Digital Agency vs Ad Agency - What is the Difference?
In this age of digitalization, every business wants to leverage online marketing and advertising services to reach as many potential customers as possible. Because hiring advertising and digital agencies can help companies to build their brand reputation, get lead generation, drive sales, and develop proper communication with their customers.
However, most people often get confused between a digital agency and an ad agency. But, the fact is, both types of agencies are entirely different in terms of the nature of the work they offer. Read this blog to know about the difference between digital marketing and ad agencies in detail. Take a look!
First, let’s understand what a digital marketing agency is.
Digital Marketing Agency
A digital marketing agency is a company that provides various online marketing services to businesses, including the promotion of their brands on social media and other digital channels.
These agencies provide an array of digital marketing services like social media marketing (SMM), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), email marketing, mobile marketing, affiliate marketing, etc.
Moreover, digital marketing agencies use the latest technology, tools, and applications available online to produce effective marketing campaigns for their clients.
Now let’s understand what an advertising agency is.
Advertising Agency
An advertising agency is a firm that specialises in creating paid advertisements for other companies or organisations. They offer businesses a range of advertising services like budgeting, media selection, media buying, advertising planning, conducting thorough research, creation of advertising content, and much more.
A good advertising agency covers all aspects of advertising, viz. radio advertising, television advertising, online advertising, mobile marketing, AR advertising, and out-of-home advertising as part of their advertising campaign.
The Difference Between a Digital Agency and an Ad Agency
An advertising agency focuses on producing promotional or advertising content and disseminating it through various channels to grow your business's online presence and drive sales.
On the other hand, a digital agency implements and executes various digital strategies to reach your potential customers online, connect with them across a broad range of digital channels, and persuade them to click on your website and make a purchase.
Type of Digital Agency
Full-Service Digital Marketing Agencies: Full-service digital marketing agencies refer to companies that manage all aspects of a company's online presence. These agencies offer all the essential digital marketing services, such as social media marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, affiliate marketing, paid search or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, online reputation management, etc.
SEO Agencies: These agencies specialise in ranking their clients’ websites and website content on the top of search engine result pages (SERPs). In addition, they also do keyword research, link building, on-page and off-page SEO, website audits, backlink audits, checking the quality of URLs and title tags, creating Meta descriptions, and performing other search engine optimization strategies.
PPC Advertising Agencies: Pay-Per-Click advertising companies are experts in promoting your website or application through paid ad runs and campaigns. By targeting the right audience, these digital agencies streamline and expedite your digital outreach approach. Moreover, they create and implement effective strategies that are ensured with best practices to obtain quality leads.
Social Media Agencies: When businesses require help growing and maintaining their social media presence, they turn to social media agencies. These agencies can manage social media handles, create organic social media content, and set up paid advertising across various social media platforms (like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) for their clients to achieve their business goals.
Content Marketing Agencies: Content marketing agencies are known to provide all content-related services to a variety of businesses to boost their online presence. They are responsible for creating the following types of content:
- Blogs or articles
- Ebooks
- Website content
- Case studies and white papers
- Product descriptions
- Business descriptions
- Landing page content
- Testimonials and reviews
- Infographics
- Social media posts
- Types of advertising agency
Full-Service Agencies: Full-service agencies manage every step of the advertising process on behalf of their clients, including planning, developing, producing, and deploying advertisements. In addition, most ad agencies also offer other marketing services like creating weekly newsletters and annual reports, trade shows, sales promotions, etc.
Interactive Agencies: These types of ad agencies use modernised modes of communication, including online advertisements, SMS marketing, etc. They create relevant, engaging, and innovative ads to grab the attention of their prospects.
Creative Boutiques: These types of advertising agencies only offer creative services to clients. They provide trending graphics, carousels, and other creative content by employing innovative strategies and marketing initiatives.
Media Buying Agencies: These agencies specialise in doing media planning, media buying, and budgeting on behalf of their clients. They identify ad space and time, determine the budget, and purchase ad space on online and offline media platforms like radio, TV, YouTube, websites, hoardings, etc.
In-House Agencies: In-house agencies refer to the marketing departments of companies that solely work to enhance their brand presence and cater to their marketing needs. It has been seen that smaller businesses employ in-house marketing teams or ad agencies for their marketing requirements because they are cost-effective and provide businesses with better creative and financial control over their marketing needs.
The Bottom-Line
Digital and ad agencies are both different in their work functions. If you want to advertise your product, service, or brand, it is best to take the services of advertising agencies. However, if you are looking to build your brand presence, market your products or services, and boost your sales, you should go to a digital marketing agency.
There are many renowned digital and ad agencies in India that are known for providing the best online advertising and online marketing services to their clients. However, if you are looking for location-specific agencies, you can search for the best digital or ad agencies near me on Google and other search engines.