Outsourcing Marketing: Freelancer or Agency?

Outsourced marketing services have become extremely popular in recent years. Businesses often outsource marketing to optimize operating costs and focus more on their core products or services.

The two main options are freelancers and marketing agencies. Each has different advantages and disadvantages. Businesses need to understand their characteristics to choose the right outsourcing option.

Comparing freelancers and agencies

Suppose your business needs ad optimization. The table below gives an overview of the differences between the two options:

Evaluation factor	Freelancer	Agency
Staff	1 person	1 team
Capabilities	Specialist in one field	Varied
Management	By task	By results
​Cost	Low	Medium
​Availability	Mostly outside office hours	Mainly during office hours
Stability	Low	High
Risk	High	Low

Staff

Freelancer: an individual, with limits on time, capabilities, scope of work and more.

Agency: a team with members responsible for different stages of a project, including people who carry out the work and people who supervise it.

Capabilities

Freelancer: has expertise in a particular field and can only take on work related to that expertise.

Agency: has expertise across different fields. For example, besides optimizing ads, an agency can write content, design banners, design landing pages and more. An agency can fulfill all the functions of a marketing department.

Management

Freelancer: the business must assign and manage individual tasks.

Agency: manages the entire project independently and more proactively, coordinating its own staff to meet the agreed objectives. The business does not need to keep assigning tasks, only track performance through the agency's reports.

Cost

Freelancer: costs are not fixed and depend on the agreement between the business and freelancer. Skilled specialists charge more. However, most freelancer costs are low and affordable for most SMEs.

Agency: medium to high costs, in return for a team that can operate independently without much management effort. Fees are fixed and published on the agency's website.

Availability

Freelancer: hours are often irregular, with work mainly outside office hours. To coordinate well, the business needs someone available in the evening or on weekends.

Agency: mainly operates during office hours, usually responds quickly and can provide support outside working hours when needed.

Stability

Freelancer: low stability. Work can be interrupted when the freelancer is sick, on leave or traveling. When the freelancer leaves, the business has to recruit again from scratch.

Agency: high stability. Staff are continually recruited and trained to ensure enough resources for business projects. If the person in charge is busy or away, someone else is always available to take over.

Risk

Freelancer: the business needs enough expertise to supervise the freelancer's work and prevent risks such as inaccurate reporting, using company assets for personal purposes, data leaks, overspending with no ability to pay compensation and more.

Agency: work is managed by the company, with someone monitoring each task and supervising quality. The agency must also take responsibility and pay compensation if it breaches contractual terms.

Conclusion

Each outsourcing option has its advantages and disadvantages. If the business has enough expertise and experience to manage and supervise marketing work, a freelancer is a cost-effective choice. If the business lacks marketing expertise and needs professionalism and stability, an agency can handle all the work of a marketing department for only a slightly higher cost.

Businesses choosing an agency can consider advertising services from Optimus. Optimus is an agency specializing in performance marketing services focused on optimizing leads, orders and revenue rather than clicks and views, as traditional agencies do.