In-House, Agency, or Do It Yourself?

We are an agency, so treat this page accordingly. The useful version of this article is the one that says plainly when hiring an agency — including us — is the wrong answer, because you can check that against your own numbers rather than taking our word for anything.

There are three ways to run contractor marketing and the right one depends mostly on two things: how much you are spending, and whose time is genuinely available.

Do it yourself

Works when spend is low, the trade is simple, and the owner has real hours to give it rather than notional ones.

Below a certain budget, nobody’s fee makes sense. If you are spending a few hundred dollars a month, an agency retainer can exceed the media spend, and a percentage-of-spend arrangement is too small for anyone to service properly. At that level the honest advice is to do it yourself and put the money into the ads.

The DIY version that actually works is narrow: a Google Business Profile properly filled in, a steady review habit, one or two tightly-targeted campaigns, and a phone that gets answered. All of that is free or cheap, none of it requires expertise, and it outperforms a badly-run paid account.

Fails when the owner is on tools. Marketing done between jobs gets done in bursts and then abandoned for six weeks, which in paid advertising is worse than not starting — budgets keep spending while nobody reads the search terms report.

The honest test: not whether you could learn this, but whether you will open the account on a Tuesday in your busiest month. If not, DIY is a decision to let it decay.

Hire in-house

Works when spend is high enough that a percentage of it would pay a salary, and there is enough adjacent work — content, photography, reviews, follow-up, the CRM — to fill a role.

The real advantages are underrated. Someone in-house is in the building, knows which jobs were profitable and which crews are behind, can walk out to a site and film something, and their attention is not divided across other clients. For a company with steady volume, that beats an agency at the same cost.

Fails on the hiring problem. A genuinely good marketer with paid-acquisition skill is expensive and has options; the affordable hire is usually a generalist who will be learning your ad account with your money. That is survivable if you know it, and expensive if you assumed you were buying expertise.

It also concentrates risk. One person holds the account, the logins and the knowledge, and when they leave you discover how much was in their head.

Hire an agency

Works when spend is meaningful, nobody internal can own it, and the work needs skills that are hard to hire individually — paid acquisition, landing pages, tracking, automation.

The real advantages: they have seen the same problem in other accounts, they can start this month rather than after a two-month hire, and the cost flexes down if you pause.

Fails, genuinely, in several situations worth naming:

• Your spend is too small to be serviced properly. You will get a junior and a template, and the fee will be a large share of the total.
• Your capacity is the constraint, not demand. If crews are booked out, more leads produce longer lead times and bad reviews. The crew capacity calculator is the check, and no agency fixes this.
• Your close rate is the problem. Nobody outside the business can fix what happens at the kitchen table — that is the estimate appointment, and it is yours.
• You will not answer the phone. Speed of response is the largest single lever, it is inside your business, and an agency cannot reach it. Fix that first, for free.
• You want to hand it over and not think about it. The accounts that work have an owner who looks at three numbers monthly. Agencies that encourage total disengagement are selling comfort.

The split most companies actually end up with

The pure versions are rarer than the mixed one, and the mix follows a rule: whoever is closest to the customer should own the thing that touches the customer.

• In-house or the owner: answering the phone, the sales appointment, reviews, job photography, whatever the crews produce. Nobody external can do these and every one of them is free.
• Agency or specialist: paid acquisition, landing pages, tracking and attribution, automation. Skills that take years, are hard to hire singly, and transfer across accounts.

A company that outsources the second half and does the first half properly beats one that reverses it, which is more common than it should be.

What to ask, whichever you choose

The same three questions apply to an agency, a hire, or yourself in six months:

What did it cost to get a booked job, not a lead? Cost per booked job is the only number that survives contact with reality, and it requires attribution that most setups do not have.

Who owns the accounts? Your Google Ads account, your Business Profile, your domain, your CRM data should be in your name with you as owner, whoever operates them. This is the single most common way contractors get stuck — an agency relationship ends and the history, the learning and sometimes the phone number go with it. Settle it in writing at the start, not at the end.

What happens in month one, and what in month three? Anyone who cannot describe the first ninety days concretely is improvising. How to tell if your marketing agency is working covers what those months should contain and the red flags worth leaving over.

The order that usually makes sense

For most contractors, in this sequence:

1. Fix response time. Free, largest effect, entirely internal.
2. Google Business Profile and reviews. Free, compounds, and does not stop when you stop paying.
3. One paid channel, run properly — DIY if spend is small, outsourced if not.
4. Add channels and capability as volume justifies it, and only then consider a hire.

Skipping to step three while step one is broken is the most expensive mistake in this article, and it is the one most often made with an agency’s encouragement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should a contractor hire a marketing agency or do it themselves?

It depends mostly on spend and on whose time is genuinely free. Below a few hundred dollars a month, a retainer can exceed the media spend and nobody can service the account properly — do it yourself and put the money into ads. Above that, if nobody internal can own it week to week, an agency generally beats an owner who will not open the account during a busy month.

When is hiring a marketing agency the wrong choice?

Several specific cases: when your spend is too small to be serviced properly, when crews are already booked out so more leads produce longer lead times and bad reviews, when the problem is your close rate at the kitchen table, when the phone is not being answered quickly, or when you want to hand it over and stop thinking about it. The first four are internal problems no external party can reach.

Is an in-house marketer better than an agency for contractors?

It can be, once spend is high enough that a percentage of it would pay a salary and there is enough adjacent work — content, photography, reviews, CRM — to fill the role. Someone in-house knows which jobs were profitable and is not splitting attention across clients. The risk is the hiring problem: a genuinely skilled paid-acquisition marketer is expensive, and the affordable hire is often learning on your ad budget.

What should a contractor keep in-house regardless?

Anything that touches the customer directly: answering the phone, the sales appointment, asking for reviews, and the photography your crews produce on site. These have the largest effect on booked jobs, they are free, and nobody outside the business can do them. Paid acquisition, landing pages, tracking and automation are the parts that genuinely transfer to a specialist.

What should I settle before hiring anyone to run my marketing?

Ownership of the accounts, in writing. Your Google Ads account, Google Business Profile, domain and CRM data should be in your name with you as owner, whoever operates them day to day. The most common way contractors get stuck is a relationship ending and the account history, the learning and occasionally the phone number leaving with it. Settle it at the start, not when you want to leave.

---

The right answer changes with your spend and your bench, and it changes again next year. The wrong answer is hiring anybody — internal or external — to paper over an unanswered phone.

See what our campaigns produce, or book a call and we will tell you if you are in one of the cases above where we are not the right answer.