Advertising Agencies

The total US advertising spend reached $281 billion last year. Worldwide, it should have already surpassed $705 billion. Based on these numbers, the demand for advertising agencies is now greater than ever. With such big demand comes even bigger competition, and finding the perfect advertising partner is now a real business challenge. We solved the where and the how for you by ranking the best agencies based on a detailed evaluation methodology. Scroll down to discover the companies that made the cut in the table. Right below, you will also find our best tips for shortlisting and ultimately choosing the perfect advertising agency for your business.

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Comapny Size

Company Size

Freelancer

2-9

10-24

25-49

50-99

100-249

250+

Undisclosed

Hourly Rate

Hourly Rate

$0-$24

$25-$49

$50-$99

$100-$149

$150-$199

$200+

Undisclosed

Min. Project Size

Min. Project Size

Undisclosed

$1.000

$5.000

$10.000

$25.000

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$500.000

10 Top Advertising Agencies

BrandLume Inc.

Powering 6,400 clients and over 400 agencies globally, BrandLume is a global online shop for all your digital marketing, branding, and website development needs. They offer all-inclusive services with up-front wholesale pricing and no long-term contracts. See profile
Service focus

Digital Marketing

Branding

Web Development

Advertising

Key features

$ 1,000

$ 50-99

100-249

Canada, Toronto

Mayple

Maple is a top-rated innovative digital marketing agency that offers SMBs and startups premium and flexible digital marketing services at affordable prices. Dedicated to providing you with good marketing results, the A+ team builds custom strategies around the specific business needs. They have also designed an innovative live dashboard that gives clients full control over the campaigns and budget. See profile
Service focus

Email Marketing

Paid Search—Google & Bing Ads

Paid Social—Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & Pinterest Ads

Conversion Rate and Website Optimization

Key features

$ 1,000

Undisclosed

10-24

United States, New York, New York City

BrandTuitive

BrandTuitive boasts a passionate team that is exceptionally good at thinking outside the box. They use their intuition in an effective manner to help clients achieve their goals and grow their business. What truly sets BrandTuitive apart is the creativity that is grounded in a powerful strategic approach. See profile
Service focus

Branding

Advertising

Marketing Strategy

Key features

$ 100,000

$ 200+

25-49

United States, New York, New York City

IPNY

IPNY will do the hard lifting for you: business planning, brand positioning, communications planning, and marketing, so you can focus on what you do best: providing amazing products and services. As one of the top advertising agencies, it offers a vast variety of services to solve your growth problems. See profile
Service focus

Advertising

Digital Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Key features

$ 100,000

$ 200+

25-49

United States, New York, New York City

Power Agency

Power is one of the digital advertising companies that excel in B2D2C sales channel marketing. The agency offers everything you need to power up your brand in the digital age, including branding and identity, digital and traditional advertising, sales collateral, packaging design, and more. See profile
Service focus

Branding

Digital Marketing

Print Buying

Traditional Advertising

Key features

$ 50,000

$ 100-149

100-249

United States, Kentucky, Louisville

Pure Fusion Media

Pure Fusion Media specializes in creating strategies that breed emotions and lead to inspired actions. The creative giants and forward-thinkers that work at the ads company make ideal growth partners that will uplift and energize teams on their way to success. See profile
Service focus

Branding

Advertising

Web Design

Key features

$ 10,000

$ 100-149

2-9

United States, Arizona, Phoenix

Venthio

Venthio takes brands through insight, intelligence, and design process called I2D to craft powerful strategies that can evolve startups into Fortune companies. If you want to take the path of least resistance to the most profitable destinations, Venthio is one of the best ad agencies to ask for guidance. See profile
Service focus

Marketing Strategy

Advertising

Branding

Key features

$ 50,000

$ 200+

2-9

United States, California, Dana Point

Madison Taylor Marketing

Madison Taylor Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency that embraces growth-driven design and account-based marketing. The team of innovative thinkers and boundary-pushers aims to deliver high-level strategy paired with enterprise-level tools and technologies to help clients accomplish their goals and improve their bottom line. See profile
Service focus

Content Marketing

Advertising

Branding

Creative

Key features

$ 5,000

$ 150-199

25-49

United States, Colorado, Greenwood Village

SmartSites

SmartSites is a top-rated digital marketing agency that works for businesses of all sizes. A Google Premier Partner and Facebook Marketing Partner, this award-winning company develops innovative strategies that help clients acquire more traffic, get more customers, and outsmart the competition. See profile
Service focus

Web Design

Website Development

Digital Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

Key features

$ 5,000

$ 100-149

100-249

United States, New Jersey, Paramus

NinjaPromo

NinjaPromo drives all aspects of SMM strategies by setting up disruptive techniques through outstanding content production, effective community management, paid social advertising, influencer marketing, and more. See profile
Service focus

Social Media Management

Influencer Marketing

Video Production

Branding

Key features

$ 1,000

Undisclosed

25-49

United States, New York, New York City

How We Ranked the Best Advertising Agencies

There are countless good agencies out there, but we are here to make a clear difference between good and great. Our evaluation criteria narrow down not only the great but the absolute best companies in the business. We examined these companies for the variety of services they offer, the capability to deliver both digital and traditional solutions to promote brands across all media channels, as well as their branding and creative powers. You can find a detailed explanation of the methodology we used to rank the companies below.

Classification

There are many things to consider when choosing the right advertising company for your business. Some have a specific industry focus, others have a client focus by size, such as small businesses, enterprise-level companies, or even freelancers. There are also agencies with expertise in specific areas like helping startups succeed or helping lesser-known brands compete against industry giants.

That said, the first step of our evaluation methodology is to establish the client focus in terms of business size as well as any industry specialty in which these advertising companies operate. Note that this step doesn’t affect the ranking position of the agencies but only helps us classify them. So, in the table above, you will find companies specialized in different industries, with different business size focal points.

Types of Ad Agencies

One of the most important steps of our ranking process is determining the type of each advertising firm. To do that, we examine the services they provide to put together a diverse list of companies that satisfy different needs. Below are the types of agencies we distinguish based on their function and scope of services.

Full-Service Agencies

Full-service agencies offer an extensive list of services that cover every aspect of the advertising process, such as market research, marketing strategy (digital and traditional marketing techniques), branding, creative design, and production.

What puts these advertising firms ahead of those that specialize in a specific marketing area is that you can get everything in one place. After comparing hundreds of agencies, we narrowed down our choices to those that offer a full scope of services along with in-depth expertise.

Integrated Agencies

Similar to their full-service counterparts, integrated marketing agencies also have the capacity to satisfy all of their clients’ needs under one roof. These companies operate with large teams of professionals coming from different areas of expertise.

However, the quantity of services means nothing if the marketing advertising agency can’t implement a range of different marketing tactics in one cohesive effort. Agencies with a holistic approach to marketing that can come up with different advertising solutions while operating in harmony—both in-house and when outsourcing—get a boost in our rankings.

Digital Advertising Agencies

Internet advertising companies that offer web design services, web development, SEO, SMM, content marketing, PPC, affiliate marketing, email marketing, marketing automation, lead generation, and online PR, among other advertising services, get a hike in our ranking.

We gave a higher ranking to agencies that offer not only a long list of digital services but in-depth knowledge in every category of online marketing.

Traditional Ad Companies

Although digital marketing is all the rage right now, traditional marketing is still alive and well in the modern age. Traditional marketing techniques such as print and billboards can greatly complement your digital marketing efforts.

For instance, if you want to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website, putting your business on a billboard in a strategic location, or getting a TV or radio ad will inspire people to visit your website and potentially make a purchase.

Considering the importance of traditional marketing, we also sourced outdoor advertisement companies, as well as those that are experienced in crafting newspaper ads, print, TV and radio commercials, and more.

Media Buying and Media Advertising Companies

Media buying agencies provide a media strategy that contains the best time and place for the ads to roll out and drive sales. They also take care of scheduling slots at different TV and radio stations and supervise whether the ad has been telecasted at the arranged time and place or not. We made sure to include this type of service on our list of advertising agencies, as they can be of significant importance to clients.

For instance, clients don’t have the buying power an advertising agency has. These agencies can leverage the budgets of all their clients to benefit each of them with a lower cost and better ad positioning. Without a media buying firm, you’d be stuck on the phone with different advertising agents, trying to figure out which option aligns best with your budget limitations and goals. Working with a media buying agency, on the other hand, will save you time so that you can focus on high-priority tasks.

Creative Agencies

Creative ad firms mainly focus on the design and graphics of a brand, offering services such as branding, copywriting, graphic design, logo design, product and packaging design, photography, video production, and more.

We went through agencies’ past work implementing the criteria for creative agencies to examine their creative powers in terms of aesthetics, effectiveness, and ability to drive engagement. On this list, we have included both agencies that focus primarily on the creative side of marketing and full-service agencies that have a creative division within their company.

Branding Agencies

Brand awareness (or the lack of it) can either make or break a business. That’s why branding experts play a key role in positioning your business on the map. Some of the common services offered by top ad agencies that specialize in branding include research and analytics, naming, brand identity, brand positioning, logo design, signage, brand guidelines, branding strategy, and re-branding.

We sourced brands that the agencies on our list have developed to determine the quality of their branding capabilities. We checked whether the logo, graphics, and content of those brands work in harmony and support the brand’s mission. We read countless reviews to determine the level of engagement between brands and their customers as well as their position compared to the competition. Each advertising firm on this list doubles as a branding agency, allowing you to get an all-rounded marketing strategy in one place.

Case Studies & Portfolio

Virtually all advertisement agencies can craft a beautiful website filled with inspiring and promising words. After all, they make a living out of convincing people to buy stuff! But we don’t buy it so easily. We dig deeper through each advertising company’s case studies and portfolio to curate a list of the absolute best.

From the case studies, we discover how the agency has solved a specific problem and what were their recommended solutions and implementation actions. Furthermore, we identify the factors that led the advertising companies to success or failure.

Another thing that plays a key role in our ranking system is the past work of the agencies. We take time to review their portfolios and learn whether they have a proven track record of achieving results for their clients. We like to also examine their clients to see whether they top the sought-after Google’s first page, go through customer reviews to track consumer satisfaction and engagement, and their overall position compared to competitors.

Our list of best ad agencies features candidates that have shown strong marketing and branding capabilities that can develop, maintain, and grow inspiring brands. Moreover, we only consider agencies that provide seamless communication and collaboration as well as consistent performance.

Company’s Reputation

There are a lot of factors that build a good rep, but shall we start with the strongest?

Referrals by competitors.

Sometimes, even the top advertising agency might not be able to provide the full scope of services you need and might recommend another agency to outsource that specific service or even suggest another agency that’s a better fit for your business altogether. We greatly appreciate and award with a higher ranking both agencies that give honest recommendations to their potential clients and those that get recommended by their peers.

To further evaluate the companies’ reputation, we read real-customer reviews for each of the top advertising firms we featured on this list. Additionally, we check social media accounts and directories to source agencies that have professionals who excel in their respective areas of expertise, providing in-depth experience in all aspects of advertising. Finally, we look for problems that tend to repeat to determine if the agencies listen to their customers and take time to address the issues.

The Agency’s Team

It’s the people that make awesome companies, which is why we took the time to talk with companies’ leaders and their teams about their culture and workflow. We give an advantage to teams that go beyond professional diversity. They have to promote diversity on every level because nothing great ever comes from a group of people that never disagrees with anything.  The top ad agencies nurture creative minds capable of making innovative strategies and giving smart suggestions along the way.

On the other hand, as much as we love when teams disagree and brainstorm on creative topics, we value a well-defined culture. Teams that share the same values, beliefs, goals, ethics, mission, and behaviors form a work environment where everyone can be happy and productive. When a team culture is strong, the services or products the teams provide are holistic, harmonious, and highly effective!

Project Management Methods

Effective management is key to delivering timely and measurable results. To shortlist the best advertising companies, we examine their entire workflow from start to finish. We evaluate the marketing strategy creation process, the creative production, the implementation process, and their approach to monitoring and tracking results. However, the number one thing we evaluate is how they handle the research process.

Market, business, and user research are crucial for developing an effective advertising strategy. Research and analyses are also important for predicting potential strengths and issues as well as monitoring progress once the marketing strategy is implemented. We featured the best advertising agencies on this list that conduct deep research to create data-driven strategies.

We gather this information by interviewing representatives from the agencies. And we don’t just take their word for it. We also contact previous clients to make sure they have put the promised process into practice. Agencies that have a well-defined and research-backed strategy creation process get the highest rankings.

Transparency & Reporting

As a client, you have the absolute right to be involved in the entire process. Agencies that cook their secret sauce for marketing success hiding from the eyes of their clients can’t get a spot on our list. The top advertising agencies are the ones that are able to deliver work within set deadlines, measure and evaluate outcomes, and prepare measurable reports for the client.

To make sure that you’ll have the absolute best experience as a client, we present ourselves as potential clients and examine:

  • How often do agencies communicate with clients?
  • Do they have a defined reporting system?
  • What’s their frequency of reporting?
  • What do they include in their reports?
  • The quality of their customer support.

Marketing agencies with well-established communication and collaboration processes get a higher ranking on our list.

Pricing

One of the first things that businesses think about when considering hiring some of the top advertising agencies is: “How much will it cost?” Generally speaking, the price depends on a few factors, such as the size of your company and the agency’s size, the number of services you intend to use, and the amount of marketing and creative efforts the agency needs to put into your business.

On average, advertising services can cost you between $5,000 and $250,000. It’s hard to give a more accurate estimation because the price is primarily based on the amount and type of work you need to be done. That said, we provided average, more expensive, and more affordable options.

However, we didn’t choose the cheapest companies, nor the priciest ones. Our main goal is to recommend companies that give you the best value for your money while ticking all the boxes on our evaluation criteria checklist.

How to Choose the Best Advertising Agency for Your Business

Hiring a top advertising company could be a huge outlay for your business. That’s why you need to know the right questions to ask your potential advertising agencies. In addition to our table that showcases the best companies, as well as the methodology behind ranking them, we prepared some tips for finding the best ad agency for your business.

Consider a Top Ad Agency with Expertise in Your Industry

While some agencies don’t have a defined industry focus, many of the top ad agencies are specialized in specific industries. You might want to consider hiring a top advertising firm that has experience and expertise in your area of operation. Without a doubt, they’ll never be the experts that you are, but having a deeper understanding of your industry could increase the effectiveness of the services they deliver.

Set Clear Goals

Before reaching out to your potential advertising partner, take the time to define your goals. For instance, do you want to increase your brand awareness on a global level, or maybe you want to attract more local customers? Or maybe you need one of the best marketing and advertising agencies for TV advertisements to complement your digital marketing efforts? Once you set clear goals, your advertising agency should help you define the objectives you need to get the desired results.

Define Your Target Audience

Defining a target audience is one of the hardest and most time-consuming steps, but it’s also a key success factor. Don’t rely on assumptions, but rather conduct deep market research. Use the gathered data to define your brand persona, refine your business goals, and identify the best ways to address your consumer needs. Knowing your target audience will help you create a brand image that inspires them to take action.

Consider the Cultural Fit

Cultural alignment is another factor to take into consideration when creating a list of advertising agencies worth hiring. The culture is the personality of the company, so make sure you like and enjoy working with your marketing partner. In fact, the culture goes beyond likeability - the quality of services you’ll get depends on the team’s shared efforts, values, beliefs, ethics, creativity, and attitude. Give the advantage to the agencies that are strategic, visionary, and collaborative.

Decide If You Want Someone Local

You don’t have to limit your choices to the local best ad agencies. Tools like e-mail, videoconferencing, and instant messaging give you the freedom to hire the best advertising agency that is on the other side of the country or even the globe.

However, you might want a top advertising company located in your city or region that understands the area where you do business. Let’s say you want to increase brand awareness among local customers using traditional advertising methods. The advertising agencies on the other side of the world will most likely fail to touch and engage your audience in a way that the agencies located in the community you serve would.