The Marketing Agency Model — EXPOSED
by Jacob Baadsgaard • March 31, 2025
Where Every Dollar You Spend Actually Goes (And Why It’s Worth It)
Let’s address a question that every business owner has had at some point:
“If I hire a marketing agency, where does my money actually go?”
Agencies can feel like a black box — businesses invest thousands of dollars and hope for
a return, but what’s really happening behind the scenes?
Today, I want to break it all down. I’ll
reveal exactly how agency pricing works, the real costs of running a high-performing marketing team, and the
trade-offs of agencies vs. in-house hires vs. freelancers.
The goal? Give you the transparency you deserve.
Where Does Your Dollar Go?
When you pay an agency, here’s how that money actually gets allocated:
🔹 50-60% → Directly to Strategy & Execution
This is the portion of your investment that goes directly into work on
your account — campaign strategy, ad creation, data analysis, content
production, and execution. These are the specialists, account managers, designers, and analysts dedicated to driving
real marketing results for your business.
🔹 15-20% → Operational Overhead
Running a business comes with unavoidable overhead: HR, finance, legal,
office space, software, and IT infrastructure to ensure seamless execution. If
you hired an in-house team, you’d have these costs, too.
🔹 10-15% → Sales & Marketing
Like any business, agencies need to market themselves to bring in new clients. This
covers lead generation, sales, and brand-building efforts.
🔹 10-15% → Profit & Growth
Healthy agencies reinvest profits into hiring better talent, improving internal
processes, and scaling services to deliver better results for their clients.
At first glance, you might be thinking: “Wait
— so only 50-60 cents of every dollar I pay is spent directly on my account?”
Let’s unpack why that can be a better deal than hiring in-house or working
with freelancers.
Agency vs. In-House vs. Freelancers: What’s the Best Value?
The Hidden Costs of Hiring In-House
Let’s say you decide to hire an internal marketing team instead of working with an
agency. Here’s what you need to account for:
✅ Salaries & Benefits: A mid-level
marketing employee costs $80K+ per year, plus benefits, payroll taxes, and retention costs. A full team? Easily
$500K+ annually before ad spend.
✅ Hiring Costs: Finding the right talent
takes time and money. Recruitment fees, job postings, and the risk of a
bad hire add up.
✅ Retention & Training: Most companies
struggle to retain top marketing talent because marketers want career growth — and agencies offer that in a way in-house teams often can’t.
✅ Complete Control & Alignment: The
biggest benefit of an in-house team is full integration with your brand, direct alignment with leadership, and
complete control over execution, priorities, and creative direction.
🛑 The biggest issue?
Most in-house marketers end up working on too many things at once instead of being hyper-focused on the exact skills needed to drive results.
With an agency, you get specialists 100% dedicated to their craft, whether that’s paid media, SEO, creative, or conversion rate optimization.
Freelancers: The Coordination Headache
Hiring freelancers can work in certain situations, but let’s be real about the
trade-offs:
🚧 You become the project manager:
Coordinating multiple freelancers (designers, copywriters, media buyers) is time-consuming and inefficient.
🚧 Quality control is on you: No built-in
quality assurance. If a freelancer underperforms, you’re left scrambling.
🚧 Scalability is limited: Need to pivot
or scale? Good luck ramping up freelancers quickly.
✅ Flexibility & Cost Control:
Freelancers can be a great option for businesses needing specialized work on a project basis without long-term
commitments or overhead.
Agencies solve these problems by bringing all the expertise under one
roof, ensuring seamless collaboration, and keeping your marketing strategy
aligned.
Why an Agency Gives You the Best ROI
Let’s flip the question: What’s the cost of NOT working with an agency?
With an agency, you’re not just paying for execution. You’re paying for:
✅ Specialized expertise: A full team of
dedicated professionals working on your business, not generalists juggling
multiple roles.
✅ Faster results: Agencies
already have proven processes to launch and optimize campaigns
quickly.
✅ Less risk: You avoid the
hiring, training, and turnover costs of an in-house team.
✅ Scalability: Agencies scale up
or down as needed—no long-term salary commitments.
✅ Proven hiring & retention: Agencies
attract and retain top marketing talent better than most businesses can on their own.
At Disruptive, we don’t waste your budget;
we maximize it.
Our job isn’t just to run ads — it’s to
align marketing with business growth.
How Disruptive Advertising Stands Out
Not all agencies are created equal. At Disruptive Advertising, we take a different approach, one built on five key pillars:
🔹 Authenticity
We work exclusively with brands and people we genuinely believe
in. Our hearts and minds are fully committed to your success, fostering a
win-win-win mindset that leads to long-term growth.
🔹 Top Talent
Our
team is made up of highly skilled, passionate
marketers. Through Disruptive University, we invest in continuous learning, ensuring that our team is always ahead of industry
trends and ready to drive real impact for your business.
🔹 Strategy First
Marketing isn’t just about running ads — it’s about having the right
strategy. We take a data-driven approach, aligning every
marketing effort with your business goals, ideal customer journey, and revenue objectives.
🔹 Breakthroughs That Drive Results
We don’t settle for “good enough.” Our team constantly tests, innovates,
and finds new ways to win, ensuring that your marketing efforts
deliver breakthroughs, not just best practices.
🔹 Exclusivity & Community
As a Disruptive partner, you gain
access to exclusive relationships, content, and community. We
collaborate with industry leaders, provide transformational education through Disruptive University, and
create opportunities to amplify your brand’s impact.
Final Thoughts: Who Should Work With an Agency?
Agencies aren’t the right fit for every business.
If you:
✔ Need plug-and-play execution without
managing an internal team
✔ Want specialized expertise
without hiring multiple full-time employees
✔ Care about scaling quickly with proven processes
An agency might be the best investment you can make.
However, if you have a deeply ingrained internal marketing team and strong leadership guiding them, an agency may not be necessary — or they may act as an extension of your team.
The key is understanding the trade-offs
and choosing the path that gives your business the highest return.
Want help figuring out if an agency is the right move for you?
We’ll give you a free, no-strings-attached marketing audit to help you
decide.
We’ll review your goals, current setup, and the gaps holding you back—then give
you clear next steps, whether you work with us or not.
Because the best marketing decisions start with clarity.
