Jul 5, 2025
10 MIN READ
Learning Basics
Learning Basics
Do I Need an Influencer Marketing Agency to Run Campaigns?
Do I Need an Influencer Marketing Agency to Run Campaigns?
Do I Need an Influencer Marketing Agency to Run Campaigns?
Nandini Tripathi
Nandini Tripathi
Nandini Tripathi
Nandini Tripathi
Content Marketer @impulze.ai
Sections
Blog in Short ⏱️
Blog in Short ⏱️
A quick glance at the highlights—perfect for when you're short on time.
A quick glance at the highlights—perfect for when you're short on time.
Thinking of running influencer campaigns but not sure if you should hire an agency or go in-house? Here's your cheat sheet:
✅ Agencies offer scale, structure, and speed, but they come at a cost.
✅ In-house influencer campaign management gives you control and creative freedom.
✅ Tools like SocialiQ and our free Influencer Pricing Calculator help brands run influencer campaigns without an agency.
✅ Outreach, tracking, and campaign coordination can be automated if you have the right tools.
✅ DIY influencer marketing works best for smaller brands and niche products, especially if you're willing to learn.
You’ve seen the success stories. You’ve got a product people love, maybe even a few happy customers posting about it. Influencer marketing feels like the next big step. A small skincare brand goes viral with a micro-influencer’s video. A coffee startup gains 10,000 followers overnight thanks to a perfectly timed collab.
It’s no wonder influencer campaigns are top of mind for so many marketers. But once you're sold on the idea, the next question hits you:
Do I really need to hire an influencer marketing agency?
Or can I just do this on my own, maybe with a few tools and a good strategy?
Let’s break this down properly. From what agencies actually do to when it makes sense and go in-house, to how you can run influencer campaigns yourself using smart tools like SocialiQ. No fluff. No industry jargon. Just straight-up answers.
What Does an Influencer Marketing Agency Actually Do?
Let’s be honest. The term "influencer marketing agency" sounds fancy and expensive. But what do they really handle?
Here are the common services influencer marketing agencies offer:
Influencer Marketing Strategy: This is the foundation of every successful influencer campaign. Agencies work closely with brands to define clear campaign goals, whether it's brand awareness, product promotion, or audience growth. They help identify the ideal creator personas, select the right platforms (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc.), and craft timelines that align with product launches or seasonal trends.
Influencer Discovery: Finding the right influencers is both an art and a science. Agencies use data-driven tools and audience insights to shortlist creators based on niche, content quality, engagement rate, audience demographics, and brand alignment. This ensures that partnerships feel authentic and deliver results.
Negotiation: Agencies act as the middleman to secure fair deals. They negotiate rates, deliverables, exclusivity clauses, timelines, and usage rights. This removes the back-and-forth headache for brands and ensures both parties are legally and financially protected.
Campaign Management: This includes everything from briefing influencers with brand guidelines to reviewing drafts and ensuring content goes live on time. Agencies also handle coordination across multiple creators and platforms, ensuring consistency and campaign integrity throughout.
Reporting: After the campaign wraps up, agencies don’t just hand over screenshots. They provide detailed performance reports tracking metrics like impressions, reach, engagement rates, conversions, and ROI. These insights help brands refine their future strategies and justify influencer spend.
So yes, they’re helpful. Especially when you’re dealing with 20+ creators and thousands of dollars in influencer spend. But what if you’re not there yet?
When to Hire an Influencer Agency?
Hiring an influencer marketing agency is not always necessary, but it can be a lifesaver in certain scenarios.
Here are 5 signs it might be the right move:
1. You’re short on time.
Managing creators isn't just about sending emails or approving content. It’s a full-time job that involves outreach, scheduling, approvals, and real-time coordination: often across multiple time zones.
If you’re already juggling other marketing functions, this can quickly become overwhelming and lead to campaign delays or missed opportunities.
2. You’re scaling fast.
Maybe your brand is expanding to new geographies, launching products simultaneously, or running seasonal campaigns that require multiple influencer partnerships. In such high-velocity scenarios, agencies bring the structure, tools, and cross-platform expertise to manage scale without sacrificing quality.
3. You want guaranteed results.
Some influencer marketing agencies offer performance-based pricing, meaning they only get paid when specific KPIs are met. That kind of accountability is hard to achieve when managing creators in-house, especially if your internal team doesn’t have access to benchmark data or influencer analytics tools.
4. You’re overwhelmed.
From briefing creators and reviewing content to negotiating rights and collecting insights, there are dozens of moving parts in a single influencer campaign. When these tasks pile up, it can impact your focus on core brand goals. Agencies help you offload the operational load so your team can focus on strategy.
5. Your internal team lacks influencer experience.
Maybe you’ve only done a few influencer campaigns, or your team is more familiar with traditional digital marketing. Agencies bring in deep expertise, including access to vetted influencer networks, legal and compliance support, and campaign playbooks that increase your chances of success from day one.
In such cases, outsourcing can help you go faster and avoid costly mistakes. But is it always worth it?
How Much Does an Influencer Agency Cost?
Let’s talk numbers, because this is usually where the decision gets real.
Hiring an influencer marketing agency isn’t cheap. And while they do bring structure, strategy, and scale, the price tag can be a dealbreaker for many small- to mid-size brands.
Here’s what working with an agency typically looks like on paper:
Monthly retainers:
Anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000+ per month, depending on the scope, deliverables, and size of your campaign. These retainers are common among full-service influencer marketing agencies and cover strategy, influencer selection, campaign management, and reporting.
One-off campaign fees:
Short-term or seasonal campaigns can range between $1,500 and $10,000, depending on the number of creators, content formats, and the type of deliverables. This structure is typically used for product launches or promotional pushes.
Commission-based pricing:
Many agencies charge 10% to 20% of your total influencer spend. This model is often seen with agencies that handle end-to-end execution, including influencer payouts and contract negotiation.
Now let’s zoom out.
If you’re a small business working with a $2,000 marketing budget per month, hiring an agency can eat up that entire budget before you’ve even booked your first creator.
That doesn’t mean agencies aren’t valuable. But for many brands, especially early-stage DTC startups or bootstrapped businesses, it’s just not realistic.
This is exactly where DIY influencer marketing starts to shine: you stay in control, cut down on overhead, and put your budget directly into creators and content, not retainers and management fees.
Why More Brands Are Going In-House?
Running influencer campaigns in-house has its perks:
1. More Control, Less Guesswork
You get to handpick creators, set the creative direction, and oversee timelines and budgets directly. Instead of waiting on agency reports, you can see real-time results and tweak your campaigns as needed. This is crucial for brands that need speed and flexibility to stay competitive.
2. Closer Creator Relationships
When there’s no middleman, creators get to interact with the brand directly, building stronger, more authentic partnerships. It leads to better creative alignment, long-term brand advocacy, and sometimes, creators even offer you behind-the-scenes audience insights that agencies might gatekeep.
3. Lower Cost, Higher Efficiency
Agencies typically charge $3,000–$15,000/month in retainers. That doesn’t include influencer payouts, ads, or product seeding. Going in-house lets you reinvest that money into content creation, paid boosts, or micro-influencer scaling, giving you more output for the same budget.
4. Faster Testing & Learning
Instead of waiting weeks for an agency kickoff, in-house teams can run mini-campaigns, test formats (like Reels vs. Stories), or A/B test influencer tiers, without red tape. This experimental mindset helps brands find what works faster and scale with confidence.
You can also scale gradually. Start with micro-influencers with influencer campaign ideas, learn what works, and evolve your influencer outreach strategy over time.
Can I Really Do Influencer Marketing Myself?
Absolutely. Let’s flip it.
You’re not launching a global product. You’re not throwing $100K into creators. You’re just trying to find the right influencers and run lean campaigns that convert.
In that case, DIY influencer marketing might be your secret weapon. With the right influencer marketing tools, you don’t need to be a marketing wizard to run effective influencer campaigns.
Here's what you need:
Influencer Discovery Tool: Use a free Chrome extension like SocialiQ to find influencers by keyword, niche, gender, location, and more. You can filter based on platform, audience size, and industry relevance to match your exact campaign needs.
Engagement Check: Quickly view post-wise and overall engagement rates. This helps you identify real influencers versus those with fake followers or inflated metrics. It ensures your money goes toward genuine reach.
Pricing Estimate: Use the influencer pricing calculator to estimate how much your campaign will cost. It helps you plan budgets more accurately based on influencer type and platform.
Outreach Automation: With Impulze’s built-in outreach system, you can select influencers, send them your brief, and let the tool handle follow-ups. This saves time and keeps your communication consistent.
Campaign Tracker: Track all conversations, briefs, and approvals using a Kanban-style board built into impulze.ai. It helps you stay organized, especially when managing multiple creators at once.
These tools don’t just save time. They give you the confidence to execute your influencer marketing for brands without burning out.
Influencer Agency vs In-House: Side-by-Side Comparison
Here’s a simple breakdown to help you decide:
When In-House Campaigns Work Best
Wondering if you should manage influencer campaigns on your own instead of hiring an agency? You might be more ready than you think.
Here are three clear signals that DIY influencer marketing campaigns could work better for your brand, along with why it matters:
1. Your audience is niche.
If you’re a DTC brand selling gluten-free snacks, eco-friendly pet gear, or skincare for sensitive skin, mass reach isn’t your goal. What you need is relevance. Micro-influencers with 10K–50K followers often have tight-knit communities that care deeply about specific topics.
For example, a gluten-free food brand might get more conversions from a creator who posts daily about celiac-safe recipes than from a generic food influencer with a million followers. When your audience is well-defined, going in-house gives you more control over exactly who you partner with, and who sees your product.
2. You’re still testing what works.
Let’s say you’re trying out multiple campaign types — gifting, UGC, discount codes, ambassador programs — across different channels like Instagram, TikTok, or even email. Running these experiments yourself lets you adapt quickly.
Instead of locking into a long-term agency contract, you can pause, pivot, or scale based on real-time results. For instance, if you notice TikTok creators drive more traffic but Instagram converts better, you can adjust spend and messaging instantly. Flexibility is power during the testing phase.
3. You have the right tools to stay lean and smart.
Campaign management used to mean juggling spreadsheets, DMs, and endless emails. Not anymore. With platforms like SocialiQ (great for influencer discovery and engagement checks), Impulze’s influencer pricing calculator, and built-in automated outreach, the hardest parts, like finding legit creators, evaluating ROI, and scaling outreach, are now simplified.
Example: A skincare brand used Impulze to filter out influencers with fake engagement, and reached out to 50 vetted creators with one click, something that would’ve taken days manually.
We are talking proofs. Check out these influencer campaign examples to see how creative and cost-effective small-scale campaigns can be.
Checklist to Run a DIY Influencer Campaign
If you're skipping the agency route and planning to manage your influencer campaigns yourself, having a clear roadmap can save you a lot of time and chaos. Running campaigns in-house doesn’t mean winging it, but it means being intentional, organized, and a little bit scrappy in the smartest way.
Whether you're a solo marketer or a lean brand team, this checklist will keep your campaigns structured from discovery to reporting.
✅ Define your goal: Sales? Content? Awareness?
✅ Use SocialiQ to find relevant influencers
✅ Check engagement and past content
✅ Estimate cost using the fee calculator
✅ Send outreach with a clear brief
✅ Track content and conversations via Kanban board
✅ Measure performance with UTM links or codes
✅ Repurpose top-performing content in ads or emails
Final Thoughts: Agency or DIY?
The answer isn’t black or white. It depends on your budget, time, internal bandwidth, and campaign complexity.
But here’s the good news: most brands can now run influencer campaigns without an agency.
You just need the right support. That means:
Smart tools like SocialiQ
Budget clarity with a free pricing calculator
Outreach + management features built into platforms like Impulze
So before you spend thousands on influencer marketing services, ask yourself:
Is it really scale I need…or just a simpler way to manage the process?
Either way, you’re now equipped to make the right call. You can reach out to us at Impulze.ai to help you with these influencer marketing campaigns and let us steal the deal for you.
You’ve seen the success stories. You’ve got a product people love, maybe even a few happy customers posting about it. Influencer marketing feels like the next big step. A small skincare brand goes viral with a micro-influencer’s video. A coffee startup gains 10,000 followers overnight thanks to a perfectly timed collab.
It’s no wonder influencer campaigns are top of mind for so many marketers. But once you're sold on the idea, the next question hits you:
Do I really need to hire an influencer marketing agency?
Or can I just do this on my own, maybe with a few tools and a good strategy?
Let’s break this down properly. From what agencies actually do to when it makes sense and go in-house, to how you can run influencer campaigns yourself using smart tools like SocialiQ. No fluff. No industry jargon. Just straight-up answers.
What Does an Influencer Marketing Agency Actually Do?
Let’s be honest. The term "influencer marketing agency" sounds fancy and expensive. But what do they really handle?
Here are the common services influencer marketing agencies offer:
Influencer Marketing Strategy: This is the foundation of every successful influencer campaign. Agencies work closely with brands to define clear campaign goals, whether it's brand awareness, product promotion, or audience growth. They help identify the ideal creator personas, select the right platforms (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc.), and craft timelines that align with product launches or seasonal trends.
Influencer Discovery: Finding the right influencers is both an art and a science. Agencies use data-driven tools and audience insights to shortlist creators based on niche, content quality, engagement rate, audience demographics, and brand alignment. This ensures that partnerships feel authentic and deliver results.
Negotiation: Agencies act as the middleman to secure fair deals. They negotiate rates, deliverables, exclusivity clauses, timelines, and usage rights. This removes the back-and-forth headache for brands and ensures both parties are legally and financially protected.
Campaign Management: This includes everything from briefing influencers with brand guidelines to reviewing drafts and ensuring content goes live on time. Agencies also handle coordination across multiple creators and platforms, ensuring consistency and campaign integrity throughout.
Reporting: After the campaign wraps up, agencies don’t just hand over screenshots. They provide detailed performance reports tracking metrics like impressions, reach, engagement rates, conversions, and ROI. These insights help brands refine their future strategies and justify influencer spend.
So yes, they’re helpful. Especially when you’re dealing with 20+ creators and thousands of dollars in influencer spend. But what if you’re not there yet?
When to Hire an Influencer Agency?
Hiring an influencer marketing agency is not always necessary, but it can be a lifesaver in certain scenarios.
Here are 5 signs it might be the right move:
1. You’re short on time.
Managing creators isn't just about sending emails or approving content. It’s a full-time job that involves outreach, scheduling, approvals, and real-time coordination: often across multiple time zones.
If you’re already juggling other marketing functions, this can quickly become overwhelming and lead to campaign delays or missed opportunities.
2. You’re scaling fast.
Maybe your brand is expanding to new geographies, launching products simultaneously, or running seasonal campaigns that require multiple influencer partnerships. In such high-velocity scenarios, agencies bring the structure, tools, and cross-platform expertise to manage scale without sacrificing quality.
3. You want guaranteed results.
Some influencer marketing agencies offer performance-based pricing, meaning they only get paid when specific KPIs are met. That kind of accountability is hard to achieve when managing creators in-house, especially if your internal team doesn’t have access to benchmark data or influencer analytics tools.
4. You’re overwhelmed.
From briefing creators and reviewing content to negotiating rights and collecting insights, there are dozens of moving parts in a single influencer campaign. When these tasks pile up, it can impact your focus on core brand goals. Agencies help you offload the operational load so your team can focus on strategy.
5. Your internal team lacks influencer experience.
Maybe you’ve only done a few influencer campaigns, or your team is more familiar with traditional digital marketing. Agencies bring in deep expertise, including access to vetted influencer networks, legal and compliance support, and campaign playbooks that increase your chances of success from day one.
In such cases, outsourcing can help you go faster and avoid costly mistakes. But is it always worth it?
How Much Does an Influencer Agency Cost?
Let’s talk numbers, because this is usually where the decision gets real.
Hiring an influencer marketing agency isn’t cheap. And while they do bring structure, strategy, and scale, the price tag can be a dealbreaker for many small- to mid-size brands.
Here’s what working with an agency typically looks like on paper:
Monthly retainers:
Anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000+ per month, depending on the scope, deliverables, and size of your campaign. These retainers are common among full-service influencer marketing agencies and cover strategy, influencer selection, campaign management, and reporting.
One-off campaign fees:
Short-term or seasonal campaigns can range between $1,500 and $10,000, depending on the number of creators, content formats, and the type of deliverables. This structure is typically used for product launches or promotional pushes.
Commission-based pricing:
Many agencies charge 10% to 20% of your total influencer spend. This model is often seen with agencies that handle end-to-end execution, including influencer payouts and contract negotiation.
Now let’s zoom out.
If you’re a small business working with a $2,000 marketing budget per month, hiring an agency can eat up that entire budget before you’ve even booked your first creator.
That doesn’t mean agencies aren’t valuable. But for many brands, especially early-stage DTC startups or bootstrapped businesses, it’s just not realistic.
This is exactly where DIY influencer marketing starts to shine: you stay in control, cut down on overhead, and put your budget directly into creators and content, not retainers and management fees.
Why More Brands Are Going In-House?
Running influencer campaigns in-house has its perks:
1. More Control, Less Guesswork
You get to handpick creators, set the creative direction, and oversee timelines and budgets directly. Instead of waiting on agency reports, you can see real-time results and tweak your campaigns as needed. This is crucial for brands that need speed and flexibility to stay competitive.
2. Closer Creator Relationships
When there’s no middleman, creators get to interact with the brand directly, building stronger, more authentic partnerships. It leads to better creative alignment, long-term brand advocacy, and sometimes, creators even offer you behind-the-scenes audience insights that agencies might gatekeep.
3. Lower Cost, Higher Efficiency
Agencies typically charge $3,000–$15,000/month in retainers. That doesn’t include influencer payouts, ads, or product seeding. Going in-house lets you reinvest that money into content creation, paid boosts, or micro-influencer scaling, giving you more output for the same budget.
4. Faster Testing & Learning
Instead of waiting weeks for an agency kickoff, in-house teams can run mini-campaigns, test formats (like Reels vs. Stories), or A/B test influencer tiers, without red tape. This experimental mindset helps brands find what works faster and scale with confidence.
You can also scale gradually. Start with micro-influencers with influencer campaign ideas, learn what works, and evolve your influencer outreach strategy over time.
Can I Really Do Influencer Marketing Myself?
Absolutely. Let’s flip it.
You’re not launching a global product. You’re not throwing $100K into creators. You’re just trying to find the right influencers and run lean campaigns that convert.
In that case, DIY influencer marketing might be your secret weapon. With the right influencer marketing tools, you don’t need to be a marketing wizard to run effective influencer campaigns.
Here's what you need:
Influencer Discovery Tool: Use a free Chrome extension like SocialiQ to find influencers by keyword, niche, gender, location, and more. You can filter based on platform, audience size, and industry relevance to match your exact campaign needs.
Engagement Check: Quickly view post-wise and overall engagement rates. This helps you identify real influencers versus those with fake followers or inflated metrics. It ensures your money goes toward genuine reach.
Pricing Estimate: Use the influencer pricing calculator to estimate how much your campaign will cost. It helps you plan budgets more accurately based on influencer type and platform.
Outreach Automation: With Impulze’s built-in outreach system, you can select influencers, send them your brief, and let the tool handle follow-ups. This saves time and keeps your communication consistent.
Campaign Tracker: Track all conversations, briefs, and approvals using a Kanban-style board built into impulze.ai. It helps you stay organized, especially when managing multiple creators at once.
These tools don’t just save time. They give you the confidence to execute your influencer marketing for brands without burning out.
Influencer Agency vs In-House: Side-by-Side Comparison
Here’s a simple breakdown to help you decide:
When In-House Campaigns Work Best
Wondering if you should manage influencer campaigns on your own instead of hiring an agency? You might be more ready than you think.
Here are three clear signals that DIY influencer marketing campaigns could work better for your brand, along with why it matters:
1. Your audience is niche.
If you’re a DTC brand selling gluten-free snacks, eco-friendly pet gear, or skincare for sensitive skin, mass reach isn’t your goal. What you need is relevance. Micro-influencers with 10K–50K followers often have tight-knit communities that care deeply about specific topics.
For example, a gluten-free food brand might get more conversions from a creator who posts daily about celiac-safe recipes than from a generic food influencer with a million followers. When your audience is well-defined, going in-house gives you more control over exactly who you partner with, and who sees your product.
2. You’re still testing what works.
Let’s say you’re trying out multiple campaign types — gifting, UGC, discount codes, ambassador programs — across different channels like Instagram, TikTok, or even email. Running these experiments yourself lets you adapt quickly.
Instead of locking into a long-term agency contract, you can pause, pivot, or scale based on real-time results. For instance, if you notice TikTok creators drive more traffic but Instagram converts better, you can adjust spend and messaging instantly. Flexibility is power during the testing phase.
3. You have the right tools to stay lean and smart.
Campaign management used to mean juggling spreadsheets, DMs, and endless emails. Not anymore. With platforms like SocialiQ (great for influencer discovery and engagement checks), Impulze’s influencer pricing calculator, and built-in automated outreach, the hardest parts, like finding legit creators, evaluating ROI, and scaling outreach, are now simplified.
Example: A skincare brand used Impulze to filter out influencers with fake engagement, and reached out to 50 vetted creators with one click, something that would’ve taken days manually.
We are talking proofs. Check out these influencer campaign examples to see how creative and cost-effective small-scale campaigns can be.
Checklist to Run a DIY Influencer Campaign
If you're skipping the agency route and planning to manage your influencer campaigns yourself, having a clear roadmap can save you a lot of time and chaos. Running campaigns in-house doesn’t mean winging it, but it means being intentional, organized, and a little bit scrappy in the smartest way.
Whether you're a solo marketer or a lean brand team, this checklist will keep your campaigns structured from discovery to reporting.
✅ Define your goal: Sales? Content? Awareness?
✅ Use SocialiQ to find relevant influencers
✅ Check engagement and past content
✅ Estimate cost using the fee calculator
✅ Send outreach with a clear brief
✅ Track content and conversations via Kanban board
✅ Measure performance with UTM links or codes
✅ Repurpose top-performing content in ads or emails
Final Thoughts: Agency or DIY?
The answer isn’t black or white. It depends on your budget, time, internal bandwidth, and campaign complexity.
But here’s the good news: most brands can now run influencer campaigns without an agency.
You just need the right support. That means:
Smart tools like SocialiQ
Budget clarity with a free pricing calculator
Outreach + management features built into platforms like Impulze
So before you spend thousands on influencer marketing services, ask yourself:
Is it really scale I need…or just a simpler way to manage the process?
Either way, you’re now equipped to make the right call. You can reach out to us at Impulze.ai to help you with these influencer marketing campaigns and let us steal the deal for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is hiring an influencer marketing agency worth it?
Is hiring an influencer marketing agency worth it?
Is hiring an influencer marketing agency worth it?
How to run influencer campaigns without an agency?
How to run influencer campaigns without an agency?
How to run influencer campaigns without an agency?
What are the benefits of influencer agencies?
What are the benefits of influencer agencies?
What are the benefits of influencer agencies?
What’s the difference between an influencer marketing agency vs in-house?
What’s the difference between an influencer marketing agency vs in-house?
What’s the difference between an influencer marketing agency vs in-house?
How much does an influencer agency cost?
How much does an influencer agency cost?
How much does an influencer agency cost?
What tools can I use for influencer campaign management?
What tools can I use for influencer campaign management?
What tools can I use for influencer campaign management?
How do I run micro-influencer campaigns without an agency?
How do I run micro-influencer campaigns without an agency?
How do I run micro-influencer campaigns without an agency?
Author Bio
Author Bio
Nandini Tripathi
Nandini Tripathi
Hey! I’m Nandini, a content writer who turns brand blah into brand ta-da! I write words that work and turn ideas into content that sounds good, feels right, and actually gets read.
Hey! I’m Nandini, a content writer who turns brand blah into brand ta-da! I write words that work and turn ideas into content that sounds good, feels right, and actually gets read.
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Join over 15000+ SocialiQ users who have installed this free Chrome extension to search, analyze, save, and contact influencers directly on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
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Join over 15000+ SocialiQ users who have installed this free Chrome extension to search, analyze, save, and contact influencers directly on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
20K+ Active Users
May be Later
Join over 15000+ SocialiQ users who have installed this free Chrome extension to search, analyze, save, and contact influencers directly on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
20K+ Active Users
May be Later