How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency
- Cody See
- Feb 11
- 13 min read
I'm writing this while staring out of the window of my Airbnb in Hawaii. I've been here for four weeks and have another three to go. This is confusing to people outside my line of work, but I can clear it up pretty quickly by explaining that I run a digital marketing agency. I am not on vacation. In fact, I'm here exploring business opportunities. I can work from anywhere, so I am choosing to work from Hawaii at the moment.
Working remotely from Hawaii is cool, but if I listed the coolest opportunities that building an agency has created for me, I'd probably forget to put it on the list. The top one that comes to mind is going back to college to learn Japanese — something that would have been nearly impossible with a traditional job (I know, because I quit mine and went all-in on my agency after the first semester).
I've had a lot of people over the years ask me to create a course or guide to do what I do so they can do the same. They also want to work from home, or go back to school, or simply make enough money to afford a trip to Hawaii. The problem is, it's not realistically possible to condense everything you need to know into one article. It's not possible to fit it all in one course, or even a series of courses, despite what the gurus will tell you. You have to grow along the way, both personally and professionally, so that you’re ready for the next level in business.
But I also know that, when I first started working in this industry at 22 years old, I didn't really care. I had a life that I wanted to live, and I wasn't scared of putting in the hours (days, weeks, months, years — yes, it took many years) of work to achieve it. All I needed was an honest starting point, and I was fortunate enough to meet some guys who gave me that. It's not quite the same, but I'll do my best here to give you an introduction too. Here's how to start down the path of running your own digital marketing agency.
1. Learn a Digital Marketing Discipline
People who research how to start a digital marketing agency fall into one of two categories:
They have zero experience with digital marketing.
They already have experience working in a digital marketing agency and are considering venturing out on their own.
Those in the first category (people with no digital marketing experience) often search for "how to start a digital marketing agency", but they actually mean "teach me all of the skills I need to know to run a digital marketing agency". If that's you, the first thing you need to understand is that the fundamental technical skills are a prerequisite to running the business.
Could you imagine starting a bakery without knowing how to bake, or a lawn care company having never mown a lawn before? It sounds ridiculous, because it is. But the reason this expectation — that anyone can start their own digital marketing agency – exists is that the barrier to entry is low. When you compare it to law or medicine, it's obvious this industry is not heavily regulated. It changes so quickly that academic degrees and certifications don't carry much weight. Courses leaking "secrets" and "hacks" lose their effectiveness within just a few months. Experience matters more than anything else, which is why if you're in category #1, the first thing you should do is get a job in digital marketing to learn the discipline.
Nothing will teach you digital marketing faster than working in a digital marketing agency. I listen to teenagers and 20-somethings every week explain to me why they can't work for someone else, and their arguments are always invalid. They've clearly consumed too much garbage pseudo-business content, and have developed unrealistic perceptions about how real business works. The truth is, those young men (yes, nine times out of ten they are young men) are the ones who need the experience of working for somebody else the most. They need to be beaten down, to cut their teeth, and get built back up with a proper understanding of how happy and healthy business-to-business relationships operate.
Now, for you readers in the second category (people who already have agency experience), choosing to start your own agency is more about filling the gaps in your knowledge where, up until now, you've been able to rely on other teams or people. This is important so you can create a solid business plan with clearly defined service offerings (more on this coming up). It's unfortunate, but also fair to give the generic advice of "YouTube is your friend". You need to develop the mental attitude that it's okay not to know everything — you just need to be willing to learn and find out. For that, you need a place to build beginner confidence; a reference point from which you can go down the relevant rabbit holes.
Identifying knowledge gaps and the resources to learn them depend on your speciality within digital marketing, and there are many of them. Here are a few of those sub-disciplines, as well as some adjacent ones.
SEO / Organic Traffic Growth
PPC / Media Buying Management
Social Media Marketing
Web & Graphic Design
Software & Web Development
Sales / Business Development
Automation & AI
Some agency owners find success by creating agreements with other contractors, or white labeling services from other agencies, to deliver services beyond their scope. This can work, but it usually goes better for experienced agency owners. I rarely see it work out for newbies, and I encourage you to do as much as you can on your own before exploring those routes.
I mentioned the impermanence of online courses. Some courses are much better than others. Despite what other digital marketers will say, the following courses and certifications do count for something, and while the certifications might cost money in some situations, the courses themselves are all free. In the overwhelming majority of cases, you will not get more value out of paid courses than free ones.
Digital Marketing Courses & Certifications
HubSpot Academy: Offers excellent courses on SEO, content marketing, and inbound strategy, as well as just about everything else. Worth checking out for everybody.
Google Skillshop: Provides training and certifications for Google Ads and Google Analytics. Often required by employers and inquired about by clients.
Meta Blueprint: For those wanting to manage ads on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Certification is not free, though rarely required.
Codecademy: Learn to code. Even if you only intend to stay a marketer and not be a developer, their intro courses on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will make you a stronger digital marketer.
Wix Studio Academy: An introduction to web design with Wix Studio's no-code editor. Although not perfect, the skills learned here are loosely transferable to other website page builders on WordPress, should you choose to do so.
These online courses will put you in a position of having marketable skills in their respective areas. They won't land you six and seven-figure client deals, but they'll make your resume stand out for entry-level jobs at agencies, or act as social proof to get your first few clients.
2. Make a Business Plan
My father-in-law loves writing business plans. He writes them in Microsoft Word, and they're extensive, thorough documents. I've never heard him talk about the joy of writing for anything else, which is hilarious because I don't know anyone else who enjoys writing business plans.
I’ve never written a traditional business plan. Other businesses that are heavy on physical assets can require them to get loans from the bank, but all you really need to start a digital marketing agency is a computer and some hustle.
Still, you do need a business plan. It doesn’t have to be a boring text document. The one I first made for our agency was a presentation with 12 slides. In it, I covered:
How we planned to make money
Where our money should go, and how much of it (payroll, operating expenses, marketing, etc.)
What employees we should eventually hire, and for what roles
Revenue targets along with the corresponding company team size
In hindsight, our business plan wasn’t very detailed. However, it was a living document — somewhere for us to go back, reconsider our strategy, and make adjustments as new information we hadn't considered affected our trajectory.
Everyone has opinions on what information you should include in a business plan. In addition to the above, In addition to the above, I think it's important for digital marketing agencies to pay attention to the following:
What will be your pricing model? Will you do project-based work? Productize your services? Sell your time on a retainer with a set number of hours each month? Take a chunk of revenue from the client? Each of these pricing models impacts how you grow in different ways. You should know, in detail, how you will charge customers and predict the impact it will have on your internal labor.
How will you get clients? Most agencies struggle with this, so much so that a sizable chunk of agencies specialize in generating leads for... other agencies (yep, it gets that meta). That's their entire business model. You should know how you plan to get new business.
Who are your clients? Corporate calls this an ideal client or customer profile (ICP). What is yours? You can't afford to be too picky when you're first starting out, but you should still have an idea of the kinds of businesses you want to work with. Local? National? International? Niche? Think it through.
Why do you want to run your own agency? Digital marketing agencies are unique in that they are flexible. If you want a lifestyle business that allows you to easily take time off, you can build that. If you want a more ambitious agency that affords you the cars, first-class flights, etc., you can build that too, but it will look different. You don't have to write this explicitly in your business plan (although it's not a terrible idea), but you should know your motives, because they impact the plan.
Again, how you choose to make your business plan isn't that important — the important thing is that you have one.
3. Choose a Business Name
Here's a hot take, and the reason I didn't mention business names in the business plan: When you're first starting out, your business name isn't that important. Your first clients won't be choosing whether or not to work with you based on your business name. You'll have to earn their trust personally.
Most people I know who have built digital marketing agencies did so first by freelancing, whether they want to recognize it that way or not. Then, once they found their groove, they solidified a business name and brand identity. Doing so too early can limit your market size (i.e. niche down too far) and cause you to go through an unnecessary rebrand.
So, what makes a good business name? The longer I'm in business, the more I'm convinced it isn't about choosing the right business name; it's about avoiding the wrong ones. If prospects can't type the name without your guidance or explanation, it's probably a bad idea. This rules out more than you think.
Here are a few categories for business names that are generally safe:
Your name. "See Marketing" (I know, I was born to do marketing for optometrists). Like a law or accounting firm — just put your last name in there and slap "marketing" on the end. Not great for selling out later down the road, but the likelihood of complications is low, and it's easily defensible.
Your locale. Colloquialisms included, like "Cedar Valley Marketing". If you're involved with your local community and the businesses there are ideal clients, nothing says you're invested like putting the city in your business name (it helps for SEO too).
Your niche. "Ecom Growers". Putting your niche in your business name is one of the smartest branding moves you can do. Again, there are huge SEO benefits here too.
The "It sounded cool when I was 12". You'd be surprised by the number of times I've heard agency owners say, "I thought it sounded cool when I was 12, so that's what I named it", or "It was my Xbox gamertag". Go be "Spider Ninja SEO".
When you think you've decided on a good name, there are two places you should check for conflicts to avoid big problems in the future: Your state and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) (or your local regional equivalents).
Each state is different in how they make this information available online, but you'll want to conduct a search of your hopeful business name in their database. Make sure there isn't an existing business already using the name you want. Even if not an exact match, similarly named businesses can be problematic too.
Do the same thing for the USPTO. Conduct a search and make sure nobody has trademarked your business name. If you find conflicts in either case, go back and come up with a new business name.
You might be wondering about domain names. We'll get to that a little further down below.
4. Legally Establish Your Business
Once you have marketable skills, a business plan, and a business name locked in, it's time to legally set up your business.
When you're first starting out, the primary reason for setting up a separate legal entity for your business is protection. This is most often in the form of a limited liability company (LLC). Even if you're the only person in the company, it creates a sort of barrier between your business and personal assets. It's also a prerequisite for the things that follow: Getting an EIN from the IRS, opening business bank accounts, business credit cards, etc.
For a long time, I was determined that the only way anyone should legally establish their new agency is by finding a local lawyer and having them help with the paperwork. I still think that, if you can find a local lawyer you trust, this is the best way. But I grew up in a small town, and now recognize that finding a decent, affordable lawyer can be hard in larger metros.
I'll say it again: Try to find a local lawyer who can help you set up your business for a one-time fee.
If you intend to do well in business in the United States, you're going to need one. Start that relationship. If you have the budget, now is also a good time to register your new business name as a trademark with the USPTO. A good lawyer can help with that, and if they can't personally, then they should have someone in their network who can.
If you can't find a local lawyer whom you feel good about, registering your business through an online service like LegalZoom can get the job done. But a lawyer and an accountant are two professional connections you should find as soon as you can afford them.
5. Set Up Your Tech Stack
I put this as #5 on the list so you can sign up for services using your business rather than your personal information. This prevents you from needing to go back up and update your profile data, but you may (maybe even should) want to set up your basic tech stack sooner. All you really need is a business name to start tinkering.
There are three pieces to the most basic stack that every digital marketing agency will use. These are your domain name, website hosting, and email service provider.
Over the years, I have found that the setup and integration of these three pieces acts as the perfect test for new agency owners. If you don't know or can't figure out how these work together, you're not ready or cut out to run an agency. Working with these is just another day in an agency owner's life.
You can take shortcuts by choosing service providers that combine these things under one roof, but I recommend intentionally picking separate companies. Your clients won't have everything neatly housed under one login. Use your own company as an opportunity to learn how to deal with it.
Basic Tech Stack Setup for Digital Marketing Agencies
Purchase a domain name from Hover. I've bought domains from all of the major domain name registrars and like Hover the best. The user experience is straightforward, and they don't harass you with upsells.
As for what domain name you should choose, do the best you can to lock in yourbusinessname.com. New, trendy top-level domains (TLDs) have grown in popularity, but dot-coms are still king. It's not crazy to reconsider your business name if the domain name isn't available.
Get website hosting and set up your website with Wix Studio (or Bluehost). Wix Studio is designed for agencies and has a built-in website builder. A lot of veteran WordPress developers refuse to take it seriously, but I think you should sign up and try building a website to judge for yourself (this website is built with Wix Studio, for example).
If you want to build your website with WordPress, host your website files with Bluehost. They have excellent support, and when you're new, that's what you need. For more recommendations on what to include in a WordPress tech stack, check out our recommended tools and resources page.
Set up your business email with Google Workspace. Having domain-based emails (yourname@yourbusiness.com) separates your business from competitors who treat theirs as hobbies. Think about it: When you see someone's business email end in @yahoo.com or @gmail.com, how seriously does that say they are about work to you? Domain-based emails show you're a legitimate operation, and that's just as important to prove to clients as it is to prove to yourself.
Google Workspace is the standard agency solution for this. The sign-up flow will guide you through the process of connecting your domain from Hover. In addition to email, you also get the rest of Google's premium office suite (Google Meet for video calls, Google Drive for cloud storage, etc). It makes adding a business phone number through Google Voice a piece of cake.
6. Find and Join a Community
Starting an agency is easy. Building one is hard, and it gets harder the more you grow. Each new level you achieve comes with a fresh set of challenges that you've never faced before, forcing you to reinvent yourself, and become whoever the next tier of your agency needs you to be.
Doing this alone is crazy. It unnecessarily stunts your growth, both professionally and personally. That's why it's important to find and join a community. You'll rarely hear people talk about this online in the agency space, but when I talk with owners one-on-one, they agree: Find a local meetup. Every city has its group of veteran entrepreneurs looking to help nurture the next generation. A lot of them will give you free advice over coffee if you ask them and show an honest desire to grow. Assuming a digital marketing agency is your first business (it is for most people), the advice you need most is general business advice. You can find that fairly easily from a local meetup.com group or your local chamber of commerce.
For agency-specific advice, you can join our communities: Reddit’s r/agency, and Agency After Hours on Discord. Keep in mind these are our moderated communities, so while we do our best to keep things positive and helpful, we can't vet everyone and police everything (we're busy running our own agency too). Oh — and don't be afraid to sign up if you're new to Reddit or Discord. We see it all the time.
