What Does a Digital Marketing Agency Actually Do? (And Is One Worth It?)
A digital marketing agency is an outside team that plans, builds and runs the online channels that bring a business its customers: search, paid ads, websites, email, social and analytics. You hire one when the work needs more skills than one employee has, or more hours than your team can spare.
That is the short answer. The longer answer depends on what stage your business is at. A startup with a product and no customers needs something very different from a 30-year-old company whose website stopped producing leads. This guide covers what agencies actually do, what they cost compared to hiring, when they are worth it, and how to tell a good one from a bad one.
What does a digital marketing agency actually do?
Most agencies sell some combination of the same seven services. The labels vary from agency to agency, but the work underneath is consistent.
- Search engine optimization (SEO). Making your website easier for Google to understand and rank. That covers technical fixes, page content, local listings and earning links from other sites.
- Generative engine optimization (GEO). Making your business easy for AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews to find, understand and recommend. This is newer, and it overlaps heavily with good SEO. We explain the difference in GEO vs. SEO.
- Paid advertising (PPC). Running Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta or LinkedIn campaigns. The agency picks keywords and audiences, writes ads, sets budgets and adjusts bids weekly.
- Website design and development. Building or rebuilding the site that every other channel sends people to. A slow or confusing site wastes every dollar spent driving traffic to it.
- Content. Blog articles, service pages, case studies and guides that answer the questions your buyers ask before they call.
- Email and SMS. Newsletters, follow-up sequences and reminders that turn one-time visitors into repeat customers.
- Analytics and tracking. Setting up Google Analytics, conversion tracking and call tracking so you can see which channel produced which customer.
What the work looks like week to week
A typical engagement starts with an audit. The agency reviews your site, your ad accounts, your tracking and your competitors, then writes a plan. After that, the work settles into a monthly rhythm: campaigns get adjusted, content gets published, technical issues get fixed and a report shows what changed.
The report matters more than most clients think. If an agency cannot show you which leads came from which channel, nobody can say whether the spend is working, including the agency.
Startups and established companies need different things
The same agency can serve both, but the first six months of work look nothing alike.
If you are a startup
A startup’s problem is usually that nobody knows it exists. There is no search history, no reviews, no backlinks and often no tracking. The priorities are foundations and fast feedback:
- A website built to convert, with tracking installed on day one rather than added later.
- A Google Business Profile and consistent listings, so local and AI search can confirm you are a real business.
- Small, controlled paid campaigns to test which messages and audiences respond. Ads produce data in weeks; SEO takes months.
- A short list of pages that clearly state what you do, who it is for and where you operate. AI tools cannot recommend a business they cannot describe.
The risk for startups is buying a large monthly retainer before there is anything to optimize. A good agency will tell you to spend less until the basics are in place.
If you are an established company
An established business usually has the opposite problem. It has years of content, old campaigns, several past vendors and a website that has been patched more than rebuilt. The priorities are cleanup and focus:
- An audit of what already ranks, what already converts and what is quietly broken.
- Fixing tracking, so decisions rest on real numbers instead of habit.
- Refreshing older pages that still earn traffic, rather than only publishing new ones.
- Consolidating pages that compete with each other for the same searches.
The risk for established companies is assuming the old playbook still works. Search behaviour has shifted toward AI answers, and a site that ranked well in 2022 may now be skipped entirely by the tools your buyers use.
Are digital marketing agencies worth it?
An agency is worth it when it gives you skills you cannot hire for the same money, and when you can measure what it produces. It is not worth it when you pay a retainer and cannot say what changed.
The honest comparison is not agency versus nothing. It is agency versus hiring someone, or versus doing it yourself.
The cost of hiring in-house
In Saskatchewan, the median wage for a digital marketing specialist is $34.75 an hour, according to Job Bank’s wage data (reference period 2023–2024). At full time, that works out to roughly $72,000 a year before CPP, EI, benefits, software, training and the time it takes to manage them.
That buys one person. One person rarely has deep skills in SEO, paid ads, web development, analytics and writing at the same time. Most in-house marketers are strong in two of those areas and learning the rest on the job.
How the options compare
| Option | What You Pay For | Skill Range | Best Fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Your own time and tools | Whatever you already know | Very early startups testing an idea |
| In-house hire | Salary, benefits, tools, management | Usually one or two specialties | Companies with steady, high-volume marketing work |
| Agency | A monthly retainer or project fee or commission | A team across several specialties | Companies that need several skills but not several full-time staff |
| Hybrid | One internal marketer plus an agency | Internal knowledge plus outside depth | Established companies scaling up |
The hybrid model is common for good reason. An internal person knows the business, the customers and the products. The agency brings technical depth and tools that would be expensive to license for one company.
When an agency is not worth it
- You cannot describe what a new customer is worth to you. Without that number, nobody can judge whether marketing spend pays off.
- Your sales process loses the leads marketing sends. More traffic will not fix slow follow-up.
- The agency will not explain its work in plain language or give you access to your own accounts.
Can you do it yourself, or start your own agency?
Yes to both, and plenty of people do. The tools are cheaper and easier to use than they were five years ago. Google Business Profile is free. Search Console is free. AI writing tools can draft a page in minutes.
What the tools do not supply is judgement. Knowing which keyword is worth chasing, why an ad account is spending money on the wrong searches, or why a page dropped after an update takes years of seeing the same problems across many businesses. That pattern recognition is most of what an experienced agency sells.
If you are a founder deciding whether to handle marketing yourself, a reasonable test is time. Track how many hours a week marketing takes you, then multiply by what your time is worth to the business. If that number is higher than the cost of help, you are paying for DIY marketing whether you see the invoice or not.
If you are asking because you want to start an agency, the barrier to entry is low and the barrier to staying in business is high. Most of the work is not marketing. It is client communication, reporting, billing and keeping up with platforms that change every quarter.
Do you need a local agency?
Not necessarily, but location helps in a few specific ways. A Saskatchewan agency knows the market: smaller cities, long distances between them, and buyers who still value a phone call and a face. Local search works differently in Saskatoon than in Toronto, because there are fewer competitors and each review carries more weight.
A local agency can also meet you in person, which matters more than people admit when something goes wrong. That said, the skills that matter most are the same anywhere. Choose on fit and evidence first, distance second.
Where Sojourn Digital fits
Sojourn Digital is a Saskatoon agency working with startups, established companies, nonprofits and social enterprises across Canada. We combine SEO, GEO, paid search, web design and systems consulting, so the website, the ads and the tracking are built to work together.
If you want to know whether an agency makes sense for your business, book a meeting. We will look at where you stand and tell you honestly whether you need us.
Some Frequently Asked Questions
An outside team that plans and runs online marketing: search, ads, websites, content, email and analytics.
Audits, campaign management, content, technical fixes and monthly reporting tied to leads or sales.
Yes, when they supply skills you cannot hire for the same cost and can show results. No, when results cannot be measured.
One Saskatchewan specialist costs about $72,000 a year in wages alone, for one person's skill set.
Yes, especially early on. Track the hours it takes and compare them to the cost of help.
The one that fits your stage, lets you own your accounts and measures what matters to your business.
Sources
- Digital Marketing Specialist in Canada: Wages, Job Bank, Government of Canada. Saskatchewan median $34.75/hour, reference period 2023–2024, page modified 2026-09-24.