How are digital agencies helping marketers transform in 2022?

The majority of agencies are looking to partnerships and outsourcing as ways to improve marketing technology services and capabilities, according to a new study commissioned by marketing analytics and business communications platform CallRail.

The study surveyed U.S-based agency professionals in December, 2021 and came away with strong majorities in the response to their 2022 priorities. The verdict was that 87% of respondents said that partnerships are a top priority for their agency, while 78% said outsourcing was a top priority in the new year.

They also expect the job market to get more competitive for in-house hires. Of those surveyed, 81% believe that hiring will be more challenging in 2022 than it was during the previous year.

Read more: Hiring for marketing operations, marketing support roles set to explode

This doesn’t mean that agencies feel like they’re playing catch-up, they’re just keeping the momentum going. For instance, 86% of agency pros surveyed said their agency added a new offering for clients. An overwhelming 98% said they are satisfied with their agency’s positioning in the market.

Why we care. It almost goes without saying that there has been whiplash in every organization as marketers pivoted their strategies to navigate the pandemic over the last two years, and continue to do so. Agencies often play a role by providing digital services and executing digital strategies for clients as part of their digital transformation.

Services that digital agencies provide shift with the priorities of their clients. The change from 2020 to 2021 is telling. From the same survey, for instance, 43% of respondents said website design and development was a top service provided by their agency in 2020. This dropped down to 25% in 2021. Marketers, with the help of their digital agency, made website redesign a priority early in the pandemic, and didn’t have to do as much development the following year.

The top priority for late 2021? Social media, for 34% of respondents.

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About the author

Chris Wood

Chris Wood draws on over 15 years of reporting experience as a B2B editor and journalist. At DMN, he served as associate editor, offering original analysis on the evolving marketing tech landscape. He has interviewed leaders in tech and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country's first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on "innovation theater" at Fintech Inn, in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting in industry trades like Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS, and contributes fiction, criticism and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University, and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.