The short answer
Hire in-house when marketing is central to your daily work, you have the budget for a full team and you need someone inside the business full time. Use freelancers for clear, one-off tasks you can manage yourself. Use an agency when you need several skills working together, want to start quickly, and don't want to build and manage a team. Many businesses end up with one internal marketing owner working with an agency.
The skills digital marketing actually needs
- Strategy and planning
- Paid ads on Google, Meta, LinkedIn or TikTok
- SEO and website content
- Graphic design and ad creatives
- Video shooting and editing
- Copywriting
- Analytics and tracking
- Social media community management
It is rare for one person to be strong at all of these. That is the main reason businesses look beyond a single hire.
Option 1: an in-house team
Pros
- Deep knowledge of your product, customers and culture
- Full-time focus and fast internal communication
- Builds long-term marketing knowledge inside the company
Cons
- Expensive: the US median marketing manager salary was $166,790 in May 2025, before benefits, tools, training and ad spend[1]
- Slow to hire, and a gap if someone leaves
- A small team can't cover every specialist skill
- Can become inward-looking without outside ideas
Option 2: freelancers
Pros
- Pay only for the work you need
- Easy to find specialists for one job, like a logo, a video or an SEO audit
- Flexible and quick to start
Cons
- You manage the plan, deadlines and how everyone's work fits together
- Availability can change without notice
- Quality varies widely; you carry the risk of vetting
- Hard to build a joined-up strategy from separate people
Option 3: a digital marketing agency
Pros
- A full team of specialists for one fee
- Starts in days or weeks, not months of hiring
- Experience from many clients and industries
- No gaps when someone is sick or leaves; the agency covers it
- Easy to scale up or down
Cons
- Less day-to-day presence than an employee
- Needs good briefs and quick approvals from you
- Quality varies between agencies; choosing well matters
Which is right for your stage?
- Just starting, small budget: a freelancer or small agency for one or two channels.
- Growing, need leads now: an agency running ads, SEO and content together, with you or a manager as the point person.
- Established, marketing is core: an in-house marketing lead plus an agency for specialist work like paid ads and video.
- Large, complex brand: an in-house team with specialist agencies for media buying, creative and analytics.
Work with Retales as your extended team
Retales works as an extension of your team: a dedicated group of strategists, ad specialists, designers and video editors, with your own client portal for tasks, approvals and reports. We're headquartered in New Delhi, India. Get in touch to see how we'd fit with your setup.
Sources
Every statistic in this article comes from one of these publications. Links open the original source in a new tab.
- 1Advertising, promotions, and marketing managers: Occupational Outlook Handbook Median annual pay in May 2025: marketing managers $166,790; advertising and promotions managers $133,660.
- 2Marketing budgets hold at 7.7% in 2025: Gartner CMO survey Average marketing budget is 7.7% of company revenue; paid media is about 30.6% of the budget. 402 leaders in North America, UK and Europe.
This article is for general information and isn't financial or legal advice. Figures are as published by each source on the date shown.