Demographics

These are the demographics of the respondents to the survey. There were 507 total respondents. Here’s how they break down.

Note that these numbers are not indicative of where digital marketing agencies are located overall, but just this survey’s respondents.

Credo’s customer base and audience is very North America focused (as is our business), and from the data it seems our partner Teamwork’s customer base is a bit more international though still largely focused on the United States.

Experience

• 2/3 (67.06%) of companies (both consultants and agencies) have existed for 5 or more years.
• Just 1.78% have less than one year of marketing experience. 5.92% have 1-3 years of experience.
• 52.96% of agencies surveyed have existed for more than 10 years. 80.38% have existed for more than 5 years, and 2.3% (just 9) have been around for less than one year.
• 53.57% of solo consultants have 10+ years of experience. 32.14% have 5-10 years of experience, which means that less than 15% of consultant respondents have less than 5 years of experience.

What we learn from this is that this survey skews towards more experienced and therefore higher priced providers. While other pricing surveys have focused on freelancers (and often contributed to the commodification of the industry and driving pricing down instead of up), this survey focuses on highly skilled experts and agencies that have stood the test of time.

It is important to note that other pricing surveys are more focused on freelancers (solo practitioners with fewer years of experience than consultants who focus on “services” for clients) across the world. While this is great for a global view, it unfairly skews numbers towards areas of the world where labor can be had for cheaper, and disadvantages senior consultants and expert firms in the United States and other countries with a higher cost of living.

Our survey is more focused on these countries as they are also the countries that Credo serves. Offshoring to a cheaper country has a time and place, but Credo focuses on the top vetted marketing providers we can find. You can see our vetting process here.

Location

This year’s survey was more international in the past, though 82% of respondents came from just 4 countries and there were only 5 respondents from the continent of Africa. 

• 62.25% (almost 2/3) of respondents are US-based. 
• The United Kingdom came in at 7.91% and Canada at 7.31%. Australia accounts for 4.55%. 
• The rest is fairly even spread between other countries around the world, though only 5 respondents total from the continent of Africa and all of those in South Africa.

The takeaway from this data is that the pricing displayed in the following report is mostly focused on English-speaking countries. 82.02% of respondents are from the top 4 counties and all of these countries are predominantly English speaking. 

Respondent company size

An important part of having an accurate pricing survey is having enough respondents from different groups to be able to draw clear conclusions. We aim for a representative sample of respondents and fully admit that while 500 respondents are not enough to declare statistical significance we do consider it enough to draw good conclusions that will accurately inform your decision making.

Here is the breakdown across respondent company size:

• Almost exactly 1/3 (32.94%) of total respondents have 2-5 full-time employees
• 16.57% are solo consultants. This is half of what it was in 2019.
• 22.09% have 6-10 full-time employees. This leaves 28.40% of respondents reporting that they have 11 or more employees.
• 62.25% (almost 2/3) are US-based. The United Kingdom came in at 7.91% and Canada at 7.31%. Australia accounts for 4.55%. The rest is fairly evenly spread between other countries around the world, though only 5 respondents total from the continent of Africa and all of those in South Africa.

What we can take from this is that the majority of respondents are agencies (2+ people full time) and thus the majority of the data presented in this report will be focused on agencies. 

Data on solo consultants is presented throughout this report, and as you see that data, keep in mind that there were only 84 solo consultant respondents to the survey.