How to Hire a Marketing Agency: 6 Steps to Success

Related Read: 4 Winning B2B SaaS Growth Marketing Strategies for This Year

After working with dozens of high-growth SaaS brands, we’ve identified the core issues standing between you and scalable, profitable customer acquisition. Let’s take a peek:

1. The Expertise Gap: Why Generalists Won’t Get You There

Your internal team might be talented, but are they specialists? Scaling requires deep expertise in conversion rate optimization, demand generation, and lifecycle marketing. Generalists stretch too thin, leading to wasted spend, slow results, and “meh” performance. The right agency brings dedicated experts for each area you want to explore for your business (SEO, paid media, website design, you name it!), so every dollar moves the needle.

2. The Technology Trap: When Your Martech Stack Becomes a Liability

SaaS companies love tools, but more tech doesn’t mean more growth. Bloated martech stacks create data silos, integration headaches, and “your numbers don’t match my numbers” problems. Worse, you might be paying hundreds or thousands every month for tools your team isn’t even using. The right agency helps streamline your stack, cutting unnecessary costs and ensuring you get maximum value from every platform.

Related Read: 8 AI Marketing Tools Your Team Needs (+ How To Get The Best Results)

3. The Metrics Mirage: Why Vanity Metrics Kill Growth

Traffic spikes and social engagement look great in reports, but if they don’t translate into pipeline and revenue, they’re distractions. Too many SaaS teams chase MQLs instead of real revenue-driving metrics like CAC payback period, pipeline velocity, and LTV: CAC ratio. The right agency focuses on metrics that matter… not ones that make your dashboard look pretty.

4. The CAC Crisis: How Hidden Costs Are Killing Your Profitability

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) creep is one of the biggest threats to SaaS profitability. If your marketing strategy isn’t dialed in, you’re paying more for customers than they’re worth. A great agency helps optimize every touchpoint—reducing ad waste, increasing conversion rates, and improving retention—so CAC goes down while CLTV goes up.

Calculating Marketing Agency ROI: The Real Cost of Growth

Before deciding whether to hire in-house or partner with an agency, let’s break down costs and ROI potential:

• Full Cost Analysis: Compare the true cost of an in-house team (salaries, benefits, tools, training, and management overhead) vs. a strategic agency partnership. Spoiler: Scaling with an agency often costs less while delivering stronger results.
• Time-to-Value Comparison: How long will it take for each approach to generate a meaningful pipeline? Agencies come pre-built with expertise, while in-house teams need time to hire, train, and optimize.
• Risk Assessment: Hiring mistakes are expensive—mis-hires can take months (and six figures) to correct. An agency, however, offers flexibility, proven systems, and rapid adjustments to keep growth on track.

Now that you know the risks and rewards, let’s walk through the exact steps to finding the right growth partner for your SaaS brand.

Step 1: Establish Your Growth Foundation

The first step in hiring a marketing agency is to establish some baselines. We like to call this a growth foundation—where are you building up from? Before you can get started, you need to know where you’re starting, where you’re going, and what realistic expectations look like.

Let’s take a look at the things you’ll want to consider when establishing your growth foundation.

Define Your Current State

Where is your brand today? Take a look at:

• Current growth metrics: Monthly recurring revenue, customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), churn rate, average sales cycle
• Marketing performance: Website conversion rate, lead-to-customer rate, traffic sources, top-performing channels
• Internal capabilities: What marketing expertise already exists on your team? What technology do you own? What systems are working/not working?

Document Your Growth Goals

Where do you want your brand to be tomorrow? Using your baseline metrics, set the following expectations:

• Revenue targets: Specific revenue milestones with timeframes (e.g., "Grow from $2M to $5M ARR in 18 months")
• Marketing contribution: What percentage of pipeline must marketing generate?
• Budget parameters: What's your allowable CAC? Total marketing budget?
• Positioning requirements: Do you need to enter new markets or strengthen existing ones?

Related Read: 5 Best SaaS Marketing Companies for Hitting Growth Goals

Identify Your Constraints

What friction points are likely to get in your way? Make sure your entire team and all decision-makers are aware of the challenges you’ll likely face:

• Timeline pressure: Do you have investor expectations requiring rapid growth?
• Cash limitations: Are you bootstrapped or well-funded?
• Industry complexities: Are there regulatory challenges or unique market dynamics?
• Competitive landscape: How crowded is your market? What's your differentiation?

Reality Check: More than 80% skip this foundational step, leading to wasted marketing dollars and missed growth opportunities. Don’t join that statistic!

Step 2: Determine Your Optimal Marketing Structure

With your foundation established, you’re ready to start planning for the future! You have three options when it comes to investing in your marketing team. You can either hire a full in-house growth team, work with a done-for-you agency, or enter a hybrid marketing agency partnership.

Let’s examine each option, who it’s best for, and how much it’ll cost.

Option A: Full In-House Team

Ideal when:

• You have deep expertise in SaaS marketing
• Your growth requires highly specialized industry knowledge
• You have the management bandwidth to hire and develop marketing talent
• You're ready to invest in 6+ months of salary before seeing significant results

Resources required:

• $350K-$750K annual investment (fully loaded with salaries, benefits, tools)
• Recruiting and onboarding capabilities

Option B: Done-For-You Agency Partnership

Ideal when:

• You need to move quickly and show results within 90-120 days
• You want access to specialized expertise without hiring multiple full-time roles
• You need a proven system rather than building one from scratch
• You value flexibility as your growth needs evolve

Resources required:

• $10K-$30K monthly investment

Option C: Hybrid Model 

Ideal when:

• You want to leverage external expertise while building internal capabilities
• You need specialized skills (like conversion optimization or paid media) but not full-time
• You value knowledge transfer from experts to your team
• You want to scale marketing efforts without scaling headcount at the same rate

Resources required:

• $15K-$40K monthly investment (includes agency plus 1-2 internal positions)

Pro-Tip: The hybrid model typically delivers results 2X faster than building purely in-house, while reducing risk and providing greater expertise than a small internal team could access alone.

Step 3: Create Your Marketing Team Requirements

Whether hiring internally or selecting an agency partner, document exactly what you need from your marketing agency. Not sure where to start? Here are some starting points!

Score your needs from 1-5 in each area (1 = not needed, 5 = critical):

• Strategic Planning
  • Growth strategy development
  • Market research
  • Competitive analysis
  • Positioning and messaging
• Content & Inbound
  • SEO expertise
  • Content strategy
  • Blog writing
  • Lead magnet creation
• Website & Conversion
  • UX/UI design
  • Conversion rate optimization
  • Landing page development
  • A/B testing
• Marketing Technology
  • HubSpot expertise
  • Marketing automation
  • Analytics and reporting
  • Integration capabilities
• Paid Media
  • PPC management
  • Social media advertising
  • Retargeting
  • Analytics and optimization
• Sales Enablement
  • Sales collateral
  • Prospect nurturing sequences
  • CRM integration
  • Sales and marketing alignment

Related Read: B2B Lead Generation: Organic Search vs. Pay-per-Click

Once you have your score for each area, you’ll know your priorities and better be able to select the right partner for your brand.

Step 4: Evaluate Potential Partners

Once you’ve established your goals, priorities, and baselines, you’re ready to start evaluating potential marketing agencies. Not all partners are created equal, and picking the wrong agency can cost you months of wasted budget and stalled momentum. 

How can you select the right agency for your brand? Start by reviewing their client portfolio—do they have a proven track record with SaaS companies at your stage? Look for case studies that show clear, measurable outcomes, not just vanity metrics. You want partners who’ve driven real revenue growth, reduced CAC, and improved retention for brands like yours.

Beyond their client work, evaluate how they market themselves. An agency claiming to be a demand gen expert should have a pipeline of its own. Check their website—does it convert? Are they ranking for relevant terms? 

You’ll also want to dig into third-party review platforms like G2, Clutch, and the HubSpot directory for unbiased feedback. If their past clients rave about strategic insights and execution, you’re on the right track. If you see red flags like generic case studies, weak online presence, or complaints about transparency, keep looking.

Key Questions to Ask Potential Agency Partners

During early calls with your potential agency partner, you need to ask the right questions. Here’s a list of some of the insights you may want to ask during the sales and onboarding processes. 

Related Read: 7 Top Growth Marketing Experts to Partner With For High Growth

Business Understanding

• "What do you see as the biggest growth challenges for SaaS companies at our stage?"
• "How do you approach the relationship between CAC, LTV, and growth velocity?"
• "What have you learned from working with companies in our specific situation?"

Methodology & Approach

• "Walk me through your process for the first 90 days of our engagement."
• "How do you determine which marketing activities will drive the most revenue for our specific business?"
• "What does your reporting look like, and how frequently will we review performance?"
• "How do you adapt strategies when initial approaches don't yield expected results?"

Expertise Validation

• "Can you share specific examples where you've helped a SaaS company with [your biggest challenge]?"
• "Who would be working on our account, and what is their experience with companies like ours?"
• "What technology platforms do you have deep expertise in?"
• "How do you stay current with changing marketing strategies and algorithms?"

Results & Accountability

• "What specific metrics do you commit to improving, and in what timeframe?"
• "How do you tie marketing activities to revenue results?"
• "What happens if we don't see the expected results within the first 90 days?"
• "How do you measure your own success in client engagements?"
  
  

Step 5: Structure the Relationship for Success

Choosing the right marketing partner is only the beginning! If you want to get the best results from your new B2B technology marketing agency, you need to set up your relationship in a way that ensures alignment, accountability, and continuous optimization. Here’s how to set up a marketing relationship that actually drives growth:

1. Align on Data, Brand, and Past Performance

Before execution begins, make sure your team has access to everything they need to hit the ground running. Share:

• Brand guidelines: Ensure consistency in messaging, design, and positioning.
• Historical performance data: Provide insights into what has (and hasn’t) worked.
• Target audience details: Clarify ICPs, personas, and customer pain points.
• Competitive landscape: Help them understand where you stand in the market.
  
  

2. Set Clear Communication Cadences

A great marketing strategy requires tight collaboration. Define preferred communication channels and meeting frequency. Also, be sure to identify key stakeholders early on. Who needs to be in which meetings? Answering that question correctly will help you avoid bottlenecks later.

Related Read: How to Build A Powerful Growth Marketing Funnel

3. Provide Access to Essential Tools & Platforms

Delays in execution often come from a lack of access to critical systems. Ensure your team has logins and permissions for any of these that apply:

• Ad platforms (Google Ads, LinkedIn, Facebook)
• Analytics & reporting tools (Google Analytics, HubSpot, Salesforce)
• CMS & website backend (HubSpot, Webflow, etc.)
• Project management tools (ClickUp, Trello, Jira)
  
  

4. Define Review & Reporting Cadences

Marketing success is built on tracking progress and adjusting strategies as needed. Set up weekly reports, monthly key metric reviews, and quarterly check-ins into the big picture and new opportunities.

5. Create Dashboards for Real-Time Visibility

Nothing kills momentum like waiting for reports. Set up live dashboards using Google Data Studio, HubSpot, or Tableau to track:

• Lead generation and conversion rates
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC) and payback periods
• Marketing-influenced revenue
• Channel-specific performance
  
  

6. Establish 30, 60, 90-Day Milestones

Clear milestones keep the partnership accountable. Define:

• 30-day goals: Onboarding, strategy alignment, and initial campaign setup.
• 60-day goals: Early performance insights, testing iterations, and initial optimizations.
• 90-day goals: Measurable revenue impact, refined strategy, and long-term roadmap.
  
  

7. Tie Everything to Revenue Goals

Marketing should always be tied to business impact. Define which marketing initiatives will contribute to specific revenue targets, how CAC, LTV, and payback periods will be measured, and how you’ll prioritize experiments and new processes to boost efficiency across teams.

With these systems in place, your marketing partner won’t just be another vendor, they’ll be an integrated extension of your team, fully accountable for growth.

Step 6: Measure, Adapt, and Scale

Marketing isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it function. If you want your marketing to deliver results, you need to be ready to constantly adjust and refine your efforts. Regular performance reviews should be a non-negotiable part of your strategy. This means going beyond surface-level metrics and diving into what’s actually driving revenue. 

Are certain campaigns yielding higher LTV customers? Is your CAC trending in the right direction? By analyzing data frequently, you can catch inefficiencies early and make informed decisions that maximize ROI.

Instead of sticking with channels that are "good enough," continuously test new messaging, audience segments, and acquisition strategies. Shift your budget away from underperforming campaigns and double down on high-performing channels. 

Scaling successfully also means knowing when to add specialized talent. Whether it’s an in-house hire or a new external partner, have clear metrics that signal when it’s time to bring in an SEO specialist, a CRO expert, or a demand gen strategist. 

Related Read: SEO Content Strategy: Tactics, Tips, & Tools to 10X Traffic

Next Steps: Assess Your Marketing Maturity

Before making any hiring decisions, take our free Marketing Maturity Assessment to identify your specific growth opportunities and determine which type of marketing team would best accelerate your growth.

This AI-powered tool will:

• Diagnose weak spots in your current marketing foundation
• Benchmark your performance against successful SaaS companies
• Provide customized recommendations based on your growth stage
• Help you determine your optimal marketing team structure

Check out the Marketing Maturity Assessment for free today!

Looking to Hire a Marketing Agency? Check Out Lean Labs!

Lean Labs helps innovative SaaS companies scale from 7 to 8 figures using our proven Lean Growth Stacking framework. Our clients have generated over $100M in attributed revenue, with results like:

• 740% organic growth in 24 months for Qualio
• 500% website traffic increase in under 2 years for RocketSpace
• 10X increase in blog page views and tripled lead generation for ConnectPay

Ready to build a marketing machine that delivers real, repeatable revenue? Schedule your free Growth Mapping session today.