When you need to have online ads made for your company, you have a number of options to choose from, and these include hiring a freelancer and hiring an online ad agency. Some people may mistakenly believe that an ad agency and a freelancer are basically the same since these both work outside of your company. What you might not be aware of is that while they are not part of your company’s structure, a freelancer and an ad agency are not generally the same thing.
For starters, a freelancer is just one entity and an ad agency is a company that has a number of people working for them. While some ad agencies may have a few freelancers working for them under their banner, these individuals are working for them, so you are not necessarily working with a freelancer per se but rather someone who freelances on the side and works for the ad agency for your needs. I know this may sound confusing, but it is not.
To help you further understand the difference between a freelancer and an ad agency (and the pros as well as cons of working with either one), here are a few more comparisons for you to check out:
Reliability and Availability
Freelancer – This is dependent on how many clients a freelancer may have. If the person is juggling more than one client while they are working with you, there is a possibility that they won’t be available to you whenever you need them. They may be able to produce the results that you want but there is also a possibility that their work may suffer due to burnout and overload. If they are working solely for you however, you can rest assured that they will be at your beck and call when you need them and you can rely on them to do the work that is needed when it is needed.
Ad Agency – No matter how many clients an online advertising agency has, since they are staking their reputation on delivering on their word, they can easily scale up to add more people to their roster in order to cover all the needs of their clients. This also means that someone will be available to talk to you or communicate with you when you require them to. Burnout and overload won’t be an issue with an ad agency since there will always be more than one person available to do your work.
Speed and Efficiency
Freelancer – As with reliability and availability, a freelancer’s speed and efficiency at their work are dependent on how many clients they are handling. If they are handling more than one client at a time, and their workload is kind of heavy, you can expect some slowdowns in the delivery and execution of your campaigns. They might not be as effective as you want them to be or as fast at launching your campaigns. They can still be fast and efficient if they are dedicated to your work only, but this may also be dependent on their level of skill and knowledge regarding online advertising.
Ad Agency – Since there is more than one ad professional on hand to do your ads and campaigns for you when you work with an ad agency (although most agencies do assign people to work specific companies and campaigns for efficiency and focus), you will find that they actually work faster than a freelancer and have people dedicated to doing your work. Since more minds are working to get your campaigns running, you can be sure that these will be done faster and better. Ad agencies also ensure that everyone working under their name is certified and knows exactly what to do with the help of training and certifications.
Now, I am not saying that you should not work with freelancers. I know of a few who are totally reliable and are kick-ass at what they do. What I am merely pointing out is that not all freelancers can be like them, while all ad agencies take great care to protect the company name. Hence the extra effort ad agencies take to ensure that all professionals working for them do what needs to be done the right way.
