Working with an influencer marketing agency often means giving up control in at least some areas of your strategy. But the right agency can also make your processes more efficient and introduce you to perfect-fit creators you didn’t know existed.

In this article, I’ll help you understand:

• The pros and cons of working with an influencer marketing agency
• When you should keep your influencer marketing operations in-house
• How to set up an in-house employee or department for success

It’s not either/or: Agencies and in-house teams can work in harmony

Before we begin, it’s crucial to understand that you don’t always have to choose one road or the other. In fact, working with agencies and an in-house team is a viable strategy, too.

For instance:

• You might run a one-person influencer marketing team and hire an external agency to scale your operations.
• You may have a tight-knit influencer marketing team and collaborate with a local agency to enter a new market with confidence.
• You perhaps hire the best full-time influencer marketers, but they need an agency’s help to manage a new social media channel.
  

Piia Õunpuu, Global Influencer Marketing Manager at Bolt, agrees:

I recommend a hybrid approach, especially if you have a small team dedicated to influencer marketing and need to cover a lot of markets or product lines. Depending on your priorities, you can do performance in one market and brand awareness in another, and based on your own strengths and goals, hand one focus away to an agency.

Piia Õunpuu Global Influencer Marketing Manager, Bolt

Influencer Marketing Expert Nacho Selma adds that you can outsource some kinds of creator collaborations to an agency while keeping the rest in-house:

I have also seen companies that handle a specific type of collaboration in-house while outsourcing others. I know a brand that manages campaigns with high-profile influencers or celebrities internally to maintain control but delegates smaller-scale campaigns with micro-influencers or lower-budget initiatives to an agency.

Nacho Selma Influencer Marketing Manager, Isnach

When considering hiring an influencer marketing agency, don’t think in absolutes. Instead, ask yourself: What are some areas in which I lack expertise or resources? Then, collaborate with an agency to help in those areas specifically.

Pros and cons of working with an influencer marketing agency

Here’s a summary of what you gain and what you compromise on if you outsource your influencer marketing efforts to an agency completely:

If a hybrid approach isn’t an option for your brand right now, how do you know when to hand over the reins to an agency and when to bolster your in-house team? Below I cover 6 situations to help you figure out which path is best.

3 scenarios in which you should keep influencer marketing in-house

1: When you want complete control over your influencer marketing program

Influencer marketing agencies do a lot on your brand’s behalf: finding creators, vetting their profiles, measuring their performance, and communicating with them throughout the campaign.

When an agency represents your brand, the biggest disadvantage is that you are not building direct connections with your creator partners. After all, creators don’t know exactly who you are because the agency acts as the intermediary. Since influencer marketing is a relationship business, outsourcing those relationships can work against you – especially in long-term influencer collaborations.

Keeping your influencer marketing program in-house gives you complete control over creator management. This increases the workload on your end, but it also gives you the full picture of how an influencer is performing and allows you to strengthen your relationship with them.

2: When you want influencer marketing to work with other marketing departments

The best influencer marketing strategies don’t work in a silo. To get the most mileage out of your influencer content, you want to repurpose it for your website, run it as ads, add it to company newsletters, etc. You also want to build influencer marketing reports that reflect the full picture of the impact of your content strategy.

That’s why in this situation, it’s best to keep your operations in-house. When you have complete control over your influencer program, your different marketing departments can collaborate quickly and efficiently, and you have full visibility of how your efforts are affecting your marketing strategy as a whole.

3: When you work in a sensitive industry

Some industries – like alcohol, pharma, tobacco, gambling, etc. – require much more sensitivity than other niches. Influencer marketing for such topics will require frequent legal counsel and a delicate hand.

Having your operations in-house for such industries is ideal because you can communicate faster internally. Plus, when you have dedicated full-time roles, they learn the rules necessary for compliance more quickly than an agency with various clients could.

3 situations in which you should hire an influencer marketing agency

1: When you need immediate efficiency with limited onboarding and a tight budget

If you’re a rapidly growing brand in dire need of kickstarting influencer marketing, an agency might be the right choice to scale your operations without rushing to hire an in-house marketer.

Nacho agrees:

Outsourcing to an agency is an excellent solution because they have the expertise to run influencer marketing campaigns, allowing the brand to focus on other areas without the need to train or hire new employees.

Nacho Selma Influencer Marketing Manager, Isnach

An influencer marketing agency can get started quickly with only a little briefing about your brand and expectations. In most cases, hiring an agency will also be more cost-effective than setting up a whole influencer marketing department.

If you go the longer in-house route, you’ll need to assess, interview, and onboard influencer marketers. Meanwhile, an agency can begin to deploy your marketing strategy while you hunt for the right roles in the background – without the rush.

The only thing to remember is you might have less control over your influencer marketing operations. Piia recommends staying mentally prepared for it:

You need to be prepared to let go of some control and learn to trust your agency. Otherwise you’ll end up micromanaging them, and it won’t be a pleasant experience for either side.

Piia Õunpuu Global Influencer Marketing Manager, Bolt

2: When you want to enter a new and unknown market

When you want to enter a new market, you aren’t yet fully aware of its customs, culture, or creators. Hiring an external influencer marketing agency can help you bridge that gap and provide a local partnership you can trust and rely on – even if you have an in-house team.

Gabrielė (Marozaitė) Palepšaitė, Head of Influencer Marketing at Surfshark, works with agencies for this very purpose. For context, Surfshark partners with influencers from over 102 countries 🤯

In our podcast with her, she highlighted how working with a local agency helps you build trust as a brand in a new market:

When you’re entering a new market, no one knows who you are. A strong agency partner will already have credibility and could put in a good word for you with potential influencers.

Gabrielė (Marozaitė) Palepšaitė Head of Influencer Marketing, Surfshark

Nacho also agrees that the barrier to entry gets significantly lower when you have a local influencer agency by your side. For example:

If a company has experience working in Europe but wants to start influencer collaborations in Asia, an agency with expertise in the Asian market can be extremely valuable. Their local presence, network, and knowledge help brands enter new markets smoothly and effectively.

Nacho Selma Influencer Marketing Manager, Isnach

If my travels overseas have taught me anything, it’s that navigating a new country with a local is a 100x better experience than doing it on your own. Entering a new market with an influencer marketing agency works similarly: you have a partner on the inside to give you the lay of the land and lend you some street cred.

⚠️ Note: working with agencies from afar also requires… work. Ensure you have the in-house capacity to collaborate with agencies overseas before signing a partnership. This is especially true when you’re scaling at whip speed and have multiple agency partners spread across the globe.

3: When you’re adding a new social media platform onto your strategy

Let’s say you’re already practicing influencer marketing on YouTube and witnessing wild success. You recognize that TikTok is an untapped market for your product… but it’s a whole different beast than YouTube. How does briefing differ for this channel? How should you vet Tiktok creators? What are the rates you should pay for this platform?

Sure, you can learn the ropes slowly and gradually. But if you want to speed up the learning curve, hiring an external agency is your best bet. They already know the ins and outs of the platform and can answer all your questions about expanding there. Piia hired an agency for Twitch for this very reason:

At the moment, we mainly lack the resources to make it worthwhile for us in-house. Working with an agency that already has the tools and networks to set up collaboration on a new platform is more efficient.

Piia Õunpuu Global Influencer Marketing Manager, Bolt

Collaborating with an agency in this scenario will allow you to market to a new platform with confidence and learn at your own pace.

It’s worth noting that Piia’s team still provides the influencer briefs while the Twitch agency finds influencers, manages the campaigns, and reports on performance. This way, Piia’s team maintains control over influencer content without overburdening themselves – a hybrid approach for the win!

How to set up your influencer marketing team for success

Whether your influencer marketing is carried out by an external agency or by your in-house team, lay the foundation for their success.

If you’re working with an agency:

• Share your expectations about results, creator partners, and communication upfront.
• Decide in advance which responsibilities you’ll handle and what you’ll outsource.
• Set up systems and workflows so agencies can reach you quickly when needed.

Piia argues that setting up efficient communication pipelines is the most important piece in the puzzle:

There needs to be a balance between giving the agency and the creators the room to put out content fast (especially if it’s performance), while also giving the brand the final word and approval over the content. The key is always having efficient communication processes in place for things like content approvals.

Piia Õunpuu Global Influencer Marketing Manager, Bolt

Nacho also suggests choosing an influencer marketing agency carefully – taking into account recommendations and your own research.

It’s important to get familiar with the space and find agencies that align with your needs in terms of pricing and services. Check the type of brands they’ve worked with – if an agency has only worked with small brands and their campaigns have had little impact, consider that a red flag.

Nacho Selma Influencer Marketing Manager, Isnach

Gabrielė also advises choosing agencies that align with your values – especially if you’re outsourcing maintaining influencer relationships.

Sooner or later, you’ll want to move your operations in-house – whether that’s completely or in a hybrid approach depends on your brand’s needs. Why? It’s best to maintain control over your influencer marketing program because an in-house team member would know your brand and goals with much more depth than an agency.

When moving your influencer marketing operations in-house:

• Give influencer marketer(s) time to learn about your brand and the industry.
• Set realistic goals for influencer marketing, especially in the beginning.
• Offer whatever resources you can to help make the tedious parts of their job easier – like this guide on seven influencer marketing tasks you can automate 😉
  

The easiest way to set your influencer marketing team up for success is by investing in influencer marketing software like Modash that helps your marketer(s):

• Use filters to find exactly the kind of influencers they need quickly
• Vet hundreds of influencer profiles with detailed reports
• Track outreach efforts by connecting your email, labeling features, etc.
• Collate influencer content automatically to measure performance
• … And so much more.
  

Test out Modash for 14 days at no cost. You don’t even need to search for your credit card info.