A digital marketing agency plans and runs the work that brings a business customers online: website design and development, brand identity, search visibility and SEO, paid advertising on Google and Meta, content and video production, social media, email flows, and the analytics that show what is working. Most agencies specialise in a few of these rather than all.
The work, grouped the way buyers experience it
Strip away the jargon and agency work falls into four groups. Each one answers a different problem, and knowing which problem you have keeps you from buying the wrong service.
- -Foundation: website design and development, ecommerce or Shopify build, brand identity and messaging.
- -Demand capture: SEO, generative engine optimisation, Google Ads, local search and landing pages for people already looking for what you sell.
- -Demand creation: paid social, creative testing, UGC, video editing and organic social for people who do not know you yet.
- -Measurement and retention: analytics, conversion tracking, CRO, email and WhatsApp flows, monthly reporting.
What a good agency does that a vendor does not
A vendor takes an order. An agency decides the order. The useful part of the relationship is a partner who tells you that more ad spend will not fix a product page that loads in six seconds, or that your brand needs proof and reviews before it needs a rebrand.
KritSite covers the foundation, demand and measurement layers in-house: websites and ecommerce, branding, SEO and GEO, performance marketing, content and video through KritVideo, and monthly care plans that keep the site fast and current after launch.
- 01Agency work splits into foundation, demand capture, demand creation and measurement.
- 02Diagnose which layer is broken before buying a service.
- 03Ads amplify a working site; they do not repair a broken one.