Should You Hire a Digital Agency in 2026

If you're currently spending under $10,000 a month inside of Google Ads and you're paying for an agency, the harsh reality is you're wasting your money. And the scary thing is, is that right now in 2026, you should be able to successfully scale up to above 30 to $50,000 in monthly ad spend before you need that extra help of an agency. So in this video, I'm going to take you behind the curtain of the world of digital agencies and also go through the exact steps that I would implement if I was a business owner starting with Google Ads in 2026. But firstly, the world of digital agencies and why I think you shouldn't be using one, especially if you're spending under $10,000 in 2026. Now, right at the start of this video, I want to be really, really clear that I am definitely not anti ad agency. And I do believe that there are a lot of amazing agencies that bring a great and required service to businesses. But however, a core belief of mine is that especially in those early days, that you are far better as the business owner or the internal business team running your ads and by yourself or with your own team members. And the reason for that is because for success with Google Ads, you need to understand two worlds. You need to understand how the business works, what drives your profit, what drives your business. And you also need to understand how Google Ads works. And we'll get and speak about more of that really, really soon. Because firstly, I want to start with a little subsect inside of the world of digital marketing agencies. And this is someone who I call the inexperienced operator and you probably know the person I'm talking about. They've started a digital marketing agency with zero experience on themselves. The only reason they're starting it is is They've watched a YouTube video which is showing them how to quickly make money from starting their own digital agency. Matter of fact, I'm sure you probably noticed that the actual title this video should you hire a Digital Agency in 2026 actually brings up the top ranking. Videos are nothing about whether you should hire an agency and it's actually about how you can start your own agency and see anywhere between $7,000 a month, all the way up to $300,000 a month inside the first 90 days. I want to be clear, I have no problems at all with people starting a business in order to make money. We really look at it, that's what most people start. Yes, they may have a passion, they may have a desire, all of those things. But at Some level they are charging for their services, so they want to be operating at a profit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. My problem with people who are starting digital agencies with no experience inside of digital marketing at all by themselves, is that essentially they're running in a business with zero experience. And what happens from here is that yes, they may hire some top performing freelancers to take the control of your accounts and then they just focus on sales, bringing more people in. But because they're truly, you don't understand, for example, how Google Ads works at the sales point, they are over promising to you, the business owner, the success that they can get because their focus is sales, not implementing the strategy. And then when they go through the sales process, they're making promises that can't be upheld. Now, it's not because they are a bad or an evil person, it's just purely because they don't understand how Google works and sometimes how it does take some time in order to see success. Also understanding that it's not just a matter of turning on an ad and then seeing some success drive into your business. So let's push them to one side because I think you would know as business owner that entrusting your marketing with someone who hasn't run any Google Ads campaigns themselves is not a smart thing to do. And if you do want to weed that out and really know about it, the simple thing that I recommend is that whenever you're engaging with any digital marketing service, what you want to be asking is a couple of questions around not only what their level experience is, but who is actually running their Google Ads. So is it the actual person you're talking to or is it someone on their team or is it a freelancer? In some cases they don't even have anything yet, so they're selling you before they actually assign that person. But you want to find out who is actually running your account and who will you be paying for. Because that brings us to another point, because sometimes inside of a digital agency, yes, they may be getting some great results, but those results may be based off their tier one or tier two clients. So what you want to be asking for is what are the results for businesses who are spending the same amount of money as you, not their golden cases which they show in all of their marketing presentations. So let's now push those types of digital agencies to one side and talk about the more traditional digital agencies. And this is where I want to be really, really clear that I know a lot of people in this industry who have their own Agencies and I can attest that their true motivation is to truly help businesses and clients with their digital marketing. The problem can be, and this is where it really becomes a model issue. Not, you know, is this person a good person or not a bad person type of argument. Because unfortunately for many digital agencies, what will generally happen is when they get a couple of tier one clients that actually sucks up all of their resources. This is not necessari a bad thing. I want you to just think about it. So let's just say for example, you're running ads and you're only paying a management fee to this business of 1,000 to $2,000 and they've got another collection of clients that are paying management fees of $20,000, $33,000 a month, you know, sometimes even up to $50,000 a month, who is going to get the highest level of support. Of course it's their clients which are paying more money. So that's not in the first issue. The second issue which is an issue with the agency model is that obviously with a larger agency you, they've got a lot more operating expenses, office expenses. Not only do they have their direct consultants, but generally they have, you know, bookkeepers, HR departments, all of these other really important departments that they need to run their business. What that generally means is that from all of their management fees that they could collect, they have to take anywhere between 40 to 60% off the top before they actually start getting into implementations of your campaigns. So that's why I really do say that if you're only spending a small amount inside of Google Ads, you're going to get a much faster result by allocating that money inside of a Google Ads spend as opposed to a management fee. So before we move into what I would do if I was starting a business right now in 2026 and how I would go about upskilling myself in Google Ads. So I can see success. You may be asking what businesses should actually be using a digital agency. And for me it really comes down to businesses that can't scale any further. So for some businesses, generally lead generation businesses, this will probably hit at about 20 to $30,000. Some cases it'll be $50,000. Just depends on the level of services they're running, how wide of a market they're advertising to. But that is a great place that agencies can help because the way that you solve that problem is generally by getting better conversion, tracking insight and potentially linking up your CRM with your Google Ads strategy. You may also have to reach out to multiple types of campaigns. So search performance max and also potentially video and demand gen. And that does take an extra level of skill that an agency can really help and provide at. Whereas for an e commerc and in many cases you can get up to about 50 to 60,000 or more before you need that extra support from an agency. And then another reason why you may need an agency is if the requirements that you have for creative arrange your videos and images gets too large for your own internal team. That's another great reason to enlist the help of an agency. Okay, so with all that said, let's now talk about if you, a business owner, are wanting to start with Google Ads in 2026, what would be the exact steps that I would take if I was restarting this journey? All again, because just in case you're unaware, the very first campaign that I ever ran inside of Goog Glads was actually for my very own business. So this is a journey which I know really really well. When I started that first campaign back in 2010, there was nowhere near the level of information that is out here now and that the first place to start with is obviously the free information which you can see on platforms like YouTube. The one thing that I would say here is really look to focus on YouTube channel or YouTube teaching which only focuses in on one thing, say for example Google Ads or meta ads or SEO or web design, whatever that case may be and try to stick away from those really really tun generic YouTube channels which are sharing, you know, multiple different tutorials on, you know, everything from email marketing to meta marketing the next day to YouTube the next day. You really want to focus on individual specialized training and teachers which you feel like you can connect with and they're regularly producing content on that one platform. There are two areas where I do recommend that you pay some money in order to help with your knowledge for Google Ads so that you're not making some mistakes. And the first area is a one off fee. Now this is where I would definitely be recommending that you enlist the help of a freelancer or an agency to complete these core tasks of setting up your conversion tracking and also making sure that the integration between your business website, your CRM and your Google Ads account is all working. That is something that I would definitely recommend that you pay for to make sure that that is all done correctly. So for example, if you're an E commerce brand, you want to make sure that your Shopify account is connected to your Google Ads account which is connected to your Google merchant cent and that your product feed is set up correctly and that you're also automatically getting your audiences feeding into Google Ads. Now, if you're a lead generation business or a local service based business, you want to be really focusing on that you've got the right settings inside of your conversion actions. You know, simple things which may sound simple, but if they're not set right, they will cost you a lot of money. Like making sure you've got your call duration set correctly, making sure that you've got your conversion settings set correctly. And then if you do have enough volume, you could also get down the path of making sure that you've got say for example Coraile or any CRM connected in with your Google Ads account. And that is a service that I would definitely pay for to make sure that that is set up correctly. And then the second thing is, is that I would look to join a specific community or coaching program that is going to not only teach you, but also give you an opportunity to reach out and ask questions to not only individual coaches, but also to other community members and business owners so that you can go through and ask questions about how to optimize your campaign, get checks about making sure that your bidding strategies are set up correct, sure that you've got your account structure set correctly. And the reason for why I recommend this path, rather than going down an agency path, it purely comes down to you're going to get much better value for money. The reality is, is that once you've got your tracking set up and once you've got all of your integrations set up correctly, you can optimize a Google Ads campaign in anywhere between one to three hours a week. Many people have this idea that agencies are going in every single day and making changes to your Google Ads account, when in fact that is just not true and they should not be doing that now. That's not because a digital agency is lazy. It's just the reality of the way that Google Ads works. When it comes to Google Ads, you need to obviously run the campaign, you need to see some data, make some optimizations, and then you need to wait. So you can't go in every single day and make changes to your Google Ads account. So rather than paying 10, 20 or 30% of your ad fee, so if you're spending $10,000, that can be anywhere between 1,000 to $3,000, you can get some really great coaching and support for anywhere between 1 to $200 a month and you can even get one on programs for that same price as a marketing fee. And the benefit of that is is that as you spend more money, their coaching fee is not changing so becomes much more beneficial for you, the business owner. Now, if you are interested, define Digital Academy. We do definitely run both of those options. So we run a community setting where you can get direct support from not only me, but we've got four coaches, highly experienced coaches who are available in all different areas of the world or we even offer a private one on one coaching program. If you want to get more information about those programs which are called Google Ads Mastery or Def Digital Academy On Demand, just follow that link in the description below. And if you'd also like to make sure that you've got your campaign set up the right way, and we also give you free access to Optimization checklist, you can get access to a product which is called Start and Scale that's absolutely free and what it is going to do is going to help you make sure that you can set up your Google Ads accounts in the right way. And it also starts taking you through how to optimize your campaigns. Hey, thank you so much for joining me. It's an absolute pleasure to have you here. And if you'd like to watch a free series that we've released here on YouTube about all the different types of campaigns and how Google Ads works in 2020, go through and watch this playlist right here. See you next time.