5 Best Digital Marketing Agencies for Small Businesses in 2022

The best digital marketing agencies for small businesses generate leads and sales for clients through affordably priced and effective services. We reviewed 40 agencies offering solutions from web design to search engine optimization (SEO), social media, email marketing, and digital advertising. Then, we narrowed our list to the best small business marketing agencies based on cost, specialties, quality of service, and customer reviews.

Based on our research, here are the best digital marketing agencies for small businesses:

Top Digital Marketing Agencies for Small Businesses at a Glance

*This turns into a month-to-month contract after the initial three months.

Ignite Visibility: Best Overall Digital Marketing Agency

Ignite Visibility

What We Like

What’s Missing

Key Digital Services

Ignite Visibility is an award-winning digital marketing agency, with comprehensive solutions to build a positive online brand presence from the ground up. Key among these are website design, SEO, brand reputation and social media management, link building, and online advertising for single or multiple-store brands. As such, they are best for small businesses looking to either transform or build a new online presence from scratch.

Ignite Visibility Features

Ignite Visibility offers a wide range of digital marketing services in quotes that are custom-built for your business. The services and strategies proposed will be based on factors such as your industry, business model, target consumer, and business goals.

A few of the most important features of Ignite Visibility include:

Website Design

Ignite Visibility can build you a website from the ground up, help you transfer or redesign your website for rebranding, or simply drive more traffic to your current site via optimization. They offer specializations in a plethora of content management systems (CMS), including Drupal, Joomla, Magento, and WordPress. They code each site from scratch, being careful to create a custom site that aligns with your business model, industry, target consumer, and goals.

Search Engine Optimization

Ignite Visibility’s SEO process begins with keyword analysis based on your business and industry, as well as optimization of your website (including code optimization). They then incorporate the ranking keywords throughout your site to increase its visibility on search results.

Ignite Visibility’s consultants create a linking strategy for your business, including both internal and external backlinks, depending on the strategy deemed most appropriate for your site. Not only do they optimize your site’s internal links, but they also reach out to other websites to earn authoritative backlinks to your site to build its authority and engage influencers to create more brand awareness and website traffic.

Ignite Visibility targets your audience by location (locally or internationally) using a location-based keyword strategy on your website. They create a location-specific brand reputation across business listing sites and social media by claiming or building your business pages, incorporating your contact information, and building positive reviews. Amazon and ecommerce SEO is also offered for stores.

Content Marketing

As part of its SEO services, Ignite Visibility creates a plan to optimize the on-page content of your website utilizing ranking keywords from the keyword analysis. A team of expert writers and editors will incorporate the keywords in appropriate pages on your website, all while optimizing existing web pages. They can also craft new content to include topics that are being searched for by your intended market.

Off-page Marketing

Ignite Visibility offers a long list of off-page marketing strategies, including social media, email, Amazon marketing, and public relations. After on-site optimization is complete, they create and employ marketing strategies for other channels. For example, they create a social media strategy that heavily integrates with your website’s content strategy with the goal of earning more links and brand awareness.

Ignite Visibility’s email growth strategy services follow the same pattern. First, they help you build an email marketing list. Then, they employ a custom email marketing plan based on competitor research, target consumer insights, your business size, and your goals.

Ignite Visibility offers paid search management and Google Display, Facebook, Amazon, and Bing advertising. They pair you with an online advertising expert who consults with you on how to increase revenue and leads while cutting costs via targeted strategies and a pay-per-click audit. They offer targeted and retargeted ads for U.S. consumers, and can also create international pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Finally, they build landing pages to capture leads.

Ignite Visibility Pricing

Ignite Visibility reports that their plans start at $2,000 per month, but as a general rule, they provide custom quotes based on your budget requirements, business size, and needs. All quotes are on a month-to-month basis with no contract.

Ignite Visibility Customer Support

An expert team is assigned to your business. They will create a plan based on industry research and your business goals, deploy strategies, and provide monthly progress reports. Clients say that their dedicated project manager also brings in other team members to consult as needed (like content strategists and social media experts). Check-ins are available on a weekly basis, as well as daily communication via Basecamp.

What Users Say in Ignite Visibility Reviews

Ignite Visibility reviews posted on Clutch gave the agency an overall 4.8-star (out of 5) rating. Users love that the company works closely with clients to reach business goals and is flexible in accommodating schedules and budgets.

Reviews also show that Ignite Visibility’s clients love that their services are fully customized based on their needs, goals, and industry. Some clients say they wish there was more transparency in their creation process and that they didn’t charge extra fees for small add-ons.

WebFX: Best for Tracking Marketing Campaign ROI

What We Like

What’s Missing

Key Digital Services

On this list of the best digital marketing agencies for small businesses, WebFX offers the most comprehensive set of digital services. In addition, an ROI Dashboard shows the revenue you’ve earned for every $1 you invest in WebFX. It is best for companies working with a low profit margin that must make every dollar count, or for those that need ROI reporting, like accounting firms, grocery stores, or manufacturers.

WebFX Features

WebFX offers an endless array of services. These include website design and redesign and everything needed to maintain a site, like keyword research, technical SEO, and copywriting. For wider online visibility, they also offer Amazon SEO, local SEO, email marketing, social media management, online advertising, search engine marketing (SEM), GeoFencing advertising, and business listing management.

WebFX’s top features include:

Website Design

WebFX offers both full site design and website redesign services if it’s time for a brand refresh or your website simply isn’t performing well. Each site includes options like SEO, responsive web design, database integration, an ecommerce platform, page design, and a variety of styles to match your brand needs. After the design, they do all the copywriting for your site to make sure it’s SEO-ready.

A WebFX-designed website from their portfolio (Source: WebFX)

Search Engine Optimization

WebFX offers custom keyword research, optimization, and content strategy and creation to meet your business’ SEO goals. They also offer link building, an in-depth SEO audit based on your industry and competitor analysis.

Furthermore, you’ll also receive technical SEO audit—identifying performance issues, such as slow site speeds, site map errors, mobile friendliness, and link profile errors. The SEO plans offer a different number of key phrases for optimization, ranging from 100 to 200.

WebFX also offers off-page SEO strategies, like Google Business Profile optimization and local search optimization across business listing sites. They provide SEO strategies by U.S. location or international regions.

Finally, they offer SEO for ecommerce and for Amazon stores. This includes keyword research for up to 50 words per product, product listing and keyword optimization, product description copywriting, and category and subcategory optimization.

Off-page Marketing

WebFX offers review management services, email marketing, and social media as part of its off-page marketing services. Social media services include profile setup and optimization as well as post and content creation. Email marketing services include content creation and personalization, A/B testing, campaign design and coding, email distribution, landing page development and publishing, and targeted list building.

In terms of local SEO, WebFX’s review management services and software include an initial brand reputation analysis. Following that, the team will set up, claim, and optimize review listings across sites like Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, and Facebook.

WebFX also offers daily software monitoring of review sites like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. You can monitor your positive and negative reviews via separate dashboard streams and then respond to each type accordingly.

WebFX uniquely offers GeoFencing ads. These are pay-per-click mobile ads sent to apps and mobile pages people view after entering a defined area, like near a competitor’s business.

They also provide advertising services for Google Ads Network, Bing, and social media across YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Lastly, with programmatic ads, WebFX leverages artificial intelligence to place online ads when and where target audiences will likely see them.

Analytics Reporting

WebFX’s reporting stands out in the offering of a proprietary ROI Dashboard, which measures the return for every $1 you invest in your marketing plan with WebFX. Metrics represented in this dashboard include the revenue you receive based on the number of leads you earn, the cost-per-click for all leads, and the number of lead-generating calls to your business. You can also filter your results by a start and end date.

WebFX Pricing

WebFX services vary based on the services you choose. Ecommerce SEO starts at $1,375 per month with a $5,400 initial investment, going up to $3,275 per month. Pay-per-click plans start with an initial investment of $1,250. Unlike Hibu, they also offer content marketing, starting at $300 per page for SEO website copywriting.

WebFX Customer Support

All WebFX clients have a dedicated account manager who serves as the primary point of contact, manages the marketing services, and brings in other team members as needed. Account managers send regular emails to update their clients on their progress. Clients can both call and email with questions or concerns, and users say they have a monthly call with their account manager.

What Users Say in WebFX Reviews

WebFX has earned a 4.9 overall star rating on Clutch. WebFX reviews posted there say they love how thoroughly WebFX researched their business and audiences before developing a custom marketing plan. Clients say that WebFX offers excellent customer service and helps them grow their businesses significantly. Though negative WebFX reviews are rare, one user wanted the agency to offer email signature marketing.

Lyfe Marketing: Best for Social Media Marketing

Lyfe Marketing

What We Like

What’s Missing

Key Digital Services

Lyfe Marketing is a top digital marketing agency for small businesses for its social media management services. Unlike Ignite, WebFX, and Hibu, Lyfe doesn’t offer many digital marketing services outside of social media.

Lyfe Marketing’s services are relatively affordable for what they offer compared to their competitors, starting at $650 per month for social media advertising. As such, they’re best for small businesses looking to grow their social media presence.

Lyfe Marketing Features

Lyfe Marketing’s small business marketing agency services center around social media, although they do have pay-per-click (PPC), SEO, and web design services as well. However, they’re more well-known as a full-service social media management agency, and non-social media marketing services aren’t featured as prominently as their main offerings.

Here are a few of Lyfe Marketing’s offerings:

Social Media Management

Lyfe Marketing’s team of expert social media marketers develop, create, and manage social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram. This service includes monitoring pages and responding to comments and queries, building brand awareness, and increasing followers. It also directs traffic to your website for conversions.

Although a team works with you to effectively create and run your social media strategy, your point of contact is a dedicated account manager. They will first help you develop a brand strategy based on your business objectives, industry, and competitors.

From there, they will create a content calendar with posts unique to your brand. Finally, they monitor your social media channels to tweak and optimize your campaign.

Social media graphics created by Lyfe Marketing for various clients (Source: Lyfe Marketing)

Social Media Advertising

Best paired with social media management, Lyfe Marketing’s social media advertising creates on-brand ads for both Facebook and Instagram. However, you can also pay an extra $100 per month for each added social media platform, like Twitter or LinkedIn. Aside from creating ads pinpointed toward your target demographic, they also track and manage campaigns, launch retargeting strategies, and work with location-based advertising.

PPC Management

Lyfe Marketing’s pay-per-click (PPC) services include pay-per-click advertising on Google, with added fees for advertising on Bing. They don’t provide PPC management for any other search engines, like Amazon (although social media PPC is included in their advertising service). The ads they create are all fully optimized for the platforms on which they’ll be placed, including highly targeted visuals, videos, and copy.

Like with the agency’s social media services, a dedicated advertising account manager is assigned to oversee your account. This manager will develop a PPC strategy and identify keyword opportunities for your business and perform competitor analysis. From research, a team of experts will develop and create ads and perform A/B testing to further optimize your campaign. Daily monitoring and campaign tweaking will also be done on your behalf.

Search Engine Optimization

Lyfe Marketing’s SEO services start with a site audit and include keyword research, optimization, and content strategy to drive traffic to your website from large search engines, excluding Amazon. Like WebFX’s SEO services, they include Google Business Profile setup and optimization.

Aside from on-page optimization, Lyfe Marketing also performs off-page tactics like link building. However, they seem to lack internal link building and optimization, unlike Ignite Visibility. They also include location-based and ecommerce SEO to help you target niche audiences.

Content Marketing

Although not clearly stated on their website, content marketing is part of the digital marketing agency’s services. They create unique and high-quality blogs, videos, and infographics designed to drive traffic to your website by inserting relevant keywords. Lyfe Marketing includes automatic distribution of the content on social media platforms to this service.

Lyfe Marketing Pricing

Lyfe Marketing is very upfront about their pricing. Each service has three different plans to choose from, along with an initial three-month contract that converts to month-to-month after the first three months. The services are relatively affordable for small businesses. For example, pricing for social media management ranges from $750 to $1,150 per month. To get more information, you can call them and request a free quote.

Lyfe Marketing Customer Support

Lyfe Marketing’s clients report that they work with a dedicated account manager reachable daily via email. Account managers set up weekly, biweekly, or monthly reporting sessions with clients and produce monthly reports detailing the state of campaigns. Depending on services purchased, clients also have 24/7 access to a dashboard to monitor progress in real time.

What Users Say in Lyfe Marketing Reviews

Lyfe Marketing reviews have earned the digital marketing agency a 4.4 average review on Clutch. Clients love that the agency keeps an open line of communication and is transparent about the campaign progress. Reviews also say that Lyfe Marketing is very accommodating when it comes to client consultations. The few negative Lyfe Marketing reviews stem from the quality of their work and missed deliverables.

Hibu: Best for Local SEO & Reputation Management

What We Like

What’s Missing

Key Digital Services

Starting at around $1,000 per month, Hibu is a top small business marketing agency. It takes a holistic approach to creating a positive online brand identity and presence for its clients.

Hibu integrates local SEO into the website design and reputation management components of their digital marketing plans. As such, Hibu is the best digital marketing agency for small businesses looking to create and maintain a positive online presence for an established local store or chain stores.

Hibu Features

Hibu offers an integrated suite of digital marketing agency services for small businesses. These include website design and SEO, local search engine optimization, link building, and review management. It also offers online advertising across social media, search engines, and the websites your target audiences most frequent.

Here are Hibu’s key digital marketing services:

Website Design

Hibu’s web design services ensure a branded, smooth site visitor experience. It also sees to it that Google can easily assess the site and its content for ranking on search engine results pages. Websites are custom-built around each client’s goals, industry, and brand. They are then synced with up to 60 off-page listings, including social media and business listing sites, to ensure that information is always up to date and consistent across the brand’s online presence.

Search Engine Optimization

Hibu offers many SEO services to improve the visibility of your website’s content among your target audiences. This includes optimizing existing content to be search engine-ready, meta tag identification and additions, duplicate content detection, mobile optimization, link profile building, and a website audit for searchbot-unfriendly website architecture.

Hibu’s business listing management includes local SEO. They constantly review and manage your business information (e.g., business name, contact information, hours of operation, and even photos and promotions) across business listing sites like Google Business Profile and Foursquare. Once they confirm your information, it is automatically updated across the web, then “locked” so that the information can’t be edited without authorization.

Off-page Marketing

Hibu also offers review and reputation management services by giving you a single dashboard to monitor and respond to reviews across all your business’ listings. You can request feedback from the dashboard via email. When customers respond with their feedback, you can then invite those who responded positively to post a review on one of your business listing sites.

To help your website build high-quality backlinks, in addition to backlinks from business listing sites, Hibu offers press release copywriting and distribution. Press releases include links to your website and are published on high-quality sites, thereby earning you high-quality links on third-party sites. These links help Google view your site as authoritative, and improve your ranking on Google search results pages.

Hibu offers social media, search, and display advertising. Social media ads extend across Facebook and Instagram and appear in your target audiences’ news feeds and on Facebook Messenger, Marketplace (Facebook), and Instagram. Hibu carefully targets each ad to appear before potential leads and continues to retarget them to increase brand familiarity and the chance of a conversion.

Next, Hibu’s search (aka pay-per-click) and display marketing advertises your business across the web where your consumers frequent. For example, search ads target consumers on the most popular search engines⁠—like Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Advertising. Display ads target consumers across the websites they most frequent, including blogs, news sites, Gmail, and social media sites (like YouTube).

Hibu Pricing

Hibu’s digital marketing offers custom plans based on a business’ size and needs, with prices starting at around $1,000 to $2,000 per month. Keep in mind that your quote may vary significantly depending on the services quoted. Most starter plans include website design and SEO.

To get a custom quote, visit the Hibu homepage and click “Get Started.” Then fill out the form to set up a free consultation.

Hibu Customer Support

Hibu offers flexible client support, and each client is connected with a dedicated account manager. Some want to check in weekly while others want to connect on a monthly basis. Some prefer to communicate via phone, and others, by video conference or email.

Hibu offers a custom schedule for check-ins during business hours from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Time. As business doesn’t always happen during office hours, clients can also connect with Hibu’s digital support team 24/7 via email, phone, or chat.

What Users Say in Hibu Reviews

Hibu reviews posted on Trustpilot said they liked that the digital marketing agency offers a full-service approach, making sure they are consistently branded across the web. Many said their advertising and website services helped to provide a more steady flow of incoming leads. Some clients, however, expressed frustration with Hibu’s long contracts (at least six months).

Fiverr: Best for Affordable, One-off Digital Marketing Services

What We Like

What’s Missing

Key Digital Services

Fiverr is a freelance platform that stands out by offering one-time or on-going digital marketing services at affordable prices. Because many services are offered for as little as $5 per project, the platform is best for sole proprietorships or startups that are looking for help with digital marketing on a very tight budget.

Fiverr Features

Fiverr contractors offer every type of digital marketing service available. These include web design, search engine optimization, off-page marketing like email or social media, and digital advertising.

However, while prices start very low, you will need to take time sifting through providers in order to find those offering the specific services you are looking for. In addition, keep in mind that a low-cost freelancer is not likely to offer the same quality of services or understand your industry or client-based nearly as well as the other providers on our list of the best digital marketing agencies for small businesses.

Here are some of the marketing professionals you can hire on Fiverr:

Website Design

Freelancers who offer web design services on Fiverr often specialize in one or more content management system (CMS), like Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, and Shopify. Some also specialize in designing certain types of websites, like ecommerce sites. Many providers have tiered plans with a different number of features, including websites that have one or multiple pages, extension installment, branding, ecommerce functionality, or responsive design.

Search Engine Optimization

Fiverr SEO experts specialize in certain types of SEO tasks and campaigns, such as writing optimized content for your blog, product descriptions, or local SEO citations. Others can help to fix technical website SEO errors like website speed and responsive design errors, or perform SEO tasks specific to a CMS (like WordPress or Wix). Because SEO is so broad, look for a Fiverr provider who specifically offers the types of SEO projects you seek to complete.

Off-page Marketing

Fiverr contractors cover a range of services, like social media, email, and Amazon marketing. To find the providers who offer a specific type of off-page marketing, use the search bar to input the platform you wish to market on plus “marketing.” For example, search “email marketing” or “social media marketing.” Then, peruse the providers to learn about the specific tasks they handle (social media content creation or influencer marketing, for example).

Fiverr advertising specialists offer a long list of ad-related services, including pay-per-click ads, animated video ads, hand-drawn advertisements for digital assets, banner ad design, Facebook ad campaigns, and display ads. To find a provider who offers the specific types of ads you seek, simply search for that ad type using the Fiverr search bar. For example, you could search “Facebook ads,” “Google ads” or “display ads.”

There are two types of analytics offered via Fiverr providers, including analytics specific to the type of campaign the provider created for you and general website analytics. If you are looking for analytics reporting for a campaign a Fiverr pro created for you, be sure to ask what types of reporting and what tools they used when creating your campaign.

If you need someone to install analytics on your website or help you track analytics around your existing campaign (e.g., social media analytics), simply search the platform you’d like to track, then “analytics.” For example, you can search “Facebook analytics” or “Google analytics” to find relevant providers.

Fiverr Pricing

Fiverr freelance pros offer digital marketing agency services ranging from $5 to $1,000 per task, depending on the provider and their specialty. To learn more about the pricing around your digital marketing needs, sign up for a Fiverr account and search for the service of interest. Then, click on various profiles to learn about the pricing and services each Fiverr freelancer offers.

Fiverr Customer Support

The amount of customer support and communication channels available will depend on the Fiverr pro you choose. For example, some will provide regular analytical reports and discuss your campaign performance via video conferencing, while others offer a hands-off approach to digital marketing. Be sure to ask your chosen provider how they can be contacted and if they provide regular campaign reporting and reviews.

What Users Say in Fiverr Reviews

Individual Fiverr providers all have their own client reviews and ratings. To find the top digital marketing pros, look for freelancers who have earned a 4.8- to 5-star rating. Then, click on the provider’s profile and scroll down to the bottom to view past clients’ star ratings and written reviews.

How We Evaluated the Best Digital Marketing Agencies for Small Businesses

Small businesses often need outside expert help to build a positive online presence and reach their marketing goals. They may be seeking solutions for web design, search engine optimization, off-page marketing (like email or social media management), and digital advertising—at an affordable price. The small business marketing agencies on this list can become the marketing department your company needs to grow.

Based on our criteria, Ignite Visibility is the best small business marketing agency. Starting at $2,000 per month, Ignite Visibility’s experts can manage all your website design, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, link building, public relations, and digital advertising campaigns. Your plan will be custom-built your industry, business model, target audience, and goals.

We preferred agencies offering comprehensive digital marketing services at prices to match each business’ needs and budget. However, we also took into consideration how transparent the pricing is, giving higher ratings to digital marketing agencies that are upfront about plans and prices on their websites.

SEO-specific Features

The best digital marketing agencies for small businesses offer a variety of services to develop your brand’s online presence. Web design with user experience (UX) in mind and SEO for local or international audiences should be a priority when choosing a digital marketing agency. We also took note of the small business marketing agencies that provide services tailored to ecommerce, like Amazon or website stores.

Digital Marketing Agency Features

Judging wouldn’t be complete without testing an agency’s marketing services. Both digital and off-page marketing were taken into consideration when deciding on the top digital marketing agencies for small businesses. At a minimum, we searched for agencies that offer social media marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. We also included providers that offer more advanced digital campaigns, like video ads.

Customer Support

Small businesses often hire digital marketing agencies as an extension of the marketing department. So we looked for providers that assign a dedicated project manager to each client’s account who are available during regular business hours to answer questions, consult, and manage plan-pivot requests.

As we evaluated each provider, we prioritized the small business marketing agencies that are reputed to offer superior solutions and customer support as reflected in their online reviews and ratings on key industry review sites like Clutch and Trustpilot.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do I choose a digital marketing agency for my business?

First, analyze your business and see where you’re lacking. For example, many small businesses need help with social media marketing and management. Then, look around for providers that fit the bill, and take a look at their portfolio and track record. Finally, schedule a consultation to see if they’re a good fit for your business and your budget, and if you can see your business pursuing a partnership with them.

What questions should I ask when choosing a marketing agency?

Before signing a contract, ask questions to set the expectations for both parties. Ask what the agency’s specific expertise is, what the onboarding process will be like, a rough estimate of time frames, and if there are any extra add-on or hidden fees to know about. Additionally, ask what they expect of you as the client and if all services are handled in-house (or if they outsource some of the work).

How much does digital marketing cost per month?

Costs vary widely depending on the company you choose and the complexity of the services you’re looking for. Most small business marketing agencies will cost a few hundred dollars per month but may go well into the thousands.

If this is outside of your budget, there are ways to cut costs. Fiverr, for example, enables small businesses to hire digital marketing experts for as low as $5 per project.

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