Your company has reached a critical juncture: You’ve recently implemented Pardot, you’re expanding your Pardot specialist team, or *gasp* you’ve realized your company is vastly underutilizing their Pardot marketing automation software. Your company needs to develop and maintain numerous marketing journeys to cultivate leads and close business. This requires time managing, designing, and developing Pardot assets like emails, landing pages, engagement studios, and much more…It’s time to decide. Should you hire an in-house Pardot specialist to add to your team or bring in a marketing agency who has a full team of Pardot specialists and consultants? Here are a few points to consider:
Hire A Pardot Specialist
Hiring A Pardot Specialist In-House vs Agency
In-House Pardot Specialist
More control internally
Day-to-day product/service familiarity
Direct accountability to upper management
Trained and certified staff
Skill sets of the person hired
The decision to hire a Pardot specialist in-house for a marketing position is often based on company size. If you need someone to directly work with and receive feedback from your sales team or you need one specific skill set to add to your team where in-person collaboration is imperative, an in-house hire may be the choice to manage your marketing efforts. Generally speaking, mid-sized companies find that Pardot agency support provides the best bang for their buck. They get high-caliber skill sets for a fraction of what an in-house Pardot specialist, with those skill sets, would cost.
Compromise on the quality of the skill set, and you’ll find that managing that person is a full-time job in itself.
Pardot Agency
Lower per-year cost than hiring
Certified Pardot specialists & consultants
Higher skilled-personnel-to-cost-ratio
Reduces necessary internal resources
More combined experience and skill-sets than a single employee
Other than providing overall strategic direction and product expertise, you won’t need to manage the operational duties of marketing production nor worry about training for and usage of Pardot support.
Also, when hiring a Pardot agency, you should assume that you are getting senior-level marketing professionals with a wide range of Pardot marketing skill sets. When picking agencies, companies may worry about product knowledge and try to find vertical industry firms. However, your employees or marketing managers should have ample product/service knowledge to provide guidance and copy edits. This allows the marketing agency to provide you with an outside perspective, design, production, and strategy on where to find and how to talk to your market.
Salary + Benefits + Software
Hiring a Pardot specialist is a big expense. If a business can afford a mid- or senior-level Pardot employee, they have to remember to include benefits, training, and Pardot specialist certifications as part of their expense.
By comparison, a Pardot agency partner doesn’t require a full-time salary and certainly don’t require benefits or other overhead. When you hire a Pardot specialist agency, that team should come ready to go, certified, and with a wide range of cutting-edge Pardot and marketing skills. Their Pardot specialists work on a retainer, hourly, or project basis, with costs that may range from $4,000 to $8,000 per month for a professional firm ($48,000 – $96,000 per year). That may match your salary expense for a marketing manager, but with an outside Pardot agency you get the management, strategy, designers, developers, and technical support all rolled into one.
Want to compare costs with hard numbers?
If you're still unsure about hiring a Pardot specialist in-house or going with a Pardot agency, reach out to us. We can provide a quote with no obligation to help you get a clearer picture of the pros and cons for your specific business.
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