Is it me or do freelancers do a better job than marketing agencies?

[BreakingInnocence]

hiring is the hardest part. good that you found something better.

[potatodrinker]

Agencies are usually less experienced folks. Common to see fresh grads with 1-2 years experience (not enough) botch client work.

Freelancers, if they do good work you’ll refer them to your other business friends. Bad work, word goes around.

Personally prefer in-house corporate work. Forget about PPC after 5.30pm, no weekend work, one client

[BreakingInnocence]

Yes, you can connect your Google Ads account through the API, which allows changes to be made programmatically. You can then download the account into the Google Ads Editor desktop client to review and verify those changes.

You can also connect to the Google Analytics API and the Google Tag Manager API to track events. In addition, you should implement proper conversion tracking by configuring and managing conversions within Google Ads, ensuring that events from Analytics or Tag Manager are correctly mapped and attributed.

[tremcrst]

Yes, this is typical. The people running your account at an agency (especially if you have a small budget) are typically less experienced and overloaded with clients. Freelancers can now leverage AI to perform the work of a marketing team, which means that agencies will soon become a thing of the past.

If your tech savy you can use Google’s APIs to automate your reporting if you’re comfortable managing the account yourself. If not I’d recommend finding a good freelancer to help you at least set up the account properly and give you some coaching on how to manage it yourself.

[MidnightAltas]

Yes. Why would I work at an agency when I could do the same job, work directly with clients, make just as much money, but charge 1/4 of what an agency does? When it’s me doing the work?

Unless you need services I can’t or won’t provide (billboards/direct mail/ whatever it is), if you only need PPC, you should be working direct to expert.

[RealisticIllusions82]

The agency model is usually an ambitious business person selling the services of someone they can pay as little as possible so they can make the margin. That person they pay as little as possible is usually a junior talent. And they load them up with as many accounts as possible.

So yes, often a dedicated freelancer who does this day in and day out is both better talent and more cost-effective (no middle man).

[Tiny-Rich-9840]

I do not agree with most of the comments here. If you are a brand that spends over $300k a month, it’s always best to have an agency work with you.

They usually have ties with vendors such as google and can help guide your acc’s acc. to industry best practices for the particular vertical.

However if you spend less and need constant attention and adhoc work with tight deadlines, go ahead with a freelancer.

[kaancata]

I’ve taken over quite a few clients that came from agencies, so I get where you’re coming from. But I don’t think it’s as simple as freelancers being better across the board. What I do see a lot is that people don’t actually leave because of results alone. They leave because of how it feels working with the agency.

Most of my clients come from setups where they felt like just another account in a system. Limited communication, slow feedback loops, and not much room for actual discussion around the business itself. It becomes very execution focused without really questioning whether the setup makes sense in the first place. I run things quite differently. I’m the only full-time person in my setup, but I work closely with a small group of people depending on the case. The key thing is that every client gets direct access to me, and there’s a lot of back and forth. Strategy, offer, positioning, funnel, not just campaigns.

A big part of the work is actually outside of the ad account. How the product is presented, how leads are handled, what happens after the click. Those conversations tend to be where most of the upside is. And with AI now, it’s honestly possible to operate at a level that used to require a full team. Reporting, analysis, research, a lot of the heavy lifting can be handled faster, which frees up time for more strategic work.

That said, agencies aren’t inherently bad. A good agency with senior people involved can be extremely strong, especially if you need multiple disciplines under one roof. The issue is that a lot of businesses end up working with junior-heavy setups where accounts get spread thin.

If I were you, I wouldn’t go “I’ll just do it myself no matter what”. Either find someone who actually takes ownership and explains what’s going on, or invest the time to really understand it yourself. The worst place to be is paying for something you don’t have visibility into.

[nectar_agency]

Yes, always have and most likely always will.

Full service Fractional CMOs will do an even better job, because they know strategy and what your business actually needs at the moment.

They’re more interested in seeing you do well because the results are tied more closely to their name, not a business.

[KeVVe1994]

It depends really. The agency i work for has about 15 specialists, all handling like 6-7 accounts at most (some have 2 specialists on 1 account), and the person with the least experience has 4 years experience.

Ofcourse there will be agencys where alot of people with lower experience operate, but that doesnt mean that no agency can be usefull for you

[actstunt]

I think it works on both sides tbh, I’ve been as inhouse, as client, as agency side, as freelance and I can tell you that I always try to give the most to each client and when an agency works for me I expect the same level of compromise but sometimes they bite more than they could chew and you end up with so many issues, but I’ve also experienced that with freelancers I’ve hired for other projects.

[aimarketingnerd]

The honest answer is that it depends less on freelancer vs. agency and more on incentive structure and account size.

The core problem with agencies at smaller account sizes ($3-10k/month) isn’t incompetence — it’s that the economics don’t work. At that budget, you’re probably a $500-800/month client from a revenue standpoint. The senior person who sold you closes the deal and then hands you to a coordinator who’s managing 15-20 accounts. The incentive structure rewards client retention and growth, not granular optimization. The coordinator is optimizing for not losing you, not for squeezing out the last 15% of performance.

Freelancers are often better at that size specifically because you ARE their whole attention when you’re on the call. There’s no account handoff. The person who built the strategy is also the person pulling the weekly report. The continuity is real.

But the equation flips at larger spends. A freelancer managing $50k+/month in ad spend solo has serious capacity and coverage gaps — they can’t A/B test creatives at scale, run proper conversion rate experiments, and stay on top of platform changes simultaneously. A good agency with a dedicated team and proper specialization should outperform a solo operator at that level because of depth and bandwidth.

So the right question isn’t ‘freelancer or agency?’ — it’s ‘does this provider have the bandwidth to actually focus on my account, and does their incentive structure reward improving results or just preventing churn?’ A freelancer who’s overextended is just a one-person agency with the same problem. An agency that structures accounts so one person owns 5 not 20 is a freelancer with support staff.

[badgergravling]

I think often people don’t realise where agencies may be stronger, or where freelancers have an advantage. And there are good and bad examples of both…

If you need help with strategic work, and managing/scaling lots of channels, then an agency will make sense unless you’ve got someone in your business who can spend a lot of time managing and co-ordinating things.

If you’re relatively small, and want to focus mainly on one or two channels, then a freelancer tends to be the better option.

I’ve worked with some agencies that I’d happily recommend and others I’d avoid. And the same with individual freelancers. But quite often the issues are an agency/freelancer selling themselves in the wrong way and overpromising, or the client hiring one thing and expecting another.

As for reports, you don’t need an AI tool for that – just either scheduled reports or a simple dashboard (e.g. Looker Studio) which can be set up in an hour or less by yourself or a freelancer.

[Pommett1979]

Nothing beats doing it yourself

[DazPPC]

The problem isn’t whether freelancers are better. Of course they’re better value, you’re cutting out the middleman. That’s essentially what an agency is. The problem is finding a good freelancer. Anyone can become a freelancer.