A good digital marketing agency for small businesses will build your brand presence and generate leads and sales through digital marketing solutions such as search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and digital ads. We reviewed dozens of agencies offering affordable digital marketing services for small businesses. Based on cost, specialties, quality of service, and customer reviews, keep reading for our top picks.
- Best digital marketing agency for small businesses overall: Straight North
- Lowest starting cost of a la carte options: SEO Discovery
- Best for artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven insights: WebFX
- Top choice for social media marketing: LYFE Marketing
- Best for content marketing: KlientBoost
- Great for multi-location businesses: Ignite Visibility
- Best for all-in-one solutions: Hibu
- Best digital advertising services: Avalaunch Media
- Best agency for ecommerce: Thrive
- Cheapest project-based services: Fiverr Pro
SEO Discovery specializes in SEO and marketing for small businesses with plans that start at just $199/month. |
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Which digital marketing agency is best for you?
Top Digital Marketing Agencies at a Glance
Best Agencies | Services Starting From* | Digital Marketing Services | Learn More |
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$300/month |
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$199/month |
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$300/month |
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$300/month |
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Custom, from ~$10,000 |
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Custom, from ~$1,000 |
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Custom, from ~$10,000 |
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Custom, from ~$10,000 |
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Custom, from ~$10,000 |
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$10/project |
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*Some services also require a setup fee or initial investment |
Straight North: Best Digital Marketing Agency Overall
Pros
- Has all the essentials: branding, website building, SEO, paid ads
- Flexible: has bundled and a la carte services, and one-time or monthly plans
- Free SEO and PPC Audit
- PPC ads for search, shopping, display, and social
- National, local, ecommerce, or enterprise SEO services
Cons
- No email marketing or reputation management services
- No transparent pricing, only estimated quotes
- No performance dashboard, unlike WebFX
Like most other digital marketing companies for small businesses, Straight North offers custom pricing based on your business’ needs—you’ll need to request a quote to get a specific price. However, below are some of the starting prices for services as published on the website or shared with our team in a discovery call:
- PPC services from $500 monthly or 15% of your marketing budget
- Local SEO services from ~$500 per month
- Website design from $3,000
- Brochure design from $1,000 per page
- Logo design from $5,000
- Photography services from $300
Straight North has an average rating of 4.7 on Clutch.co. Overall, customers praise its prompt delivery turnarounds and responsiveness. They also say the agency helps generate more leads and website traffic. However, some negative reviews stated that not all generated leads matched their target customer profiles, while others were dissatisfied with the content quality.
Straight North is our top pick for the best digital marketing agency for small businesses. It offers all the essential digital marketing strategies, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, and website building. But it also stands out for offering creative and branding services. This makes it a good choice if your small business is completely starting out with digital marketing.
Straight North’s bread and butter are its comprehensive pay-per-click (PPC) and SEO services, including a free audit for both. On the SEO side, it offers services tailored specifically for reaching national or local audiences or for boosting your ecommerce, depending on your needs. For PPC, it offers advertising services for Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Instagram starting at $500 monthly, or 15% of your monthly marketing budget.
Straight North Features
Straight North offers all the essentials you need from a small business marketing agency to build your brand presence, from finalizing your brand identity to building PPC and SEO strategies to fit your needs. Below are the services Straight North can do for your business.
Straight North has some of the best PPC management services out of any small business digital marketing agency, thanks mainly to how comprehensive they are for the price. Starting at $500 monthly (which is the standard price for most digital marketing agencies) or 15% of your monthly marketing budget, Straight North can set up PPC advertising for search (Google and Bing), ecommerce, display ads, and social media.
Straight North’s SEO services cover search-optimized content writing or rewriting, website optimization (including mobile optimization, site speed, and more), and link building. The agency can also target your SEO campaigns to local or national audiences or tailor them for ecommerce if you have an online store. It also offers enterprise-level SEO services for larger companies.
Straight North can also build a business website for you, complete with a sitemap, content, Google Analytics, and more. It also offers higher plans for larger, more comprehensive websites, or a plan with combined website-building and SEO services.
Straight North’s in-house creative team can also design assets for your business, from presentations to logos, brochures, and more. Pricing is on a project-by-project basis, meaning you can avail of its creative services anytime you need a project designed without committing to a larger plan. For any project, you’ll only need to discuss your vision and brand requirements, and the team will present designs for you to approve.
Straight North Customer Support
When partnering with Straight North, you’ll be appointed a dedicated project manager to handle your business. The team will also send you monthly reports to track your performance. Straight North also emphasizes a collaborative relationship with clients, so you can call or email from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays for any input about your projects.
SEO Discovery: Lowest Starting Cost of a la Carte Services
Pros
- Cheapest starting services for bundled plans
- Bundled or a la carte services
- SEO services include local, global, ecommerce, voice search, and more
- Also offers website design, influencer marketing, and content marketing
Cons
- Ecommerce SEO is limited to Shopify
- Not all pricing is transparent
- Limited creative design services and no email marketing services
On the whole, SEO Discovery is an affordable digital marketing agency for small businesses. You can avail of its services as a bundled plan with custom pricing, or choose services a la carte depending on your needs. While most services have custom pricing, here are some of the prices you can expect:
- Small business SEO packages from $199 monthly
- Shopify SEO services from $350
- Drupal SEO services from $350
- Web content writing from $60
- Content marketing from $150
SEO Discovery currently holds a 4.7 rating on Clutch.co. According to reviews, the agency’s best points are the team’s expertise and responsiveness, along with their ability to bring in new leads and help websites rank on search engine results. However, some clients said their low-quality backlinks generated spam.
As a small business marketing agency, SEO Discovery is one of the most affordable and comprehensive for individual services—it has the lowest starting prices on this list. Plus, you can get a custom plan with the services you need at a custom price, or avail each service independently.
SEO Discovery Features
SEO Discovery stands out most for its comprehensive services. On the SEO side alone, you get content and website optimization, ecommerce and content management system (CMS) services, link building, and more. It also has wide-ranging digital marketing services, from web design to influencer marketing, at prices that won’t break the bank.
SEO is the cornerstone of SEO Discovery. It offers local, global, and ecommerce search engine optimization, including keyword and content optimization, plus extras like voice search and zero click (snippet) optimization. They also offer SEO for Shopify and Drupal, link-building campaigns, and SEO consultancy services.
SEO Discovery can also run PPC ad campaigns on Google, Bing, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and Yahoo. These include search, display, video, local, and in Google’s case, Google Shopping. It also covers multiple industries, from finance and healthcare to lifestyle, real estate, and more. For more ecommerce-focused businesses, you can also avail of PPC ad services tailored specifically for Amazon.
SEO Discovery also stands out for its comprehensive content writing and marketing services. Beyond the usual website content and blog posts, the team can also write social media content, press releases, and product descriptions for any topic and industry, with prices starting as low as $60 per article.
For website design, SEO Discovery can build a completely custom website with responsive design and ecommerce features. Services include website wire-framing, logo, user interface (UI), user experience (UX) design, and user testing to ensure your site’s quality. As add-ons, you can also include live chat, site maintenance, social integrations, and more.
SEO Discovery’s reputation management services involve managing your online reviews, improving your on-page SEO, creating and managing your social profiles, building reputable links to your site, and monitoring your overall performance.
You can also avail of backlinking as a separate service. What’s more, SEO Discovery offers these services whether you’re a business owner looking to build your credibility or a blogger looking to gain more audiences for your content. For business owners, it also has a team of writers to write your guest post, which it’ll send out to over 1,000 bloggers. Once your post is published, you’ll also receive a full report of your campaign.
SEO Discovery also offers website analytics via Google. It’ll set you up with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Search Console. Then, analytics experts will evaluate your site’s performance on each and give recommendations for your business’ growth.
Finally, another area that makes SEO Discovery unique is its influencer marketing services—out of this list, it’s the only agency that offers it as a standalone service. Experts will source influencers based on your niche (e.g., fashion, fitness, etc.), then handle content creation and campaign management.
SEO Discovery Customer Support
Whether you choose a custom plan with combined services or services a la carte, you’ll be assigned a designated manager to handle your requests and answer your questions. You can also contact anyone on SEO Discovery’s team via email—they aim to reply within 30 minutes—or via a quick phone call.
WebFX: Best Data & AI-driven Insights
Pros
- Uses AI and data to guide marketing strategies
- Transparent pricing on the website
- Dashboard shows revenue vs every $1 spent
- A la carte or all-in-one solutions available for comprehensive services
Cons
- Some plans require an upfront investment
- Fiverr Pro is cheaper for a la carte services
- Pricier than LYFE Marketing for social media services
The cost of WebFX services varies based on the services you choose, and some require an initial investment. However, pricing is transparent, and plans are packed with value. Here’s an overview of WebFX’s starting prices:
- SEO services from $1,500 a month
- PPC advertising from $9,000 a month or 5% of your marketing budget
- Email marketing from $300 a month
- Social media marketing from $900 a month
- Website design from $2,500 per website
- Content marketing from $2,000 a month
- Website copywriting from $25 a page
- YouTube advertising from $975 or 15% of ad spend (plus cost of ads)
- WordPress security from $300 a month
- SEO audits: $8,600
- ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) web compliance from $1,250
- Web maintenance and support from $975 a month
In addition, WebFX offers specialized services with custom pricing for website design, digital recruitment, augmented reality, management for Shopify, Facebook Marketplace, Target Plus, and Walmart ads, and voice search optimization.
WebFX has earned a 4.9 overall star rating on Clutch. Clients are satisfied with how thoroughly WebFX researched their business and audiences before putting together a custom marketing plan. Other clients say that WebFX offers excellent customer service and helps them grow their businesses significantly.
WebFX offers comprehensive digital services. And, with its artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for content marketing, SEO, social media, email marketing, and even PPC advertising, it’s our top AI-driven digital marketing agency for small businesses. You can choose your own adventure with its a la carte options to fill your digital marketing gaps or get a bundled solution of their features.
In addition, it has a return on investment (ROI) dashboard that shows the revenue you’ve earned for every $1 you invest. This also makes WebFX a good fit for businesses that need regular ROI reporting. e.g., accounting firms, grocery stores, or manufacturers.
WebFX Features
WebFX is one of the most comprehensive and well-regarded digital marketing firms for small businesses. Its services include user experience (UX)-focused website design, redesign, and everything needed to maintain a site, like SEO content marketing, technical optimization, and copywriting.
For wider online visibility, it also offers ecommerce, local SEO, social media management, online advertising, search engine marketing (SEM), geofencing advertising, and business listing management. WebFX overall has some of the most extensive digital marketing services you’ll find. Here are some of them:
WebFX offers services for website design, redesign, and maintenance if it’s time for a brand refresh or your website simply isn’t performing well. Each site includes options like SEO, responsive web design, database integration, an ecommerce platform, page design, and various styles to match your brand needs. After the design, the team will do all the copywriting for your site to ensure it’s search-friendly.
WebFX’s social media services include both organic and paid solutions. These include setting up and optimizing your social media profile, doing competitive analysis and setting up a strategy, and creating your social media content. Their paid ads services encompass Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
WebFX offers services for custom keyword research, optimization, and content strategy and creation to meet your goals. It also offers link building, an in-depth SEO audit based on your industry, and competitor analysis. Plus, you’ll also receive a technical audit identifying performance issues such as slow site speeds, site map errors, and link profile errors.
It also offers off-page SEO strategies like Google Business Profile optimization, local search optimization, and SEO for ecommerce and Amazon stores.
In plans as low as $300 per month, WebFX will help you create an email campaign, targeting strategy, and A/B testing to use email marketing for lead generation. The service includes content creation and personalization to ensure high-performing emails. You can even have a landing page created to improve conversions from email marketing as an add-on.
WebFX offers review management services, email, and social as part of its off-page marketing services. Social media services include profile setup and optimization as well as post and content creation. Email marketing services include content creation and personalization, A/B testing, campaign design and coding, email distribution, landing page development and publishing, and targeted list building.
WebFX uniquely offers geofencing ads starting at $550 per month. These are pay-per-click (PPC) mobile ads sent to apps and mobile pages people view after entering a defined area, for instance near a competitor’s business. Its starter plan offers up to 15 conversion zones and traffic data for a web form, ecommerce, and foot traffic.
You can also get advertising services for Google Ads Network, Bing, and across YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Lastly, with programmatic ads, WebFX leverages AI to place online ads when and where target audiences will likely see them.
WebFX’s reporting stands out for offering a proprietary ROI Dashboard, which measures the return for every $1 you invest in your marketing plan. The dashboard will include the revenue you receive based on the number of leads you earn, the cost-per-click for all leads, and the number of lead-generating calls to your business. You can also filter your results by a start and end date.
WebFX Customer Support
All WebFX clients have a dedicated account manager who serves as the primary point of contact, manages the marketing services, and brings in other team members as needed. Account managers send regular emails and hold monthly calls to update their clients on their progress. Clients can call and email with questions or concerns.
LYFE Marketing: Best for Multichannel Social Media Marketing
Pros
- Affordable and comprehensive social media services starting from $650
- Organic and paid social media for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest
- Offers video marketing, email marketing, and PPC ads
Cons
- Add-on fees for social ads outside of Facebook and Instagram
- No ecommerce SEO management
- No web design or creative services
Each LYFE Marketing service has three different plans and an initial three-month contract, which converts to month-to-month afterward. The services are generally small business-friendly—for example, pricing for social media starts from $650 per month for one platform. For more information, you can call the team and request a free quote.
Below are the starting prices for each service:
- Content marketing from $500 a month
- Social media marketing from $650 a month
- Social media advertising from $1,000 a month
- PPC ad management from $400 a month
- Email marketing from $300 a month
- Digital video production and management from $1,350 a month
- Digital video advertising from $1,250 a month
LYFE Marketing has a 4.4 average score on Clutch. Clients love that the agency keeps an open communication line, is transparent about the campaign progress, and delivers positive results. However, a few negative reviews were dissatisfied with the quality of their content and missed deliverables.
LYFE Marketing has long been a well-regarded small business marketing agency for social media—it’s our overall best small business social media marketing agency. This is because while it doesn’t offer as diverse digital marketing services as other agencies, its social media suite is comprehensive, ranging from organic to paid, and it’s affordable for small businesses.
LYFE Marketing Features
In addition to social media marketing services, LYFE Marketing offers PPC, SEO, email marketing, and content marketing. However, they’re best known as a full-service social media management agency. Here are a few of LYFE Marketing’s digital marketing offerings:
LYFE Marketing’s paid social media advertising services include on-brand ads for Facebook and Instagram, which are best paired with social media management. However, you can also pay an extra $100 monthly for additional platforms, like Twitter or LinkedIn. It can also track and manage campaigns, launch retargeting strategies, and work with location-based advertising.
LYFE Marketing’s PPC services include pay-per-click advertising on Google, with added fees for advertising on Bing. It doesn’t provide PPC management for other search engines like Amazon (although social media PPC is included in their advertising service). The ads the team creates are all fully optimized for their respective platforms, including highly targeted visuals, videos, and copy.
LYFE Marketing’s SEO services start with a site audit and include keyword research, optimization, and content strategy to drive traffic to your website from prominent search engines, excluding Amazon. It also offers off-page tactics like link building.
Although not clearly stated on their website, content marketing is part of the digital marketing agency’s expertise. The team can create unique and high-quality blogs, videos, and infographics designed to drive traffic to your website by inserting relevant keywords. LYFE Marketing includes automatic distribution of the content on social media platforms to this service.
A la carte email marketing services with LYFE start at $300. This includes one monthly email with content creation, email setup, list building, and email tracking. There are also custom email plans for more frequent emails, list cleanup, and conversion tracking.
LYFE Marketing Customer Support
LYFE Marketing’s clients report they work with a dedicated account manager reachable daily via email. Account managers set up weekly, biweekly, or monthly reporting sessions with clients and produce monthly reports detailing the state of campaigns. Depending on the services purchased, clients also have 24/7 access to a dashboard to monitor progress in real time.
KlientBoost: Best Content Marketing Services
Pros
- Most comprehensive content marketing services
- Content services tailored to your business’ needs
- Has business-to-business (B2B) marketing, digital ads, and email marketing services
Cons
- No transparent pricing and no a la carte options
- No reputation management services
- Services can be costly (upward of $10,000), according to former clients
KlientBoost has custom prices according to each business’ needs, and there are no a la carte options. However, according to Clutch, most clients spend upward of $10,000 for all-around services.
KlientBoost currently has a 4.9 rating on Clutch—one of the highest on this list. Clients praise its digital ads, conversion rate optimization, and SEO. They also highlighted the team’s communication efficiency and organization. On the negative side, some clients found that the team took on too many strategies at once instead of waiting to see results first.
Content marketing is a key strategy in developing your online presence. But it also takes a lot of work, from publishing high-quality content regularly to building backlinks. A digital marketing company for small businesses that can take care of all these aspects is KlientBoost—it’s one of our top content marketing agencies overall, with extensive content services for small businesses.
For instance, you can get everything from basic keyword research to advanced on- and off-page optimization for your website, and even creative copywriting and content creation. Plus, KlientBoost tailors its plans to each client, so you’ll get services that fit your business’ specific needs and goals.
KlientBoost Features
KlientBoost is an all-around digital marketing agency for small businesses, with services for digital ads and social media, but its real expertise is in content marketing. It has the most comprehensive content marketing services out of most other small business marketing companies. Here are its services:
KlientBoost’s SEO services can come as a standalone or as part of its overall content marketing plan. They include keyword research, content writing (for blog posts, whitepapers, and so on), and link building. It also has services for technical SEO, including conversion rate optimization (CRO) and improving your site’s domain rating.
KlientBoost’s content marketing services include all its SEO solutions plus content creation (including for gated content), topic ideation, content editing, linking adjustments, content distribution, creative copywriting, and even video production. The team takes a holistic approach with their content services, so you get solutions that target your business’ needs.
KlientBoost also has services particularly for business-to-business (B2B) marketing, from building your brand to generating interest to converting leads. These include brand advertising, community building, LinkedIn and Facebook ads, landing page design, email marketing, and retargeting.
KlientBoost can also set up and manage your digital ads on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, and other social media platforms. It can design your ads, optimize your ad bidding to get the highest return on ad spend (ROAS), do A/B testing, and refine your ad keywords and other details once they’re live.
Similar to its content marketing services, KlientBoost takes an all-around approach to their email marketing. Its email services include targeting your email contacts, writing your email copy, SPAM and block compliance, email A/B testing, list segmentation, and conversion and bounce rate improvements.
KlientBoost Customer Support
Like other small business marketing agencies, KlientBoost assigns you a dedicated account manager. You’ll communicate with the team via virtual meetings and messaging, but they’re also available for contact via phone call and email contact form.
Ignite Visibility: Best for Businesses With Multiple Locations
Pros
- Franchise marketing services to build brand presence across multiple locations
- Multiregional and multilingual SEO
- Packages tailored to your business, but with no long contracts
- Also has PPC ads, social media, email marketing, website design
Cons
- No transparent pricing, and prices can be expensive according to reviews (upwards of $10,000)
- No a la carte services
- Has a selection process for clients—not all are guaranteed
Ignite Visibility only provides custom quotes based on your budget requirements, business size, and needs. However, past clients have reported prices to be between $1,000 and $200,000, depending on the services you need. All quotes are employed on a month-to-month basis with no long-term contract.
Ignite Visibility has an average rating of 4.9 stars out of 5 on Clutch. Users praise the company’s expertise and love that they work closely with clients to reach business goals. However, a few negative reviews mentioned dissatisfaction with output quality.
Ignite Visibility customizes marketing solutions for each client, including multi-location franchise marketing plans. This makes it best for small businesses with franchises in multiple locations. It also offers comprehensive solutions to build a positive brand presence from the ground up, including website design, on-page and off-page marketing, advertising strategies, and others.
Ignite Visibility Features
Ignite Visibility offers a wide range of digital marketing services in custom-built quotes for your business. The services and strategies proposed will be based on factors such as your industry, business model, target consumer, and business goals.
A few of the essential features of Ignite Visibility include:
Ignite Visibility can build your website, help you transfer or redesign your website for rebranding, or simply drive more traffic to your current site via optimization. The team codes each site from scratch, creating a custom site that aligns with your business model, industry, target consumer, and goals. A unique aspect of Ignite Visibility is it specializes in multiregional websites, making them ideal for businesses with regional franchises.
Ignite Visibility’s SEO process begins with keyword analysis based on your business and industry, and optimization of your website (including code optimization). It then incorporates the ranking keywords throughout your site to increase its visibility on search results. They also have strategies to get backlinks from high-authority sites and influencers.
Ignite Visibility can also target audiences on your website locally or internationally using a location-based keyword strategy. It can create a location-specific brand reputation across business listing sites and social media by claiming or building your business pages, incorporating your contact information and building positive reviews.
As part of its SEO services, Ignite Visibility can optimize your website’s on-page content using ranking keywords taken from the team’s keyword analysis. Expert writers and editors will then incorporate the keywords in appropriate pages on your website, all while optimizing existing web pages. They can also craft new content to include topics your target audiences are searching for.
Ignite Visibility offers services for email marketing, short message service (SMS) text messaging, and push notifications. This makes it a great option for restaurants and retailers looking to drive website and in-person traffic through strategic email marketing campaigns.
Email marketing services include strategy development, triggered and data-driven messaging, contact list growth, and advanced analytics and optimization. They will also integrate email marketing services alongside your customer relationship management (CRM).
Ignite Visibility’s off-page strategies include social, email, Amazon marketing, and public relations. After completing on-site optimization, it can create and employ marketing strategies for other channels. For example, it can create a strategy for marketing on social channels that heavily integrates with your website’s content strategy to earn more links and brand awareness.
What sets Ignite Visibility apart from other digital marketing agencies is its services for franchises. First, it starts with optimizing your website for your audiences, no matter where they are. Then, it implements a multiregional SEO and paid search strategy for foreign language queries. The team also works on your social media profiles through organic and paid social strategies to attract customers to your brick-and-mortar stores.
Ignite Visibility offers paid search management and Google Display, Facebook, Amazon, and Bing advertising. It also offers targeted and retargeted ads for U.S. consumers and international PPC campaigns. Finally, it can also build landing pages to capture leads.
Ignite Visibility Customer Support
An expert team will be assigned to your business. They will create a plan based on industry research and your business goals, deploy strategies, and provide monthly progress reports. Clients say their dedicated project manager also brings other team members to consult (like content strategists and social media experts) as needed. Check-ins are available weekly, as well as in-depth monthly and quarterly reports.
Hibu: Best All-in-One Digital Marketing Solution
Pros
- Complete digital marketing solution customized for your business
- All packages include website building, reputation, review, and listings management
- Dashboard to monitor online brand reputation
Cons
- No a la carte options and no transparent pricing
- No email marketing
- Social marketing and digital ads only available as add-ons
Hibu offers custom digital marketing packages. According to former clients, packages cost between $10,000 and $50,000 monthly. The starter plan includes website design, listings and reputation management, and optimization—however, pricing will vary for each business. To get a custom quote, visit the Hibu website and fill out the form to set up a free consultation.
Hibu holds an average rating of 3.9 on Trustpilot. Positive reviews said they liked that the digital marketing agency offers a full-service approach, ensuring they are consistently branded across the web. However, negative reviews were unhappy with Hibu’s long contracts (at least six months), complicated cancellation policies, and were overall dissatisfied with their work quality.
Hibu offers all-around small business marketing solutions, which is why it doesn’t list any set prices on its website. Once you book a consultation, Hibu’s experts will set a custom quote that fits your business needs. Services range from website building to local SEO to listing and reputation management, all in one plan—making Hibu the best all-in-one marketing service for small businesses.
Hibu Features
Hibu offers an integrated suite of digital marketing services for small businesses. All the services are offered in custom bundled plans, so you get a targeted solution for your business. Open the drop-downs below to learn more about Hibu’s services:
Hibu’s web design services ensure a branded, smooth site visitor experience. It also ensures that search engines can easily index your site to help it rank higher on Google. Websites are custom-built around each client’s goals, industry, and brand. They are then synced with online business directory listings, including social platforms and business listing sites, to ensure that information is always up to date and consistent across the brand’s online presence.
Hibu’s SEO services include optimizing content to rank higher on search, managing meta tags, detecting duplicate content, optimizing for mobile, building link profiles, and auditing websites for search bots. Its local SEO services revolve mainly around business listing—reviewing and managing your business information across online directories like Foursquare and Yelp.
Hibu also offers review and reputation management services by giving you a dashboard to monitor and respond to reviews across all your business listings. You can request feedback from the dashboard via email. When customers respond with feedback, you can invite those who replied positively to post a review on one of your business listing sites. Plus, it can also optimize your site for voice search on platforms like Siri, Alexa, and Google.
Hibu offers social media, search, and display advertising for search engine marketing. Social media ads extend across Facebook and Instagram, and Hibu carefully targets each ad to appear before potential leads and continues to retarget them to increase brand familiarity and the chance of a conversion.
Hibu Customer Support
Each Hibu client is connected with a dedicated account manager. You have the option to check in weekly or even monthly, via phone, video conference, or email. Hibu offers a custom schedule for check-ins during business hours from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. As the business doesn’t always happen during office hours, clients can connect with Hibu’s digital support team 24/7 via email or chat.
Avalaunch Media: Best for Digital Advertising Services
Pros
- Can set up and optimize ads on Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat
- Also offers offline advertising: TV, radio, and billboards
- Creates a custom solution for your business’ needs
Cons
- No transparent pricing—you’ll need to contact the team for a quote
- No advertising services for LinkedIn
- No a la carte services
Avalaunch Media offers custom pricing for each business, so you’ll need to contact the team for a quote. However, according to Capterra reviews, projects usually cost under $10,000, although some reported spending up to $50,000.
Avalaunch Media currently holds a 5 out of 5 rating on Capterra—though there are fewer than 20 reviews. Overall, clients are happy with the quality of Avalaunch Media’s creative output and say the team is swift to communicate.
Digital advertising is a guaranteed way to gain clicks, impressions, or conversions quickly through strategically placed ads. On that front, the best digital marketing agency for small businesses is Avalaunch Media. Based in Utah, Avalaunch Media specializes in growing a business’ local presence, and its advertising services include Google, YouTube, social media, and even radio, TV, and billboards—the most comprehensive by far on this list.
Avalaunch Media Features
Avalaunch Media’s standout service is its advertising, which encompasses both online and offline platforms. But it also offers other essential digital marketing services including SEO, website and landing page design, reputation management (e.g., press releases and brand monitoring), email marketing, and even creative branding design and video production. Keep reading below for more on each.
Avalaunch Media offers both online and offline advertising services. For digital ads, it has creative services to design your ad, along with ad setup and optimization services for Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat. The team will research and set up a strategy based on your needs, then create, manage, and optimize your ads and report results.
For SEO, Avalaunch Media offers all the essentials: on-page content optimization, keyword research and strategy, link building, technical optimization, and SEO specifically for ecommerce businesses or local audiences. It can also create search engine-optimized content for blogs, website copy, product description pages, or other long-form content like e-books, content hubs (i.e., pillar pages), and case studies.
Avalaunch Media also has experts to design and maintain your business website, or even a specific landing page. These experts can set up your WordPress content management system (CMS) and do A/B tests on multiple landing pages to see which layouts, copies, and strategies work best. It also has conversion rate optimization (CRO) services for your landing pages if your objective is to generate more conversions from your website.
Avalaunch Media’s creative design services include design services to build your brand identity such as logo and style guide creation, graphic design for marketing collaterals like presentations, project proposals, and infographics, video production for websites and social media (e.g., explainer videos and customer testimonials), and copywriting services.
As part of being an all-around digital marketing agency for small businesses, Avalaunch Media also has services to manage your business’ local reputation. These include press release writing and distribution, link building with other reputable websites (e.g., blogs and media outlets), press mention monitoring, and community engagement.
Avalaunch Media also has top-to-bottom email marketing solutions. The team can set your business up on an email platform, build your email list, design and send your email, and nurture your leads.
Avalaunch Media Customer Support
Avalaunch Media assigns clients with a dedicated team to work on your brand. They hold regular meetings to discuss strategies and updates depending on your preferred frequency—whether weekly, monthly, quarterly, and so on. You’ll also have access to your campaign’s analytics dashboard. For communication, they use email, phone, Google Workspace, and RaveTree, a project management platform.
Pro tip: Find out more about digital advertising on social media—read our guide to the best social media platforms to advertise your business on.
Thrive: Best Digital Marketing Agency for Ecommerce
Pros
- Ecommerce-specific services, including ecommerce website-building and SEO
- Custom packages and a la carte solutions available
- Offers PPC ads, content writing, email and SMS marketing, social media, and reputation management
Cons
- No transparent pricing—all plans are custom
- Clients say cost is on the higher side
Thrive isn’t upfront about pricing, but clients on Clutch report spending between $10,000 and $200,000. The number of services you need will influence the final price, and to get a completely accurate price for your project, reach out to Thrive for free for a proposal.
Thrive currently has 4.7 out of 5 stars on Clutch. Customers love the quality of the work, and many report an increase in traffic, sales, and overall customer engagement while working with Thrive. Clients also love how transparent, communicative, and professional the whole team is. However, there were a few times when the agency failed to hit expectations.
Thrive offers extensive digital marketing services for ecommerce platforms. Among these are Shopify, Walmart, Target, and Amazon, making them the best agency to reach out to if you need to market an ecommerce business. In addition, you can get just about any other digital marketing service you might need, from SEO and PPC to email and text marketing, and more.
Thrive Features
Thrive offers nearly everything you need from a digital marketing agency, including website design, SEO, PPC, link building, social media marketing, and reputation management. However, like many other marketing agencies, you’ll have to reach out directly to Thrive so that they can build a strategy to address your business needs.
Learn more about Thrive’s digital marketing capabilities:
Thrive works with you to build a custom website that reflects your business and ensures a seamless experience for your customers. Whether you need a website to attract new clients or an ecommerce website complete with a store, Thrive can do it all for you. If you need a website you can maintain by yourself, Thrive also offers WordPress and Shopify design services.
Thrive can help optimize your website to garner more site traffic. It can perform local SEO (alongside their reputation management services) and off-page optimization with social media marketing. Aside from general SEO, Thrive also has extensive ecommerce optimization to help customers make purchasing decisions more seamlessly. It also offers SEO for specific ecommerce marketplaces like Walmart and Target.
In conjunction with social media, Thrive works to build a positive reputation for your brand. As a client, you can access an easy-to-use reputation management dashboard to monitor and respond to your reviews on different platforms. It also performs reputation repair services, which work to erase any fake or malicious reviews.
Thrive’s experts can set up a full-scale email marketing strategy for your small business. They’ll audit your business’ email needs and then create email templates and lists, and even set up automations, like drip campaigns. The same applies for SMS campaigns—they’ll set you up on an SMS platform, craft and optimize your messages, then track your campaigns. They can also target your SMS recipients by location.
Thrive Customer Support
Thrive assigns you a dedicated point of contact (case manager), but you can easily reach out, interact, and collaborate with all the professionals working on your project. You can communicate with them through various channels, like phone, email, and Zoom, during their business hours from Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Central Time.
Fiverr Pro: Cheapest Project-based Digital Marketing Services
Pros
- Project-based; no long-term contracts
- Affordable marketing agency services—from $10
- Services for nearly every digital marketing service
Cons
- Few (if any) bundled solutions
- Takes time to vet freelancers
- No dedicated account manager—you’ll have to oversee your projects
Fiverr Pro freelancers offer digital marketing agency services ranging from $10 to $1,000-plus per task, depending on the provider and specialty. To learn more about the pricing around your digital marketing needs, sign up for a Fiverr account, head over to the Pro section, and search for the service of interest. Then, click on various profiles to learn about the pricing and services each Fiverr freelancer offers.
Here are a few sample prices on Fiverr Pro for digital marketing services:
Individual Fiverr Pro providers all have their own client reviews and ratings. However, Fiverr Pro experts are the best of the best: each has 4.7 to 5-star ratings on the platform—you’ll simply need to find one that fits the criteria you’re looking for. Then, click on the provider’s profile and scroll to the bottom to view past clients’ star ratings and written reviews.
Fiverr Pro is a freelance platform with hundreds of for-hire digital marketing services at affordable prices. If there’s a digital marketing need you’re looking for, chances are you will find it on Fiverr Pro, including web design and maintenance, digital advertising, and SEO, among others. It’s a step up from the standard Fiverr, as the freelancers on Fiverr Pro are all verified and highly rated.
As a result, expect to find starting prices closer to $100. It’s still generally affordable, and the platform is best for small businesses looking for help with digital marketing on a tight budget. It’s overall the best option if you only need an individual digital marketing consultant for small businesses and not a full-scale agency.
Fiverr Pro Features
Fiverr Pro contractors offer every type of digital marketing service available. These include web design, search engine optimization, off-page marketing, and digital advertising. However, while prices start relatively low, you must take time sifting through professionals to find the specific services you are looking for.
In addition, freelancers (especially those you hire for one-time projects) won’t have the same relationship with your business the way an agency would, and it will take time to build a rapport with them. Finally, since it isn’t a marketing agency per se, you won’t find any bundled plans with multiple services—each service will require hiring a different freelancer.
Here are some marketing services you can hire professionals for on Fiverr Pro:
Fiverr Pro’s website designers usually specialize in website builders like Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, and Shopify. Some specialize in designing certain types, like ecommerce sites, community forums, or blogs. Many have tiered plans with different features, including websites with one or multiple pages, extension installment, branding, ecommerce functionality, or responsive design.
Fiverr Pro’s SEO services include writing optimized blog content, product descriptions, or local SEO citations. Others can help fix technical website errors like website speed and responsive design errors. They also perform tasks specific to a content management system or content management system (e.g., WordPress or Wix). Because SEO is so broad, look for a Fiverr provider specifically offering the types of SEO projects you seek to complete.
Fiverr contractors cover a range of services like social media, email, and Amazon marketing, as well as local SEO citation building and reviews management. To find the providers that offer a specific type of off-page marketing, use the search bar to input the platform you wish to market on + “marketing” (e.g., “social media marketing”).
Fiverr Pro’s advertising services include pay-per-click ads, animated video ads, hand-drawn advertisements for digital assets, banner ad design, advertising on Facebook, and display ads. To find a provider that offers the specific types of ads you seek, simply search for that ad type using the Fiverr search bar. For example, you could search “Facebook ads,” “Google ads” or “display ads.”
Fiverr freelancers offer two types of analytics: general website analytics and analytics specific to the type of campaign created by the provider (e.g., Google AdWords analytics). If you need someone to install analytics on your website or help you track analytics around your existing campaign, search the platform you’d like to track, then “analytics.” For example, for Facebook campaign analytics, search “Facebook analytics.”
Dozens of experienced graphic designers are available for hire on Fiverr Pro. They can create everything from social media content to brand logos, email headers to print ad designs, with diverse styles. You’ll only need to search for the art style you need, then communicate your design creative brief and specifications clearly.
Fiverr Pro Customer Support
The customer support and communication channels available will depend on the Fiverr freelancer you choose. For example, some will provide regular analytical reports and discuss your campaign performance via video conferencing, while others offer a hands-off approach to digital marketing. Be sure to discuss with your chosen provider how they can be contacted and if they provide regular campaign reporting and reviews.
Pro tip: Thinking of in-house self-managed digital marketing services? Check out our list of digital marketing tips to make sure you and your team cover all the bases to build a strong brand online.
How We Evaluated the Best Digital Marketing Agencies
Small businesses often need outside expert help to build a brand presence online and reach marketing goals. They may be seeking solutions for web design, search engine optimization, and off-page marketing like link building, email, social media, and advertising—and they need it to be affordable.
Here is how we evaluated the best digital marketing agencies for small businesses:
- Price: We preferred agencies offering comprehensive digital marketing services at small business-friendly prices. We also considered how transparent the pricing is, rating agencies with upfront prices a higher ranking.
- Digital marketing services: Both digital and off-page marketing services were taken into consideration. At a minimum, we only considered agencies offering the digital marketing essentials: website building, social media, SEO, digital ads, and reputation management. However, we also gave extra points to agencies with advanced strategies like video marketing or analytics.
- SEO-specific services: Most of the small business marketing firms above have comprehensive SEO services to grow your business’ online presence. These include local and internal SEO, SEO tailored to ecommerce (like Amazon or Shopify), and technical SEO to improve your website’s user experience.
- Customer support: Small businesses often hire digital marketing agencies as an extension of the marketing department. Knowing this, we looked for agencies that assign a dedicated project manager to each client’s account who are available during regular business hours to answer questions, consult, and manage plan-pivot requests.
- Reviews: We also prioritized the small business marketing companies reputed to high-quality service and support according to ratings on key industry review sites like Clutch and Trustpilot.
Key Considerations When Choosing a Digital Marketing Agency
Outsourcing all or part of your company’s digital marketing is a big investment. To get the best return, it’s important to know what to look for in an agency as well as how to choose the right fit for your business. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind when comparing digital marketing agencies:
- Agency reputation: Does the agency have a good reputation based on online client reviews? Check places like Clutch.co, Google Business listings, Facebook, and other third-party sites to see whether customers seem satisfied with results, pricing, and the interaction style of the agency. You can also ask the agency itself for references and speak directly to existing clients.
- Measurable results: An agency should be able to give you case study-type examples of the return on investment clients have seen with their services.
- Budget: Digital marketing agencies often put pricing behind the curtain to build a quote customized to your business’ needs. While this can be helpful, there’s no harm in communicating your budget or a range of what you have budgeted to spend to see if they can put a package together for you that will work.
- Expectations: A company promising to “put you on the 1st page of Google!” is potentially offering something they can’t deliver. It’s important to get an idea of what type of results you can realistically expect based on your budget and the service or service bundle you sign on for.
- Clearly defined goals: Likewise, it’s important for you to convey your expectations and desires to the agency being considered. Do they have a clear understanding of your goals and can they outline a specific plan to get you there?
- Timeline: Some digital marketing strategies (like SEO content marketing) take time, while others (such as PPC ads) can produce virtually immediate results. Ideally, you will work with an agency that offers services that can produce some short-term wins for your business alongside longer-play strategies.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Digital marketing agencies can help small businesses grow their local presence and gain new leads and customers. They do this through digital marketing strategies like SEO, content marketing, reputation management, social media marketing, email marketing, brand advertising, and digital advertising through search engines and social media. Some digital marketing agencies also offer offline marketing strategies like broadcast advertising or events marketing.
Most digital marketing agencies for small businesses have an average starting fee of approximately $4,200. However, this can vary with each agency—some platforms like Fiverr have individual services with prices starting as low as $10 per project, while other full-scale agencies offer custom solutions that start upward of $10,000 a month, such as Ignite Visibility or KlientBoost.
Hiring a small business marketing agency can be worth it for a custom, professional marketing strategy built specifically around your business needs. There are dozens of digital marketing agencies with various price points and specialties, and you’ll likely find one that suits your needs. Determine which services you need, canvas agencies and review their work, and then schedule a consultation to see if they’re a good fit.
Bottom Line
Partnering with the right digital marketing agency for small businesses can grow your brand exponentially, gain you new leads and customers, and increase your revenue. It’s the best option if you want to start your business off on the right track and leave your marketing to the professionals. For the overall best small business marketing agency based on services, cost, and experience, our top pick goes to Straight North—they have the best overall package.
While Straight North doesn’t offer any organic social media marketing, it has services for social media advertising. The team can analyze your business’ social media profiles, then set up ad campaigns based on data with audience targeting. It can also optimize your campaigns once they’re live and provide monthly reports on their performance.