the most expensive service depending on how much content a business needs.
A typical content marketing package includes the following:
- Content marketing strategy (including crafting a content calendar)
- Creating blog posts
- Creating ebooks, industry studies, and other lead magnets
- Designing high-quality visuals
- Video scripts
- Creating and optimizing copy for landing pages
When selecting a content marketing package, don't go with the cheapest option but invest in experts who can create content assets that will help your business in the long term.
Any content you publish on your website should be helpful to users and high-quality. Mass-producing low-quality or AI-generated content can get you a Google Penalty, making your digital marketing efforts much more difficult.
5. Influencer Marketing Packages
Influencer marketing is either an add-on to social media marketing or a separate service. With influencer marketing, you can boost brand awareness but also increase sales.
Studies show that consumers trust product or service recommendations from influencers more than the brand.
An influencer marketing package usually includes the following:
- Identifying influencers
- Campaign strategy and planning
- Campaign execution
- Analysis and reporting
This is another service that you can execute in-house and save money. Reaching out to influencers directly and negotiating the terms of cooperation can be more effective than doing that through intermediaries. An agency brings real value if it already has agreements with influencers related to your brand that you can take advantage of at reasonable prices.
6. Email Marketing Packages
Email marketing packages are not very common, and not all agencies offer them. Email is still important as a marketing channel and should be part of your strategy, but this is not a service to pay monthly unless you rely on email for most of your sales.
The services to look for in an email marketing package are:
- Email strategy
- Email automation setup
- Email workflows
- Email templates
- Email marketing analytics and reporting
Once you get a company to set up your email automation, such as cart abandonment emails, newsletter signups, upselling, and cross-selling to existing customers, the only activity you'll have to perform is to send weekly or bi-weekly newsletters to keep your audience engaged with your brand.
Occasionally, you must also clean up and segment your email list for better results.
7. General Digital Marketing Packages
As mentioned above, agencies may combine services from the different packages into a single digital marketing package to better serve the needs of a company.
Here is an example of a digital marketing package that is popular among our customers:
- SEO Audit (once-off)
- Keyword Research (once-off)
- Ongoing SEO package (includes on-page, technical, and off-page SEO)
- Social Meda Add-in (usually it's Facebook Ads)
- Content Marketing Add-in (creating content assets every month)
- Google Ads Campaign Management (on-going)
- Email automation and workflows (once-off)
This hybrid package, which contains both once-off tasks and ongoing work, generates the best possible results and minimizes the monthly cost, making it affordable for companies of all sizes.
How Much Does Digital Marketing Cost?
Digital marketing pricing varies per service provider and type of service. So, the first thing to understand is how pricing works. Different agencies and freelancers offer various pricing models, such as monthly retainers, project-based fees, or per hour.
Monthly retainers are common for ongoing services like SEO and social media management. As you can see below, prices can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per month, depending on the scope of work and the agency's pricing model.
Project-based fees are typical for one-time projects like SEO audits, email automation, and website redesigns. The cost varies based on the complexity and features required.
Per-hour pricing is very popular and beneficial for both customers and agencies. With this pricing model, you agree with the agency on how many hours to allocate to your marketing per month and the hourly rate. At the end of the month, you get a report on how the hours are allocated and what work has been performed.
In my experience, it's essential to consider not just the cost but also the value an agency can bring to your business. Cheaper isn't always better, especially regarding strategic marketing efforts that drive long-term growth.
The table below shows how much you can pay on average for various digital marketing services.
| Digital Marketing Services | Average Cost |
|---|---|
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | $500 to $10,000 per month (1) |
| Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising | 20% of ad spend per month + Fixed overhead. |
| Social Media Marketing | $450 to $6,000 per month (1) |
| Email Marketing | $300 to $1200 per month (1) |
| Digital Marketing Packages | $150 per hour (1) |
How To Choose Digital Marketing Packages For Your Business?
To select the best possible package for your business, you should concentrate on three things: your marketing goals, your budget, and the reliability of the company you'll hire. Let's examine these in more detail:
1. Marketing Goals
Before considering outsourcing your marketing, you should define your digital marketing goals. In other words, what you want to achieve from your marketing efforts.
While the main goal is the same for all businesses: "to make more money", you should try and make it SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound).
For example, if you're currently making $10,000 in monthly sales, setting a goal to get to $50,000 in monthly sales in six months is unrealistic. A better goal would be to increase sales by 10% in the next six months.
Marketing agencies don't have a magic wand to turn things around dramatically; they can help you get better results, but the process takes time. The most common limitations are the marketing budget and how the Internet works, especially with Google SEO.
So, think about what you want a marketing agency to help you with, and aim for long-term sustainable results rather than short-term spikes.
2. Marketing Budget
Quality services that make your business more money don't come for free. That doesn't mean you should break the bank, but you often get what you pay for.
Depending on the type of business, you should allocate a portion of your revenue to marketing. The actual percentage depends on the current state. A higher percentage might be necessary for startups and businesses looking to grow aggressively. Established businesses aiming for steady growth may allocate a lower percentage.
As a rule of thumb, always start with a low budget and gradually increase it as you achieve better results.
Ensure that your chosen agency provides detailed reporting on how the money is spent and that the ROI is clearly defined by channel. Each service contributes differently to your overall goals and should be weighted accordingly in your budget.
For instance, SEO is a long-term strategy that may require a significant upfront investment but leads to sustained organic growth. In contrast, pay-per-click advertising can generate immediate traffic but might need ongoing investment to maintain.
3. Agency Reputation and Reliability
When selecting a marketing agency, look for testimonials and case studies on their website. Real success stories from businesses like yours can give you an idea of what to expect in terms of results.
Check their online reviews on third-party websites like Google and LinkedIn. Give special attention to negative reviews to see how the agency responds to criticism.
Evaluate their expertise in your specific industry. Although not a critical factor, an agency with experience in your industry can better understand your requirements and speed up the time needed to implement their strategies.
Assess their communication and transparency. A reliable agency should offer clear reporting and regular updates on your campaigns. Before signing on, discuss their communication process and ensure it aligns with your expectations.
Finally, look at their pricing in detail. As mentioned above, you often pay what you get, but that does not mean that more expensive packages are better. Big agencies tend to hire more for their services, while smaller agencies can give you better prices and the attention your business needs to grow.
Can You Do Digital Marketing For Free?
Under some conditions, you can do part (or all) of your digital marketing for free. This depends on your current knowledge, experience, available time, and willingness to learn how to run multiple digital marketing campaigns.
If you're willing to try this, enrolling in a digital marketing course is the best way to learn digital marketing. The cost is affordable for everyone, and even if you decide not to run the campaigns yourself, you'll be in a better position to guide and monitor the work of your chosen provider.
The Digital Marketing Full Course offered by Reliablesoft Academy is a great option for this purpose. It includes everything you need to learn and do to increase your traffic and sales with digital marketing.
If enrolling in a course is not something you want to do now, you can use our free resources below:
- How to Learn Digital Marketing
- Digital Marketing Guide For Beginners
- The Best Digital Marketing Certificate Programs
- How to Become a Digital Marketing Specialist
