Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency for Startups in 2025

In a startup, it can feel like you’re juggling a thousand different tasks, all of them priorities. At the same time, if you’ve got limited resources and a competitive market, where do you turn? Working with a digital marketing agency can be a smart investment. 

The right agency can help you build your brand, generate leads, and scale your business into a major player in your industry. 

Use this guide to help make deciding on a digital marketing agency for your startup easy and straightforward.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

• Before you choose a digital marketing agency for your startup, establish your goals and objectives, target audience, budget, and the marketing channels you want to focus on.
• Assess an agency based on factors like their communication, deliverables, reporting, case studies, and industry expertise.
• Ask questions that give you insight into what services the marketing agency will provide for your startup such as what tools they use and how they measure campaigns.
• Watch for red flags such as agencies that guarantee instant results (while content does sometimes go viral, typically improving search engine rankings takes time) or agencies that aren’t transparent about what strategies they’ll implement for your campaigns.

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Before You Choose a Digital Marketing Agency

Before you even start research, it’s important to have a complete understanding of: what you want out of hiring a digital marketing agency, the goals for your startup, and the expectations involved. 

This helps the marketing agency better understand how to go about reaching your startup’s goals in a way that’s backed by data and designed to help your business grow. 

That’s why, before you choose a digital marketing agency, consider the following questions: 

• What are your startup’s goals and objectives for hiring the marketing agency? 
  
  • Do you want to increase traffic to your web pages? 
  • Grow your brand awareness? 
  • Generate leads or drive sales?
• Who is your target audience? 
  
  • Do you have a big-picture idea of your audience?
  • How about a more granular view of their interests, tech usage (do they prefer mobile or desktop), or customer pain points?
• What is the budget that you want to allocate to digital marketing initiatives? 
• Across what marketing channels does your audience spend the most time? 
  
  • Do they primarily use Google, social media, or email? 

Once you’ve got a solid grasp on your goals, expectations, and budget as well as the basics about your audience, it’s time to do some research. 

Researching Potential Marketing Agencies for Startups

To help you narrow down the field of potential digital marketing agencies for startups, start by asking around for recommendations or research online. 

• Look for agencies with experience working with startups or who excel in your particular industry.
• Keep in mind that some agencies only specialize in certain services like SEO (search engine optimization), social media marketing, PPC (Pay-Per-Click), and others. 
• Make sure that whichever digital marketing agency you choose offers services that match what you’re looking for. 
• Check reviews from previous clients, their portfolios, and testimonials. 
• Pay close attention to case studies as they show how the company was able to help its clients overcome specific challenges.

What to Know When Evaluating an Agency Portfolio

A solid portfolio is the hallmark of a talented agency. Depending on your needs, you’ll want to specifically check their portfolio for: 

Case studies

What kind of results did they get for other clients? Were those clients in the same (or a similar) industry or completely different from yours? 

Working with a company that has experience in your specific industry can help you fast-track much of the back-and-forth process that comes with the agency learning about your business, the clients you serve, and so on.

Metrics

Look for measurable outcomes like ROI (Return on Investment), website traffic growth, conversion rates, or lead generation. 

Creativity

What kind of ads, content, or campaigns do they create and what kinds of results do they get? Evaluate whether the marketing materials they are creating are not just on-brand, but also unique, innovative, or creative. 

How to Assess an Agency’s Expertise: 7 Tips

How do you properly evaluate a digital marketing agency for startups? Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Consider what the agency specializes in

As you browse each company’s services, portfolio, and reviews, ask: 

• SEO: Can the company help you rank well for the keywords you want to target? If you’re not sure what keywords to choose, can they help you research and come up with a list of both long-tail and short-tail keywords? 
• PPC: Can the company create and manage affordable advertising campaigns on platforms like Google Ads? What kind of numbers have they been able to generate for other companies in your sector and at what cost?
• Social media marketing: Can they help you build an engaging presence on social media, including tailoring your message for different platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok?
• Content marketing: Can the agency help you create high-quality, interesting, and unique content that ranks well on search engines and attracts and retains visitors?
• Email marketing: Does the agency provide you with strategies or can they tailor email marketing campaigns that help you gain leads or customers? 
• Analytics: Can the digital marketing agency show you the kinds of results their campaigns and messages bring once you start working together? How often will you meet to discuss analytics data? What is the process if you need to make changes or if ads aren’t converting? 

2. Find out how the agency communicates

Every marketing agency is different, but understanding how they handle communication and how transparent they are with data can make you feel secure that you’ve chosen a reliable and reputable agency for your startup. 

Here are some questions to consider:

• How quickly do they respond to your questions? 
• Do they give you regular updates and detailed reports on campaign performance? 
• Have they set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)?
• How do they measure progress? 

Be sure that whichever digital marketing agency you choose, is open to discussing your ideas and values your input. 

3. Learn about the agency’s pricing structure

Price is a major consideration, especially for startups that may have a limited marketing budget. Be sure that the agency you choose is transparent about their prices. Inquire as to whether or not they offer customized packages that can meet your needs. 

Remember that the cheapest option isn’t always the best — look for companies that are experienced and can help maximize your return on investment. 

4. Get to know the team

Knowing the people you’ll be working with is important for establishing trust and what will hopefully be a long-term partnership. It’s a good idea to get to know the people who will be handling your account, including designers, analysts, and marketers. 

Ask them about their qualifications and their past work, and take steps to make sure their work style blends in well with your company culture and the type of image you want your brand to project. 

5. Ask the right questions

Even by taking these steps it may still be a challenge to narrow down your list; after all, there are a lot of marketing agencies out there. 

Even looking at agencies that offer specific services that cater to distinct industries (like PPC for the SaaS or software as a service industry) can still result in countless potential results to go through. 

That’s why it’s so important to ask the kinds of questions that give you insight into the agency’s expertise while also making it clear that you’re working with a winner.  

Here are some questions to help: 

• What marketing strategies do you suggest for businesses in my industry/niche?
• How do you measure whether or not a campaign is successful?
• What tools and technologies do you use in your marketing campaigns?
  
  • What AI-powered innovations does your agency incorporate into workflows?
• Can you provide references or connect me with past clients?

6. Start With a (paid) test project

Many startups will give potential marketing agencies a small (paid) trial project as a test. This is a great opportunity to evaluate their creativity and communication. 

Example of an SEO test project

For example, if your goal is to improve your website’s organic traffic, an SEO-focused trial can show you how experienced the agency is in helping you rank your pages in the search engines. The scope could be to optimize anywhere from 3-5 of your web pages for relevant keywords. 

Deliverables could include: 

• An audit of your current website’s search engine optimization
• Keyword research with recommendations
• On-page optimization such as titles, meta description, headings, and internal linking
• Content recommendations or content optimization
• A basic backlink strategy such as writing guest posts or doing outreach 

You’ll then want to evaluate how effective their recommendations are. Although your ranking will not increase overnight, with a measurable time frame, you should see improvements.

Alternatively, if results are taking longer than expected the agency should be able to explain how they are adapting their strategy based on the metrics.

If they’ve prepared content for you, you should also note the quality of the content and how well it reflects your brand, as well as how well it engages readers.

Example of a PPC test project

If you’re running pay-per-click for your startup, doing a small-scale PPC campaign can help you evaluate the agency’s ability to drive results with limited ad spend. Start by running a 2-4 week Google Ads or social media ad campaign with a small budget.

The deliverables in this case could include:

• An audience-targeting strategy
• Ad copy and creative design
• Campaign setup and management
• Performance tracking and reporting

You’ll want to look at the click-through rate (CTR), cost per click (CTC) and conversion rate of the resulting campaign to gauge the effectiveness of the results. 

Outline expectations for the trial or test before it begins

No matter what kind of project you’re testing, it’s important to outline your expectations before a single task is started: 

• Set a realistic but firm deadline (typically 2-4 weeks)
• Define a fixed budget for any paid ads or additional expenses
• Outline what success looks like (CTR benchmarks, a percentage increase in engagement, or conversions)
• Agree to do weekly check-ins or reports

7. Look for long-term growth potential for your startup

When evaluating a digital marketing agency for your startup, you’ll hopefully be able to find a company you can work with over the long term. 

You want a company that can keep up with your growth, which means that not only do they have the capacity to handle you as a startup today, but also as your business grows. 

A reputable and reliable marketing agency is more than just a company that you contract out to. They’re like an extension of your team and are as invested in your success as you are. 

Red Flags to Watch For

Even with diligent research, it’s possible to discover an agency that’s not up to your standards. Here are a few red flags to watch out for:

Agencies that guarantee immediate results

It would be nice if content climbed Google rankings overnight or if social media accounts were filled with engaged followers from one day to the next, but that’s typically not how it works. 

Even the best marketing agencies and the most beloved brands recognize that building brand awareness and developing a winning content marketing strategy is an ongoing process.

Agencies that aren’t transparent

Agencies that aren’t willing to share client testimonials, case studies, their methods, or results raise concerns. Reliable digital marketing agencies are all too happy to share their strategies and how they plan to help you market your business and build your brand.

Agencies that overpromise and underdeliver 

Some marketing agencies will overpromise in an attempt to win business. If they make bold, claims or only give you vague strategies, it’s best to continue your research.

Digital Marketing Agencies for Startups: Final Thoughts

With these points in mind, you’ll be able to find a reputable marketing company that you can work with over the long term, that’s clearly invested in your brand, and ready to help you scale, reach the next level, and go from startup to success.

Discover a best-in-class suite of tools for content professionals. Check out Originality.ai’s Predictive SEO Tool, AI Checker, Plagiarism Checker, and Grammar Checker.

Then, learn more in our marketing agency series:

• AI and Advertising: A Marketing Agency Perspective
• What Is an Influencer Marketing Agency?
• How to Get SEO Clients for Your Digital Marketing Agency
• What Is a B2B Marketing Agency?
• What Is a Full Service Marketing Agency? The 2025 Definitive Guide
• What Does a Content Marketing Agency Do?