What’s a Digital Marketing Consultant? (Benefits, Costs + Top 11 to Hire)

A digital marketing consultant builds visibility and traffic for businesses via search, social, and email marketing. They can cost between $500 and $10,000 per month. Learn what they do, their benefits, and the top consultants to hire.

Building a comprehensive yet successful digital marketing strategy can be challenging when you don’t have all the expertise you need in-house.

With expert insights into strategy and optimization, a digital marketing consultant can help your business improve marketing results across channels. A consultant is more than a digital marketing manager — they advise businesses on strategic actions they can take for better results.

Let’s dive into what a digital marketing consultant is, why you need one, and which digital marketing consultants you should hire.

What is a digital marketing consultant?

A digital marketing consultant is an experienced professional who evaluates a company’s current marketing efforts and identifies ways to optimize organic and paid strategies.

In addition to advising businesses on strategy, digital marketing consultants may implement and monitor new digital marketing campaigns for their clients.

What does a digital marketing consultant do?

A digital marketing consultant’s tasks depend on the specific services they offer. And the services they provide will likely depend on the client they’re working with and the project they’re working on.

In general, here are some services that digital marketing consultants offer:

• Digital marketing strategy: Audit online presence and existing digital marketing strategy, advise on ways to optimize for best results, and implement a marketing plan.
• Content marketing strategy: Conduct a content audit, look at competitor content for gaps and opportunities, and develop and implement content strategy.
• SEO consulting: Audit existing SEO efforts and develop a comprehensive SEO strategy while monitoring results, making optimizations, and advising on ways to improve.
• PPC consulting: Audit existing pay-per-click campaigns, identify new opportunities and ways to optimize, and implement optimizations.
• Paid media consulting: Develop paid media campaign strategy, implement media planning and buying, manage bids, and advise on channels, targeting, segmentation, creatives, and media KPIs.
• Social media consulting: Review existing social media marketing strategy and campaigns, create a comprehensive strategy specific to the social media platforms you use, and monitor for ways to improve.
• CRO analysis: Analyze current conversion rates across channels, run A/B tests, conduct behavioral analysis (like heat mapping), and implement optimizations.
• Marketing analytics consulting: Advise on which metrics to track, set up Google Analytics, and review current marketing analytics to look for opportunities to improve.
• Market research: Research target markets to identify target audience, top competitors, and new opportunities in the market.
• Marketing automation: Audit existing marketing processes, build out a marketing automation strategy, implement automations, and advise on ways to improve over time.

Some strategists specialize in a specific discipline. For example, a lead generation strategist may offer consulting services like lead gen audit and strategy, identifying KPIs, customer journey mapping, and recommending content.

A marketing consulting agency may provide a wider range of services based on their in-house expertise.

How much does a digital marketing consultant cost?

The general costs for search engine marketing experts, depend on the type you hire. For example:

• SEO agency: $2,500-$10,000
• Independent freelancer: $500- $2,500
• In-house SEO analyst: $5,230

Here’s a look at the factors that determine the cost of a digital marketing consultant:

• Consulting expertise
• Years of experience
• Type of consultant
• Types of services
• Level of services

Consulting expertise

Type and level of expertise impact pricing for digital marketing consultants. For example, SEO experts often charge differently than content marketing experts.

SEO consultants may offer a package price or hourly rate, while many content marketing agencies charge based on deliverables or on retainer.

Years of experience

Years of experience also factor into the costs of hiring a marketing expert.

For a higher-level consultant or experienced growth marketing agency, you can expect to spend between $3,000 and $10,000 a month.

Type of consultant

The type of hire you make will also impact marketing consulting costs. For example, if you want to hire an SEO consultant, the cost will depend on whether you hire someone in-house, a freelancer, or an agency.

Each type of hire has its own benefits. An SEO agency can provide a wider range of services at scale. However, you’ll pay more for an agency than a single freelancer.

Freelancers are great for smaller SEO projects. But if you have enough SEO work to warrant an in-house hire, it’ll be more cost-effective to hire someone in-house.

Just be aware of the hidden costs (like health insurance and PTO), which may not be worth it if you don’t have enough work for a full-time employee or don’t want to find, hire, train, and retain an employee.

Types of services

Types of services also impact costs. Here is some general pricing for content marketing services:

• Web page optimization costs between $100 and $400 per page
• Small website copy costs $1,500 to $3,500 for five to six pages
• SEO strategy and training (aka consulting) costs $150 to $500 per hour
• Single PPC ad costs $25 to $250 per ad
• Full PPC campaign costs $1,000 to $2,500 for 10 ads, a landing page, welcome page, and welcome email
• PPC campaign management costs 15% of PPC ad fees or $500 to $6,000 per month

Level of services

Costs will also depend on whether the consultant is just advising on strategy or implementing it for you. Not all strategists offer execution. However, if they do so with ongoing optimization, it’ll cost more.

5 benefits of hiring a digital marketing consultant

Not sure if hiring a digital marketing consultant is right for you? Here are just a few benefits you get when working with a digital marketing specialist:

1. Get an external perspective
2. Save time and money
3. Benefit from proven experience
4. Stay up-to-date with the latest tactics and tools
5. Access expertise you don’t have in-house

1. Get an external perspective

Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle?” It can be very challenging to identify opportunities or areas of improvement when you’re entrenched in the day-to-day of your business.

For example, let’s say you’ve been doing your company’s email marketing for the past few years. It may be difficult to identify ways to improve your email marketing because you’re too close to it.

A consultant offers an external and unbiased perspective on your digital marketing strategy. Their only goal is to get the best results possible, and may see things you can’t.

2. Save time and money

Since digital marketing consultants are experienced and don’t require training, they’ll save time and money in the long run. They will get you the best return on investment possible and won’t spend time learning while implementing.

For example, HawkSEM helped HomElectrical double its revenue in just 10 months by supporting its ecommerce PPC efforts. Had the business done PPC on its own, it likely would’ve taken longer to get the same results. Not to mention, it might’ve wasted some ad spend while learning how to run PPC campaigns.

3. Benefit from proven experience

When you collaborate with a digital marketing agency or consultant, you benefit from their proven experience. They leverage their experience with other clients and similar projects to yours to identify opportunities for improvement.

As an example, Easly came to HawkSEM for support with SEO strategy and implementation. As SEO is a core competency at HawkSEM, the team knew exactly how to get started developing an SEO strategy for the company.

The result? Easly increased referring domains by more than 2,500% and got more than 40 featured snippet results on Google, which allowed them to increase brand awareness and site traffic. See how we did it.

4. Stay up-to-date with the latest tactics and tools

Digital marketing consultants often hold at least a bachelor’s degree in marketing or a similar field. They may also get various marketing certifications. Then, if they want to remain competitive, they must stay up-to-date with the latest tools and tactics in their industry.

When you hire a consultant, you benefit from their knowledge of the latest strategies that get the best results. You also benefit from their premium digital marketing tools that offer valuable insights you can’t get anywhere else.

One of the tools that HawkSEM leverages to support clients is ConversionIQ (CIQ). This proprietary marketing technology gives us actionable insights we use to optimize and improve results across channels.

5. Access expertise you don’t have in-house

You may not have all the expertise you need on your internal marketing team. Hiring a digital marketing specialist allows you to supplement the work you’re already doing in-house to get even better results.

For example, let’s say that your in-house marketing team excels at organic online marketing. But you want to expand your reach with paid ads.

Hiring a PPC agency to handle your paid advertising allows you to get the support you need with ads while allowing your internal team to focus on what they do best.

11 best digital marketing consultants to hire in 2024

Hiring a digital marketing consultant is an important first step in investing in your marketing. There are a lot of consultants out there, so we made your search easier by putting together our list of the top 11 best digital marketing consultants to hire in 2024:

1. HawkSEM
2. Wpromote
3. Tinuiti
4. Merkle
5. Eric Schwartzman
6. Chief Outsiders
7. Mike Khorev
8. Brian Honigman
9. WebFX
10. Claire Jarrett
11. Mayple

1. HawkSEM

Since 2006, HawkSEM (hey, that’s us!) has helped clients across industries grow their online presence and their bottom line by taking a results-driven approach to digital marketing.

With marketing consultants in different specialties — SEO, PPC, content marketing, Facebook ads, and more — our agency offers a comprehensive approach to digital marketing strategy.

Our team goes beyond just consulting and strategy. We have experts in every area who can implement and track your campaigns.

We may be a little biased, but the stats don’t lie. With an average client retention rate of 98% and an average client ROI of 4.5x, we know we can get our clients results.

Whether it’s an SEO audit, LinkedIn ad campaign, or CRO for landing pages, we approach every consulting project with the goal of getting our clients a return on investment. Just look at our case studies to see how we’ve helped clients drive more qualified leads and increase conversions across marketing channels.

Best for: B2B, B2C, ecommerce, SaaS, finance, healthcare, education, home services, and professional services brands

Services:

• Google ads & PPC management
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• Facebook ads
• Conversion rate optimization (CRO)
• Ecommerce marketing
• Remarketing

Clients:

• Microsoft
• Verizon
• Siemens
• DirectTV
• Honda

2. Wpromote

Wpromote is an award-winning digital marketing agency featured in publications like AdWeek and AdAge. The agency has offices in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Manhattan, New York, and San Francisco.

This agency focuses on performance marketing and has team members specializing in paid search, earned and owned media, SEO, content marketing, and more. For marketing strategy and planning, the team challenges conventional thinking to get their clients results.

Best for: SMB, medium-sized companies

Services:

• Paid media (search & social)
• Web design strategy
• SEO
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Conversion rate optimization
• Strategy and planning for web design, analytics, and more

Clients:

• Whirlpool
• KitchenAid
• Samsung
• SPANX
• Peacock

3. Tinuiti

Tinuiti is the largest independent performance marketing firm focused on streaming TV and Google, Facebook, and Amazon marketing. With over 1,000 employees, this agency was recognized by Built In as one of the top 100 places to work in 2023.

With a focus on paid campaigns, Tinuiti manages about $3 billion in media spend. The agency has worked with popular ecommerce brands on paid media campaigns on channels like TV streaming and Amazon.

Best for: Ecommerce brands, businesses looking to expand their streaming campaigns

Services:

• Commerce strategy
• Paid media
• Streaming campaigns
• SEO
• Lifecycle marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Affiliate marketing
• Conversion rate optimization
• Full-service creative

Clients:

• Seventh Generation
• Poppi
• Rite Aid
• Olly
• E.L.F cosmetics

4. Merkle

Merkle is a customer experience company taking a data-driven approach to creating and managing intelligent customer experiences. Founded in 1988, this agency has over 16,000 employees globally across 50 locations worldwide, allowing them to make an impact on over 400 global brands.

With 30+ years in the space, the agency works closely with customers to build deeper relationships through multi-channel marketing services. Merkle’s marketing consulting services are focused on customer experience, technology, industry expertise, and digital transformation.

Best for: Enterprise businesses focused on customer experience management and businesses that want to scale

Services:

• Customer experience strategy
• Technology consulting
• Digital transformation consulting
• Engagement & loyalty programs
• Experience and product design
• Creative campaigns & production
• Marketing planning
• Advertising
• Product & marketing intelligence
• Data science & artificial intelligence

Clients:

• Google
• Adobe
• Salesforce
• Amazon
• Oracle

5. Eric Schwartzman

Eric Schwartzman is a marketing consultant, SaaS founder, and the author of two books on digital marketing — The Digital Pivot: Secrets of Online Marketing and Social Marketing to the Business Customer. His website marketing agency helps clients grow online through content marketing.

With nearly 20 years of digital marketing experience, Schwartzman’s expertise is in ecommerce marketing, digital analytics, podcasting, and video production.

His agency team specializes in digital public relations helping their clients get news media coverage while providing strategic ocmmunications and reputation management.

Best for: B2B businesses that want to focus on public relations

Services:

• Public relations
• Digital PR consulting
• SEO consulting
• Content marketing
• Digital marketing training

Clients:

• Toyota
• Avaya
• Halleck Vineyard
• Punch Audio
• The Hubbell Group

6. Chief Outsiders

Chief Outsiders is a fractional leadership company that provides vetted marketing and sales executives to businesses needing part-time Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Chief Sales Officers (CSOs). With over 120 fractional executives on staff, the company has helped over 1,850 clients get the support they need.

The company’s fractional CMOs help businesses across industries improve positioning and demand generation while consulting on digital growth. It can even help you build an in-house marketing team. Chief Outsiders is so confident in its ability to get your business results that it offers a 30-day money back guarantee.

Best for: Private equity, technology, manufacturing, professional services, and consumer goods companies needing fractional CMO support

Services:

• Fractional CMO services
• Digital marketing assessment
• Marketing consulting
• Marketing strategy implementation
• Product marketing
• Brand consulting
• Sales consulting

Clients:

• Trystar
• PELITAS
• AML RightSource
• Al’s Formal Wear
• ConnectWise

7. Mike Khorev

Mike Khorev is an SEO consultant and digital marketing strategist with 10 years of experience developing digital marketing strategies for small to mid-sized businesses. He takes a data-driven, performance-based approach to search engine optimization and handles projects from planning to execution.

Khorev is a Google Analytics and Google Adwords Certified Individual, and has certifications from HubSpot for Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing, and Email Marketing. He offers consulting services for SEO, link building, PPC, and more.

Best for: B2B SaaS, software, and technology startups

Services:

• Digital marketing strategy
• Email marketing
• SEO
• Content marketing
• Digital advertising
• Mobile marketing
• Online reputation management
• Web design

Clients:

• Incapsula
• BuildFire
• Time Doctor

8. Brian Honigman

Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant and career mentor who has worked with organizations and leaders across industries for the past 10 years. He’s done consulting work for everyone from growing startup founders to marketing leaders at Fortune 100 companies.

Named as a digital marketing expert by Entrepreneur, Honigman is also an adjunct marketing professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and Francisco Marroquín University.

In addition to consulting services, he also offers training workshops, coaching programs, content writing, and courses.

Best for: Executives that need support with a thought leadership strategy, LinkedIn training, or building a personal brand

Services:

• Marketing strategy consulting
• Content marketing strategy
• Social media marketing strategy
• Influencer marketing strategy
• Digital marketing strategy
• Thought leadership strategy
• Content writing
• Marketing training & coaching

Clients:

• Zillow
• The Weather Company
• Thomson Reuters
• American Jewish World Service
• Sprout Social

9. WebFX

WebFX is an award-winning agency, leading the way in tech-enabled digital marketing solutions. To date, it’s driven over $6 billion in sales and over 7.8 million leads for clients across industries. With over 785 client testimonials on its site, it’s clear that WebFX gets results for its clients.

WebFX takes a data-driven approach to marketing led by over 500 digital marketing experts specializing in everything from Google Ads and SEO to copywriting and customer relationship management.

The team uses a proprietary software called MarketingCloudFX to track marketing campaigns and manage sales pipelines.

Best for: Small businesses just starting their marketing campaigns

Services:

• SEO
• Lead generation
• CRO
• Digital advertising
• Ecommerce marketing
• Marketing automation
• Digital intelligence
• Design
• Content Marketing

Clients:

• HydroWorx
• Furbo
• KOA
• All Pro Trailer Superstore
• Resource Furniture

10. Claire Jarrett

Over the past 15 years, Claire Jarrett has helped thousands of business owners through her Google Ads course and training on SEO, Facebook, email marketing, and webinar marketing. She’s even written a book on Google Ads.

Today, she and her team offer Google Ads consulting and management services. She’s known for her flexible approach to digital marketing and her genuine enthusiasm for seeing her clients succeed.

Best for: B2B brands that want to focus on optimizing Google Ads

Services:

• Fractional CMO services
• Google Ads audit
• Google Ads consulting
• Management of Google Ads
• PPC consulting
• B2B marketing

Clients:

• David Nicholls Associates
• Names.co.uk
• Krystyna Lennon
• Amvia

11. Mayple

Mayple isn’t a consultancy, but is a good place to find freelance marketing consultants. As a well-known platform for hiring on-demand marketing talent, Mayple helps connect businesses with freelancers with various marketing expertise.

You can search for marketing consultants based on their expertise, industry, location, or even years of experience. The talent is already vetted, so you know you can trust the consultant you hire. While it is not necessarily a low-cost option, it allows you to hire a consultant in about 3-4 days.

Best for: Companies that want to hire a freelance marketing consultant

Services:

• Marketing strategy
• Paid advertising
• Email marketing
• CRO
• SEO
• Social media marketing
• Influencer marketing

Clients:

• Tiffany & Co.
• Chanel
• Uber
• Macy’s
• Samsung

The takeaway

Even businesses with in-house marketing teams can benefit from hiring a digital marketing consultant for an outside perspective on their marketing strategy.

Whether you hire an independent consultant or a marketing consulting agency, your business will find new ways to improve optimization, conversions, and revenue.

HawkSEM would love to partner with your business to provide consulting and implementation services. Contact us today to get started.