What’s it like working for a digital marketing agency?

[C1239]

Does anyone work for a digital marketing agency? What’s the pros and cons compared to working in a general marketing team in one company?

DS and his GF have done both and whilst I can’t tell you why, they both prefer working in-house.

Both working for massive companies and earn a lot of money for not a huge amount of effort. (That’s not just my observation, he admits it not stressful and always clocks off by 5)

I want to know too!

It’s not for everyone but I love it.
large amount of context switching. Lots of fires. Great teamwork. Lots of laughs. Less booze than in a atl agency.
Happy to answer more specific questions. 13 years in advertising, mostly in digital.

Oh sorry pros and cons than being in house:

pros
bigger portfolio
access to more diverse talent (eg cxo, cso even like head of strat that you only pay a % for in house)
easier to move sectors
Pitches
context switching

cons
longer hours
generally less money (though not always)
pitches.
Egos and arseholes

What’s your role? Account management, creative, admin (HR/Accounts) or developer team? Even the account managers are expected to have a high degree of digital knowledge.

In an agency, you’ll work on new business pitch work as well as across a number of client accounts and projects. Client- side you obviously only work on projects for your own brand.

The environment is fast-paced and you’ll be expected to “care” about a lot of different projects, all with urgent timescales and tight budgets. Client-side you’re more in control of what’s happening and when.

Youll also (depending on role and seniority) be responsible for planning new work, balancing the traffic through the studio, filling in timesheets to account for how you’ve spent your time. Client-side I never had to timesheet.

Agency your network is huge but it’s all new business pitch work based so you’ll work with or for new people for a relatively short time before you move on to something else. You can forge good relationships with the team you work with in your agency, but not much else lasts long as every other agency is “the competition”. Client side you build a huge network of agencies and brands you’ve worked with or partnered with for longer periods. That has pros and cons - people get to see your strengths and weaknesses for real in client side work, proven over time, whereas you can fly by the seat of your pants/gift of the gab far more in the agency. But the work never gets as deep (unless in the exception you work for a huge London agency with clients they work with strategically for years.)

Redundancy can be high in agencies, they take on staff when they win big contracts and get rid quick when they lose them. Job security is probably better client side.

Digital agencies tend to be young, vibrant environments so there’s a lot of work-based networking (going for drinks) and after-hours socialising that’s an expected added extra. Not massively compatible with family life. Client-side the expectations are a bit more reasonable.

I can’t prove any of this, it’s all just anecdotal and my own experience, hope it helps. Ask away if you have any questions. I worked for 15 years in digital marketing agencies in account management and then for client brands as a marketing manager/director.

30 year career in Marketing and Digital Marketing - agency and client side. If you 35 or under it’s pretty good, if you are in your twenties its fun. Likely good people, nights out, interesting work etc.

But expect long hours, clients treat you terribly - not all, you often are expected to suck up to clients, depending on the role I had to wine and dine clients which again is fun when you are free and young but becomes a drag quickly. The agency is dependent on clients its where your wages will come from, so they can do no wrong in the eyes of the owners - out of 5 agencies I worked at I saw two extreme cases of verbal abuse from clients in both cases the owner/CEO said enough is enough. One case my female colleague and I were on a call and she was verbally abused and shouted at, we both exited the call - the CEO said he would ditch the client, but in just took us off the account and kept the client on because they were one of the biggest spenders. Similar thing happened to a male colleague who was verbally abuse, that client would have been ditched but my colleague told them to ‘go f themselves’ before he hung up on them, so he just got sacked.

It isn’t all negative, i can say I had the best times in my working life at agencies - but as soon as you want to be at home or have other priorities it becomes a drag. Which is why most people move to client side.

If on the younger side, go for it.

I have to say, I respectfully disagree with some of the above. Digital Agencies have had to make the move to be family friendly. Lots of employees and bosses grew up and had kids! (Myself included) Core hours are the norm now and we've seen lots of changes to policies to make things more family friendly (including a massively increased maternity and paternity policy as it was hurting retention). Obviously this is mostly digital, if you work in say, Adam and Eve you're already back 4 days a week with no flexibility.

I also the drinking culture has shifted over the last 4 or so years. The stats of young people not drinking is pretty high, and there has been a shift to be more inclusive at work events.

But as @madbongolee said, the agism has not. It's rife.

Fairplay, i’ve been out if it for seven or so years so glad to hear its changed. Also my role was always account management many roles that aren’t directly client facing are less stressful, or at least don’t have that aspect.

I think it’s because the talent pool and the competitors for that talent accelerated the change.

I will say it hasn’t changed for many ATL agencies.

I hated working in agencies.

The MDs have always been power hungry horrors.

Clients incredibley demanding and never wrong.

You'll be expected to work unsociable hours.

There's not a lot of progression opportunities / pay rises.

Smaller organisation = Office politics.

The only upside for me was gaining experience working in different industries.

I moved out of Marketing and PR into Internal Communications. I really enjoy my work at last.

Yes glass to hear some things have changed about agency life. I loved being a SAM/AD in my time and would go back like a heartbeat, sadly now though I think it’s probably not the creative/human job it once was and more like data analysis than anything else?

Sorry it's taken me a while to come back.
I remember the days a creative came up with a good idea, and then we retrofitted strategy around it. Or when client had budget to spend before the end of the year and we did a cool interactive game that was done so quickly it didn't go through QA. Those days are long gone.
re: data. It really varies to the digital maturity of the clients, but strategist and data strategists now need to work together on a response to a client. Clients want to AB test everything. In my view, we're taking less risks, and I am seeing less campaign brand work and all work is really focused on ROI- though this is an indication of the economy too. I remember doing a piece of work without a CTA just to really elevate the brand digitally. That isn't happening at the moment in my experience.
We still have the human element, but it's shifting and coming out more in UX than in creative.
I think the balancing of creative and data is the race now (who remembers M&C saatchi did that formula and popped it on the front of campaign like 7 years ago?) and it still isn't won. We're seeing more traditional ALT agencies pushing into CX and data is at the heart of trying to reclaim as much budget and customer touch points. I don't think any of them are doing it right.
We're also seeing the end of many of the bigger purely digital names. We've seen mergers etc and many of the smaller more 'out there' shops have been bought and merged into bigger beasts.
At the moment, creatively I don't think the industry is partially strong. Even ATL we're not seeing many disruptors, New Commercial arts and uncommon are probably the strongest.
Sorry very long answers. And don't get me started on clients budgets and expectations...
But there's an interesting shift in what people are thinking doing in the metaverse.
Sorry incredibly long answer. In short, no, it's not like it was. Digital is no longer the new kids on the block and its become far more structure and, dare I say it, corporate?? AI and how it shifts the industry and the jobs we do is going to be incredibly interesting. Not only does it throw up people issues (or does it, there's a debate both ways) but it throws up IP and legal issues too.

verteran digital marketing manager here. I run a department in a small agency and am client services lead and account manager too. I do it all really with helpers. I love my job. Clients all respect me because I’m good at what I do and allow me to take the lead. Same with my team and boss. It really depends on the culture I think and your personality. I am very forthright but I used to be intimidated by clients when younger. It’s great for your confidence and I have become a very seasoned marketer out of agency life over the years. We are not a London agency and we are WFH. I get paid quite well. I really could not be happier. However, I do want to take the next step just as a last stand in my career and I’m considering moving over to client side and finding a job with travel.