Discover the different services provided by each agency to determine the best one for your business.
Small and midsize businesses need ways to get their products and services in front of leads and potential buyers. The volume of pitches from businesses to agencies providing outsourced services in marketing and advertising increased by 53% worldwide between 2020 and 2021.[1] As a business seeking support with product promotion, it helps to understand the differences between marketing and advertising agencies and which you should hire for your current project. When choosing a marketing agency vs. an advertising agency, you'll want to consider your goals and the services you need.
Launching an ad campaign is a big step towards increased brand awareness and product exposure. Gaining clarity on which type of agency to choose to ensure the success of your advertising efforts can bring huge financial gains and amass more traction within your market.
Marketing vs. advertising
Marketing is a collection of processes aimed at promoting or selling products or services, or increasing a company’s brand recognition. Advertising is calling an audience's attention to a particular product or service. While these two definitions have similarities, advertising narrows the approach by using creative material—generally audio or visual—to promote specific products to market segments. Examples of advertising include:
TV commercials
Radio commercials
YouTube advertisements
Billboards or other posters
Adverts in magazines
Banners on websites or at the bottom of emails
Ads on social media
Ultimately, advertising is a form of direct marketing, and advertising agencies leverage existing partnerships with multiple channels to place a company's content where it will gain the most attention.
The main difference between marketing vs. advertising is that advertising is one task that falls under the wider umbrella of marketing. While not all marketing plans involve advertising, there will be a clear marketing plan for an advertising agency to refer to and follow.
Monitoring marketing campaigns is complex and requires marketers to collate and analyze data from multiple sources. Assessing advertising success is a little easier as each advertising campaign will have its own clear streams of data. However, both types of agencies will utilize suites of data analytics tools to provide highly granular reports on the success of campaigns.
What is a marketing agency?
Business leaders asking, "Do I need a marketing agency?" probably do. More small businesses are hiring the services of a marketing agency than ever before as they realize it's more cost-effective to onboard experts as early as possible than to try to get to grips with the increasing complexities of digital marketing themselves. Online searches for digital marketing agencies have increased by 50% in the last 12 months, highlighting the pressure CMOs are under to drive growth.[1]
But what does a marketing agency do that warrants investment from potentially cash-strapped small businesses?
Marketing agency services
Both traditional and digital marketing agencies may offer some or all of the following services:
Create short- or long-term marketing strategies, plans, and goals
Help with branding, e.g., logo creation, brand messaging frameworks
Social media marketing campaign coordination
Email marketing campaigns, including newsletters
Advertising campaigns
Press releases
Blogs, articles, and whitepapers—all forms of content marketing
Videos, e.g., Instagram reels and instructional videos on YouTube
Product demonstrations
Face-to-face campaigning, e.g., at conferences, exhibitions, or industry shows
Physical media, e.g., brochures and catalogs
Website content
While marketing agencies get involved in advertising, it's rarely their only focus. Marketing agencies provide support and services for businesses facing increasing challenges to achieve growth within crowded marketplaces.
What is an advertising agency?
Advertising has been around in many forms for centuries and became a paid method for businesses to promote their goods in the 1800s. Nowadays, while TV and physical advertising methods are still effective, many businesses focus heavily on digital advertising. Agencies support businesses by providing experience and expertise in handling online advertising campaigns.
There are many different types of advertising agencies that all focus on different types of ads. Some may have a broad approach, while others only handle, for example, social media adverts. Others may get involved with programmatic advertising, an algorithm-powered technique that matches ads up with websites that are offering space for advertising. With around 91% of advertising budgets being spent on this type of automated ad placement, what else does an advertising agency do?[1]
Advertising agency services
Advertising agencies create and manage advertisements and ad campaigns for many types of organizations. Some ad agencies will work for companies in multiple industries, while others may focus solely on particular industry segments, such as software providers.
A full-service advertising agency may offer the following services:
Radio advertising or other audio advertising, e.g., for podcasts
TV or streaming service advertising
Digital advertising, including social media, web banners, and YouTube advertising
Physical ads, e.g., billboards, posters, flyers, brochures, pamphlets, magazine or newspaper advertising
PR services, such as getting brands mentioned in news stories or at industry-specific events
Digital advertising agencies only offer the online advertising aspects of the previous list. To drill that down further, you might expect ad agencies to get heavily involved in graphic design and the appearance of static and video-based online ads. They'll either support branding or, in some cases, take over this aspect of marketing entirely. They may also handle social media campaigns from start to finish, including ensuring all comments are replied to in your business tone of voice.
Digital advertising experts will also use data from previous campaigns to assess where advertisements are best placed for maximum ROI. Agencies also understand the finer points of PPC advertising, such as Google ads, and will work with you to ensure, for example, that your website is optimized for mobile devices. PPC ads clicked on a smartphone result in a waste of money if the potential buyer then clicks away to a competitor.
Many advertising agencies will employ a combination of creative people and PR or marketing experts, so they have the expertise to both craft eye-catching content and the know-how to get it in front of your target audience. Effective advertising agencies excel at running multichannel campaigns that integrate numerous engagement points to reach the most leads.
Marketing agency vs. advertising agency: It's all about knowing what each type of agency does. Understanding your own business goals also helps you better define the marketing or advertising needs of your organization.
Searching for an advertising agency to hire for your business? We’ve got you covered. Check out our list of companies in the following areas:
Marketing agency vs. advertising agency: How to choose the better fit for you
There is considerable overlap between these two types of agencies, making it challenging for businesses to choose the right one for their needs. Both types of agencies run ads, covering more than one aspect of marketing. If you're launching an advertising campaign, in most instances, an advertising agency will have the narrower focus required to support this journey. This is especially true if your organization already has a handle on its overall marketing strategy and needs assistance understanding where best to place ads and how to run effective, profitable campaigns. Ad agencies have a tech stack focused on gathering granular data about ad effectiveness. Great agencies will have powerful relationships with platforms and partners to provide your business with the most exposure.
A marketing agency might better fit businesses needing support with their overall marketing efforts. Full-service agencies allow businesses to pick and choose the marketing support tasks they require, while more focused or specialist marketing agencies may support only a single facet, such as content marketing. Marketing agencies usually also offer advertising services, so businesses need to consider other reasons for partnering with a marketing agency to gain the most from the investment.
Choosing a marketing agency vs. an advertising agency is just the first step. You now need to narrow down your agency choice from the many available. Great questions to ask both types of agencies include:
What experience do you have in my company's industry?
What testimonials do you have from companies similar to mine?
What services do you provide, e.g., full-service advertising/marketing agency, or do you solely focus on social media/PPC ads?
How do you communicate deliverables, and how often?
What's your pricing structure?
As well as asking the agency directly, you can also do your research. If you have good relationships with other firms in your industry, you could ask their opinions of particular agencies. You can also browse online reviews and check out their work on social media, previous clients' websites, or industry magazines.
It's also important to consider your budget against the agency's pricing model. An agency that only charges per hour could become expensive as your marketing or advertising campaigns become more complex. Find out if they offer project-based prices or even a subscription rate that covers a range of services. You could also potentially negotiate value-based pricing, whereby what you pay is determined by the success of a particular marketing or advertising campaign.
Learn more about the difference between marketing and advertising agencies
How is marketing different from advertising? For most organizations, it will be that you're doing the former, while the latter depends on the overall goal of your marketing strategy. Most businesses will, however, need to invest in hiring the services of an advertising agency at some point. Advertising helps bring awareness to the products you want to push in your market, builds engagement with your target audience, and reinforces your brand.
Businesses are spending, on average, 23% of their budget on agency hires. Understanding the differences between a marketing agency vs. advertising agency helps ensure this money is well spent. Read our guide to find out more about advertising strategies for small and midsize businesses.