To outsource digital marketing is to pay an agency, freelancer, consultant or fractional CMO for work an employee would otherwise do. The benchmark is an in-house hire: Australia's advertising and marketing professionals earn a median $1,957 a week full-time, about $114,000 a year with 12 percent super. Which option fits depends on revenue, ad spend and who leads marketing.
This guide compares the five options on cost, control and fit, with a decision table by revenue and ad spend. For what each piece of outsourced work costs, see our pricing page.
What does outsourcing digital marketing mean?
It means paying people outside the business to plan or run some or all of your digital marketing: paid search, Meta ads, SEO, tracking, email, content, or the strategy that ties them together. Some businesses outsource one channel. Others outsource the whole function, sometimes called an outsourced marketing department, and keep only an owner or manager who signs off.
Your five options compared
Each option suits a different situation, and each fails in its own way:
| Option | Best when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| In-house hire | There is a full-time job and someone senior to manage it | One person rarely covers paid search, Meta, SEO and tracking well |
| Freelancer | The task is defined and someone in-house directs the work | Capacity, cover for leave, and what happens if they move on |
| Agency | You need more than one channel run well, every week | How the fee is set, and who actually does the work |
| Consultant | You need direction and someone else will do the work | Advice nobody has time to carry out |
| Fractional CMO | Marketing has outgrown the owner, but a full-time CMO is hard to justify | The role needs authority and access to the numbers to work |
In-house hire
A hire knows your business, your customers and your history, and is there every day. The catch is range. Paid search, Meta ads, SEO, tracking and reporting are separate specialisms, and one person who is strong in all of them is rare and expensive. A hire works best when there is a full-time job in one area and someone senior to set the direction.
Freelancer
A freelancer gives you a specialist for one channel or task, usually for less than an agency charges. It works when the task is clear and someone in the business sets priorities. Plan for leave, illness and the day they take on a bigger client.
Agency
An agency gives you a team across channels, with cover built in. Judge it on how the fee is set and who does the work. Our guide to marketing agency fees explains the pricing models and what a fee has to earn back.
Consultant
A consultant gives you senior judgement without a team: a plan, an audit of what you run now, or a second opinion on an agency. It works when someone else, in-house or outside, will carry the plan out. See our digital marketing consultant page, or the Google Ads consultant page if paid search is the question.
Fractional CMO
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works for you part-time on an ongoing basis. The role owns the plan, sets the budget split and holds every supplier to the numbers, including the agency. It suits a business that has outgrown the owner running marketing but cannot yet justify a full-time CMO.
How much does it cost to outsource digital marketing?
The fairest comparison is with the cost of a hire. Jobs and Skills Australia publishes median full-time earnings by occupation, from ABS data. ANZSCO group 2251 is advertising and marketing professionals; 1311 is advertising, public relations and sales managers:
| Cost of a hire | Group 2251 | Group 1311 |
|---|---|---|
| Median weekly earnings | $1,957 | $2,677 |
| A year (52 weeks) | $101,764 | $139,204 |
| With 12% super | $113,976 | $155,908 |
Sources: Jobs and Skills Australia occupation profiles 2251 and 1311, median full-time weekly earnings from the ABS Employee Earnings and Hours survey (May 2025), pages updated 2 April 2026; super guarantee of 12 percent from 1 July 2025 (ATO). The annual figures are our calculation.
Salary is not the whole cost of a hire. Add payroll tax if your payroll is above your state's threshold, workers compensation, leave, recruitment, tools, and the time someone senior spends managing the role.
Outsourced options are priced differently:
- Agencies running paid media usually charge 10 to 20 percent of ad spend, or a flat $1,500 to $3,000 a month for a small Google Ads account and $3,000 to $8,000 for a mid-sized one.
- SEO providers most often charge $501 to $1,000 a month on retainer, according to Ahrefs' global survey of 439 providers, which also estimated that freelancers average about $1,349 a month against $3,209 for agencies. Our SEO cost guide has the detail.
- Consultants and fractional CMOs are quoted on scope. We have not found a reliable public Australian range, and we do not publish ours: our fee is fixed for the agreed scope and quoted after a free call.
Put the two side by side. Even at the top of the mid-sized range, a Google Ads retainer of $8,000 a month comes to $96,000 a year, less than one hire in group 2251 once super is added ($113,976). A separate hire for each specialist channel multiplies that cost.
Which option fits your business?
These are the lines we use when someone asks which way to go. They come from where our own fee does and does not pay for itself, not from an industry standard.
| Your situation | Usually the better fit |
|---|---|
| Under about $500K in revenue, or under about $1,500 a month in ad spend | Do the basics yourself with a clear plan, or use a freelancer for set tasks. An agency fee would take too much of the return. |
| $500K to $2M in revenue | One channel done well, run by a freelancer or a specialist on a small fixed scope, with a consultant for the plan if you need one. Trade businesses in this range are where our own trade work starts. |
| $2M to $20M in revenue, $20K or more a month in paid acquisition, no senior marketer | An agency or specialists to run the channels, plus a fractional CMO or consultant to own the plan and hold suppliers to the numbers. |
| $2M to $20M in revenue, with a capable marketer in-house | Keep the marketer in charge and outsource the specialist channels they cannot cover, such as Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, SEO and tracking. |
| Above about $20M in revenue, with a marketing team | Hire a full-time marketing leader, with specialist agencies working under them. |
Our rules of thumb, based on who we take on and why. Not an industry standard.
What should stay with you when you outsource?
- Ad accounts, analytics, tag manager and the CRM, all in the business's name, with outside parties added as users.
- The data: conversion history, audiences and reports.
- The creative and the copy you paid for.
- A written record of what was done and why. When we run an account, the playbook and decision log are the client's to keep, whether we keep the work or the team takes it in-house.
How do you outsource without losing control?
- Agree the numbers first: what a customer is worth, what you will pay to win one, and which system holds the truth. Usually that is the CRM or the accounts, not the ad platforms.
- Write the scope down: channels, deliverables, people and reporting.
- Own every account and give access, not ownership.
- Ask for monthly reporting that reconciles to your own revenue.
- Keep the term short enough that results, not the contract, keep the relationship going.
Is it worth hiring an agency instead of staff?
It is when the work returns more gross profit than the fee, and your own records can show it. If you need several channels run every week and nobody in-house can do it, an agency usually costs less than a hire for each skill. If you need one channel or a plan, a freelancer or a consultant usually costs less again.
What are the services of digital marketing?
These are the main ones businesses outsource:
- Paid search: Google Ads on Search, Performance Max and Shopping.
- Paid social: Facebook and Instagram ads, LinkedIn Ads for B2B, and TikTok and X ads where your buyers spend their time.
- SEO and AEO: organic search and visibility in AI answers, covered by our AI SEO agency page.
- Conversion rate optimisation: landing pages and testing.
- Tracking and analytics: conversion tracking, GA4 and reporting. A tracking audit is a good first step.
- Websites: see what a website costs in Australia.
- Email, content and organic social: often kept in-house or with a specialist.
We run Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok and X ads, and other paid channels where the demand exists, along with SEO and AEO, tracking, CRO and websites. Day-to-day content such as organic social posts stays with your team or a specialist we recommend.
Talk it through before you decide
If you are choosing between hiring and outsourcing, the free 30-minute profit audit is a good place to test the numbers. A senior operator looks at your spend, revenue and tracking and tells you which option fits, even when it is not us. You can also read about our fractional CMO service and how we price our work, or book the free profit audit.
Next step
Want this kind of work in your business?
Engagement intake is capped, senior operators run every account. If your attribution is leaking and your reports have stopped making sense, the next step is a 30-minute call.
