8 Reasons To Hire A Marketing Agency
Rather Than Adding To Your Marketing Team
Finding the best marketing talent right now is a huge challenge.
At the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, many companies cut their marketing budgets and laid off members of their marketing team, and now as the economy heats up, it is hard to fill open roles.
We are hearing more about the “Great Resignation,” or as we have been calling it, the “Talent Wars,” to find the best marketers. Many of these open roles require special skills like analytics, digital design, marketing automation, or other specializations - or several years of experience. These are not the types of positions that can be filled with entry-level talent or easily poached from other companies or agencies. Also, to be effective, a marketing team needs a variation of skills - not just a few generalists.
As brands (and agencies) look to fill those ever wider gaps in marketing capacity or capability, they have been approaching Setup since we are marketing matchmakers. While we do some recruiting work, we are seeing a spike in demand for our support helping clients find agencies to fill the gaps left by stretched marketing teams. It is easier to hire a fantastic agency with a diverse team of experienced specialists than it is to hire each person onto an in-house marketing team.
Here are key advantages to hiring an agency rather than adding headcount to an in-house marketing team:
Price. Finding and hiring the diverse team you would need is a very expensive and lengthy process (account manager, project manager, creative director, art director, copywriter, photographer, social media expert, editor, post-production animator, etc.)
Expertise. Your in-house team members are experts in your industry, but not in every discipline or aspect of marketing.
Team Extension. The agency can serve as an extension of your team and can dedicate resources that enable you to quickly execute.
Testing. Starting with an agency is a great way to “prove a concept” to see what it would take to build up an internal team in the long term.
Cross-Industry Knowledge. Hiring an agency full of experts will bring new insights because they work across various industries and keep a finger on the pulse of changing trends.
Nimbleness. If you quickly want to pivot from an internal team, you are stuck with those hires. With an agency partner, you can be more nimble with directional changes.
Flexibility. While you may initially hire an agency for one thing (for example, content creation), you may be able to lean on the agency for other areas of expertise as new needs emerge.
Relationships. Agencies are paid to think through partner relationships which make them more successful and give you more "bang for your buck."
Any brand that has a few open marketing positions should consider the idea of hiring a marketing agency to fill gaps - in the short or long term.
If you need assistance finding a marketing agency that can fill gaps in capability or capacity, please contact us here.
In this episode, Madeline Evans, the Marketing Manager at Setup, interviews Jenny Reineck, the Social Media Manager at NCR Voyix, to talk about how curiosity led her to a role in marketing, the benefits of AI in B2B marketing, brands who shine on social media, and more.
When we first featured Andrea Arnold in 2021 for our Women in Marketing Series, now Senior Manager, Thought Leadership & Content Strategy at Eaton, her perspective reflected a creative marketer with a strong strategic instinct and a clear belief in the power of story.
Back then, she shared, “At the end of the day, we are all compelled by the story of the product or service, whether at the business level or personal level.” Years later, Andrea’s perspective has expanded alongside an industry that now demands more speed, more systems, and more discernment.
The Setup Women in Marketing series spotlights incredible leaders making an impact across the industry. When we first featured Vanessa Jasinski, VP of Marketing at YES! Communities, her perspective centered on people. That belief anchored her approach to marketing in 2021 when we first interviewed her and still does today five years later. But as the industry has rapidly evolved, so has the way she applies that mindset.
We’re continuing our Women in Marketing series by spotlighting incredible leaders making an impact across the industry. From career pivots to leadership lessons, we’ve been sharing the inspirational stories of women in marketing since 2019. These leaders share the experiences and insights that have shaped their journeys, and provide advice for upcoming marketers.
At Setup, we sit in the middle of these relationships every day. We see what happens when a client sets an agency partnership up to win and what happens when they accidentally set it up to fail. So if you want better work, better chemistry, and better results, here are the most common “client behaviors” that signal trouble, plus what to do instead.
In the five-minute TV segment about The Connector’s Compass: Navigate Your Way to Meaningful Relationships, I had the chance to explain something that has shaped my career for more than 30 years. Real connection is not about working a room. It is about caring about the person in front of you.
That message did not start with the book. It started with Setup.
Designing for real life means embedding authenticity across the entire customer journey — from product to service to story — in ways that remove friction and deliver measurable and meaningful results.
Marti Walsh, the VP of Customer Experience and Marketing at Kimberly-Clark Professional, shares what it means to be an authentic leader and how to optimize operations honorably.
In the last six years, we’ve surveyed thousands of brands and agencies about their relationships. Each year, the data tells the story that brands want a partner they can rely on, but finding that partner often is difficult, expensive, and time consuming.
Read what brands are looking for in the perfect agency partner.
Setup’s 2025 Marketing Relationship Survey gives marketers a rare, honest look into what brands and agencies say is working and what quietly destroys partnerships.
The truth is that relationships fail because of patterns, mistakes that pile up over time, even after multiple warnings. So here are the most common red flags and green flags in the agency-client relationship based on what real marketers are telling us.
Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, sat down with Gabie Boko, the Chief Marketing Officer for NetApp, to talk about staying consumer focused, being bold, and loving the LEGO brand.
Super Bowl LX showcased brands pushing weight loss drugs, AI, and utilizing celebrities to an absurd amount (what’s new?), as well as another “Minions" movie in theaters (surprised but not shocked). Every marketer weighs in on who won their hearts…and this year, for us, it came down to brands that leaned into storytelling that included nostalgia and emotion, specifically with a human lens.
And if you’ve ever been blindsided by a brand-agency breakup (from either side), you’re not alone. The 2025 Marketing Relationship Survey shows something that’s both surprising and painfully familiar:
Brands aren’t racing to leave… but they’re also not thrilled.
Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, sat down with Don McGuire, the EVP and Chief Marketing Officer for Qualcomm, to talk about seizing the moment of opportunity, empathetic leadership, Louis Vuitton, and more.
The annual Setup Marketing Relationship Survey reveals a growing disconnect between what clients say ends agency relationships (delivery + value) and what agencies think ends them (budget cuts + leadership changes). If you want stronger partnerships and better outcomes in 2026, this report highlights exactly where relationships break and how to fix them.
Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, sat down with Brett Hannath, the Corporate VP, Global Marketing of Intel, to talk problem solving, transparent leadership, the bricks-and-mortar experience, and more.
Joe Koufman, author of The Connector’s Compass and Founder + CEO of Setup, shares his passion behind relationship building and why he wrote a book centered around people pursuing more meaningful connections.
Over the past year, we’ve watched the following patterns emerge across seemingly unrelated sectors: rising consumer expectations, demand for authenticity, growing complexity, and the tension between automation and human connection.
We interviewed multiple marketers from an array of industries in our blogs below, and we discovered consistent trends across the board. Check out all of our industry blogs throughout 2025 from leaders at Blackbaud, Hiscox USA, Mimedx, MONPURE, Kimberly-Clark Professional, and more.
A call for marketers and agencies to participate in the 2025 Marketing Relationship Survey, before it’s too late.
On November 19, 2025, Atlanta’s vibrant marketing community united under one roof for the first-ever Atlanta Integrated Marketing Summit (AIMS) — a remarkable experience that turned inspiration into action, focused on meaningful connections, and highlighted incredible leaders from UPS, Kellanova, Edible Brands, and Papa Johns who are actively pushing the industry forward.
Explore the denim duel between AE’s Sydney Sweeney campaign and Gap’s Milkshake-fueled comeback—and what marketers can learn.
Most agency searches begin with urgency: a priority shift, a launch date appears, and suddenly, you’re writing an RFP at midnight. In that scramble, you invite too many firms, ask the wrong questions, and end up choosing based on pitch theater instead of day-to-day fit. The fix isn’t a better RFP template. It’s time - specifically, the time you spend getting to know agencies before you need one.
Marketers are grappling with how to make their strategy feel more impactful and human in 2025, but in the nonprofit world, that challenge comes with the added pressure of limited budgets and expansive missions. For Lynn Godfrey, Chief Experience Officer at Blood Cancer United, the solution lies in staying intentional, deeply segmenting audiences, and adapting quickly in a constantly evolving landscape.
Private wealth marketing is built on personal relationships, which can make the advancements in technology more and more challenging. In an industry where discretion and relationships reign supreme, marketers must learn how to integrate data, automation, and innovation without losing trust.
To explore this balance, we spoke with Cathy McLagan, Managing Director of Growth Enablement at CIBC Private Wealth US.
Joe Koufman, the Founder and CEO of Setup, explains the benefit of reviving the Atlanta Integrated Marketing System (AIMS). Bringing AIMS back to Atlanta is a chance to unite our community, foster new connections, and share practical insights from across the spectrum. Read about how AIMS benefits the Atlanta marketing community:
“Data-driven” marketing is about proactively leveraging insights to make strategic decisions. But what defines a truly data-driven media approach?
If your media strategy feels tangled and unclear, you’re not alone. Here’s how smart brands are simplifying the chaos and getting real results.
Whether you’re managing campaigns for a national brand, a franchise QSR, or a B2B tech company, the challenge is the same: how do you build smarter media strategies that actually tie back to real business outcomes? We spoke with top experts from Sagepath, Goodway Group, and Look Listen to dig into what’s working, what’s changing, and where media performance and analytics are headed next.
On a bright August morning in Atlanta, marketers from across the city from brands like Hiscox, Coca-Cola, Church’s Chicken, and more gathered for Setup’s latest #MarketersBreakfast, ready to explore a topic on everyone’s mind: How can AI truly enhance, rather than replace, human creativity?
Over coffee and conversation, attendees rolled up their sleeves for a hands-on, interactive session led by Aby Varma, the Founder of Spark Novus.
Jose Villa, the President & Chief Strategy Officer at Sensis and Chair of the Hispanic Marketing Council, shares his thoughts on Multicultural marketing - where marketers are spending and where consumers are shopping when fear and uncertainty take precedence.