We often write about the differences between smaller, independent agencies and massive agency holding companies that control billions of dollars of marketing spend.

Both types have strengths and weaknesses – the holding company agencies can offer global scale and deep benches of skilled marketers, but they’re often bureaucratic monoliths that provide refuge for mediocre talent. Discipline-expert agencies typically employ smaller teams of scrappy specialists where there is nowhere for subpar talent to hide.

After hundreds of conversations with corporate marketers, we’ve learned that many prefer independent agencies that are focused on being best-of-breed in a single discipline. We feel that these specialist agencies are far superior to the generalist holding company agencies.

Since we like to keep our fingers on the pulse of local markets served by independent marketing firms, we have decided to maintain a list for the Atlanta market:

Http://Setup™.us/atlantaagencies

This is a work in progress, so please contact us with any additions to this list of independent agencies located in the metro Atlanta area with 5-300 full-time employees.