How To Decide Between Agency And In-House For Your Influencer Program

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Behind closed doors, agencies and in-house teams tell completely different stories about which approach drives better results with creators. Having operated on both sides, we're breaking down the unfiltered pros and cons of each model, followed by a decision framework tailored to your specific circumstances. Rather than pushing a universal solution, you'll discover exactly which approach makes strategic sense for your brand's current stage and future ambitions.

Pros of working with an influencer marketing agency

Let's explore why partnering with an agency might be the right move for your brand.

Immediate access to expertise

Agency teams do influencer marketing daily. They've likely worked across multiple industries and have encountered virtually every challenge and opportunity in the space.

Unlike hiring a single in-house specialist, you're getting an entire team of experts who understand:

• Platform-specific nuances (TikTok vs Instagram vs YouTube)
• Current engagement benchmarks
• Realistic performance expectations
• Red flags to watch for when vetting influencers

No ramp-up period

One of the most compelling advantages of hiring an agency is the ability to hit the ground running.

An agency already has established processes for every step of the influencer marketing journey. From finding the right creators to negotiating rates, tracking deliverables, and measuring results – they've refined these workflows through dozens or hundreds of campaigns.

Existing relationships with influencers

This is perhaps the most valuable asset agencies bring to the table. Good agencies have spent years building relationships with creators across various niches and follower counts.

These connections mean your brand can:

• Access influencers who might otherwise ignore outreach from new brands
• Potentially secure better rates through established relationships
• Get prioritized in creators' content calendars
• Tap into the agency's reputation when approaching new influencers

Cost efficiency (especially for smaller brands)

For small to medium brands, the math often favors agencies. Consider the full expense of an in-house team:

Hiring a dedicated influencer marketing specialist might cost $60,000-$90,000 annually (plus benefits), and they'll likely need supporting tools and resources. And remember - one person can only do so much.

Agency fees, while significant, often provide more bang for your buck when your influencer program is still growing. You pay for what you need, scaling up or down as necessary.

Broader industry insights

Your in-house team only sees your brand's data. Agencies see patterns across multiple clients.

They know which influencer tiers are delivering the best ROI right now. They understand which content formats are converting best on each platform. And crucially, they can benchmark your performance against similar brands (while maintaining client confidentiality).

Flexibility to scale up or down

Influencer marketing often isn't consistent throughout the year. You might need extensive creator partnerships for product launches or holiday seasons, then scale back during quieter periods. With an agency, you can adjust your spending and campaign scope without the difficult HR decisions that would come with an in-house team.

Cons of working with an influencer marketing agency

Your brand becomes one of many clients

Agencies juggle multiple accounts simultaneously. Even with the best intentions, your brand will compete for attention with their other clients.

When busy seasons hit or bigger clients have urgent needs, your campaigns might not get the focus they deserve. The dedicated account manager you were promised might be stretched thin across several brands.

They can't match the brand knowledge of an in-house team

Agency teams work with your brand part-time. They don't experience daily conversations about product development or customer feedback. They don't see how customers interact with your products firsthand. This creates a knowledge gap that can show up in campaign execution, influencer selection, and content direction.

Communication adds an extra layer of complexity

Every change, question, or new idea must go through proper channels. Instead of walking to a colleague's desk for a quick adjustment, you're sending emails, scheduling calls, or messaging through project management tools. This additional step can slow down time-sensitive campaigns and make quick pivoting more difficult.

You don't own the influencer relationships

The connections built with creators often stay with the agency rather than your brand. The influencers who work on your campaigns develop their primary relationship with the agency team. If you decide to bring influencer marketing in-house later or switch agencies, you may essentially start over with creator relationships rather than building on the foundation you've paid to establish.

Pros of hiring an in-house influencer marketing team

They're immersed in your company culture and products

An in-house team sits in meetings where product decisions are made. They hear why your founder created the brand. They see customer service emails describing real user experiences. This firsthand access means they understand product benefits beyond what's on the sell sheet. When briefing influencers, they can share authentic stories and details about why certain product features matter — information that agencies only get through formal documents and update calls.

Direct control over strategy and execution

With an in-house team, you have immediate oversight of your influencer program. You can shift priorities quickly, adjust campaign direction based on real-time results, or respond to market changes without the delay of agency communication channels. This agility is particularly valuable in fast-moving industries where trends emerge and fade rapidly.

You own all influencer relationships

Perhaps the most significant long-term advantage is that your brand builds direct relationships with creators. As these relationships deepen over time, influencers become genuine brand advocates rather than hired partners. They develop authentic enthusiasm for your products and bring that authenticity to their content. These influencer relationships remain with your company regardless of staff changes and become increasingly valuable business assets.

Cost efficiency at scale

While initially more expensive than agency partnerships, in-house teams often become more cost-effective as your influencer program grows.

The math is simple: agencies typically charge a percentage of media spend or management fees that increase with program size. An in-house team's costs remain relatively stable even as your influencer partnerships multiply. For brands with substantial, ongoing influencer programs, bringing the function in-house eventually creates economies of scale that agencies can't match.

Cons of hiring an in-house influencer marketing team

Risk of creative stagnation

In-house teams can fall into comfortable patterns with the same types of campaigns and creators. Without the constant exposure to different brands and strategies that agency professionals experience, they may develop blind spots. Campaigns can start looking repetitive to your audience, with diminishing engagement over time as they fail to incorporate fresh approaches or emerging content styles.

Recruitment and retention challenges

The specialized talent market for influencer marketing is competitive. Finding candidates with the right mix of relationship-building skills, analytics experience, and contract negotiation abilities often takes months. Once hired, these specialists are prime targets for poaching by larger brands or agencies offering higher compensation. This turnover can disrupt your program's momentum and creator relationships.

Limited ability to scale for rapid growth

When your brand experiences sudden success or enters new markets, in-house teams often struggle to scale quickly. They lack the infrastructure to suddenly manage 3x the creator relationships or launch in multiple new countries simultaneously. This capacity ceiling can become a bottleneck during critical growth opportunities when your influencer program needs to expand rapidly.

The decision framework to choose between agency and in-house

Every brand's path to influencer marketing success looks different. This approach will help you determine whether an agency partnership or an in-house team makes more sense for your current needs.

Early-stage brand (under 2 years)

Recommendation: Agency partnership

When you're just starting out, your primary goals typically include building brand awareness and establishing credibility. At this stage you likely haven't fully validated which influencer tiers or platforms work best for your products.

An agency can help you avoid costly early mistakes, leverage existing relationships, and run multiple small tests to determine what works for your specific products and audience.

🚩 Red flag for going in-house at this stage: If you're spending less than $10,000 monthly on influencer campaigns, a quality full-time hire would cost more than your entire influencer budget.

Growth-stage brand (2-5 years)

Recommendation: Hybrid model

As your brand gains traction, your influencer strategy typically becomes more nuanced:

• You've identified which influencer tiers drive results for your specific products
• You've established relationships with a few influencers
• Your influencer spending has become a consistent, significant marketing channel

This is where a hybrid model often makes sense.

Hire an in-house influencer marketing manager who can maintain your core creator relationships, while partnering with an agency for specialized campaigns (like product launches) or expansion to new platforms or markets.

Recommendation: If your monthly influencer spend exceeds $25,000 consistently, the economics of bringing strategy in-house start to make sense.

Established brand (5+ years)

Recommendation: Primary in-house team with specialized agency support

If you've been running successful influencer campaigns for a few years, have a scalable format, and getting positive ROI from influencer marketing, then building a dedicated in-house team is economical.

But you can still engage with agencies for specific goals, or campaigns such as expanding into new international markets, or launching into entirely new product categories

• Accessing emerging platforms where your team lacks expertise
• Managing one-off high-volume campaigns that would overwhelm your core team

When to bring things in-house: When agency fees exceed 30% of your total influencer marketing budget, it's usually more cost-effective to bring capabilities in-house.

Special considerations that might change your decision

While the framework above works for many brands, your specific circumstances might point you in a different direction. These factors can sometimes outweigh the stage-based recommendations:

Product complexity

High complexity = Stronger case for in-house

If your products require significant education, technical knowledge, or nuanced positioning, an in-house team will more quickly develop the depth of understanding needed to properly brief and guide influencers.

Seasonal business

Highly seasonal = Stronger case for agency

Brands with extreme seasonal fluctuations (like 70%+ of sales in Q4) often benefit from agency flexibility, scaling resources up for peak periods without carrying the fixed costs year-round.

Regulatory environment

Heavily regulated industry = Consider specialized agency

Brands in categories with complex regulations (finance, health supplements, alcohol) often benefit from specialized agencies with expertise in compliance requirements for those specific industries.

Quick test: what's right for your brand?

1. Is your monthly influencer-spend consistently above $25,000?
2. Are you running influencer campaigns every month (not just occasionally)?
3. Do you have established relationships with 10+ recurring creators?
4. Is influencer content a primary source of your marketing assets?
5. Does your team have bandwidth to manage creator communications daily?

If you answered "yes" to 4-5 questions, you're likely ready for an in-house approach. If you answered "yes" to 2-3 questions, a hybrid model is probably ideal. If you answered "yes" to 0-1 questions, an agency partnership remains your best option.

This isn't a permanent decision. The most successful brands evolve their approach as they grow, often moving from agency to hybrid to in-house over time, while still engaging specialized agency support for specific initiatives.

Don't choose an agency just because operations seem overwhelming

Many brands sign lengthy agency contracts simply because they can't imagine managing dozens of creator relationships, tracking content approvals, and measuring campaign results without a team of people. They're essentially paying a premium to outsource the logistics.

But here's what's changed in the last few years: influencer marketing tools like SARAL have dramatically simplified these operations. Tasks that once required dedicated staff can now be automated or streamlined:

• Finding creators that match your exact criteria
• Tracking conversations across multiple channels
• Scheduling content reviews and approvals
• Measuring direct sales impact from posts

You might think we're biased in suggesting keeping things in-house and using tools, over agencies.

But here's something few people know: SARAL exists because our founder, Yash, ran an influencer marketing agency first.

He watched brands pay high agency fees. He saw the inefficiencies. The bloated processes.

So he made the most counterintuitive business decision possible: he killed his own agency.

Not because agencies don't provide value—they absolutely do, which is why many top agencies now use SARAL themselves—but because he recognized that both brands and agencies deserved better tools.

That's when SARAL was born.

Not just for brands to bring work in-house, but as a solution that elevates the entire ecosystem. A tool that helps brands run lean in-house operations when appropriate, while enabling agencies to deliver more strategic value to their clients by automating the mundane.

So when we tell you that most brands are better off bringing their influencer marketing in-house and using purpose-built tools instead of paying agency markups forever, it's not just because we sell software.

It's because we've stood on both sides of the equation and know exactly what's possible.

Book a call with us and let us show you the platform using examples relevant to your industry and answer your specific questions about your strategy, or executions, or our tool.

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