What a specialist agency stack looks like
A typical brand running social campaigns with specialists has four vendors. A creative studio or video shop makes the content. A paid social agency runs the ads, commonly priced at around 10% to 20% of monthly ad spend, often with a minimum fee. An influencer agency finds and manages creators. A web freelancer or dev shop builds the landing page.
Each one can be excellent at its job. But nobody in that list owns the whole path from scroll to sale. That job falls to you, usually a founder or a marketing lead who already has a full calendar.
Where campaigns break at the hand-offs
Creative made without ad data
The video shop delivers a polished set of ads. The ads agency learns in week one that the second hook wins, but the next round needs a new brief, a new quote and two weeks.
The ad and the page say different things
The ad promises a launch price; the landing page, built separately, leads with the brand story. Clicks arrive and bounce.
Nobody owns tracking
The ads agency assumes the developer installed the pixel events. The developer assumed the ads agency would. You find out after spending the budget.
Four reports, four definitions of success
Views from the video shop, ROAS from the ads agency, reach from the influencer agency, page speed from the developer. No single number tells you whether the campaign made money.
The blame loop
When sales are low, each vendor can point at another. The weakest step never gets fixed because no one is responsible for finding it.
Full service agency vs specialists, compared
| Factor | Several specialist agencies | One full service campaign agency |
|---|---|---|
| Depth in one channel | Highest; that is all they do | Strong across the channels a campaign needs |
| Who connects the pieces | You | The agency |
| Time from losing ad to new ad | A new brief to another company, often weeks | Same team, usually the next weekly cycle |
| Reporting | Separate reports with different metrics | One report from ad spend to revenue |
| Contracts and minimums | Three or four, each with its own minimum | One |
| Swapping out a weak vendor | Easy; replace one piece | Harder; you change the whole team |
| Fit for very large single-channel budgets | Often better | Depends on the agency |
The cost math: specialist stack vs full service
Take a brand spending $10,000 a month on paid social. At a 10% to 20% management fee, the ads agency alone costs $1,000 to $2,000 a month. At $20,000 in spend it is $2,000 to $4,000. That fee covers running ads, not making them, so you still need a creative retainer for fresh videos every month, creator fees and someone to build and update landing pages. Each vendor has its own minimum, and those minimums add up before the work does.
Our always-on campaigns start from $3,500 a month and include fresh creative every month, ad management, weekly testing and reporting, and posting. A one-off campaign launch starts from $5,000, landing page included. In both cases ad spend and creator fees are separate and paid directly. For a broader view of fee models, see how much a social media agency costs.
When specialist agencies are the right call
One team is not always the answer. Pick specialists when:
- You spend heavily in one channel and need the deepest possible expertise there, such as a large paid search or paid social program
- You run a creator program with dozens of creators every month and need a dedicated influencer operation
- You have a strong in-house marketing lead whose job is to connect vendors and own the numbers
- You only need one piece, for example ad management for creative your team already makes
- A specialist already performs well for you; do not replace a working piece just to consolidate
How to test a full service agency's claims
Full service can mean a real integrated team or a sales layer over subcontractors. Ask:
- Who makes the video, and who builds the landing page? The same team or outside vendors?
- Can you show one report that goes from ad spend to revenue?
- How long from spotting a losing ad to a new one being live?
- Who sets up the pixel and conversion events, and who checks they fire?
- Will we own the ad accounts, pages and creative files?
- What is not included: ad spend, creator fees, extra rounds of creative?
Where Lumiflo fits
We are full service for one job: social campaigns that sell. One team does the creative strategy, video and UGC, paid social, creator work and the landing page and funnel, then tests and reports weekly. We started as a sales-funnel team, so the page behind the ads is part of the campaign, not an afterthought. The case study below shows what that looks like when the whole path from video to email to purchase is built together.
There is one gap most full service agencies leave open too. Growth agencies sell followers and stop there. Funnel agencies build pages and email sequences but need traffic the client doesn't have. Almost no one does both, works with creators, and ties its fee to sales. We grow the audience with organic content, build the funnel behind it, and offer a revenue share to creators and brands that fit.
Still deciding how to staff it? Compare in-house vs agency and freelancers vs agency, or read what a turnkey marketing agency is.
Case study: a new product launch
We launched a new product. In 2 weeks, these are the results.
- 115kfollowers, starting from zero
- 7,000+emails collected
- 100+purchases across an app, a book and a paid community
No audience, no list and no sales on day one. Organic content earned the follow, a landing page captured the email, and three offers closed the sale. Read the case study.
What Lumiflo costs
Campaign launch
from $5,000
- Strategy, big idea and hooks
- Short-form video, UGC and static ads made for each platform
- Ads set up and a campaign landing page built
- Launch, first round of fixes and a results report
Always-on campaigns
from $3,500 a month
- Fresh creative every month
- Paid social managed and tested every week
- Organic posting on your main platforms
- Weekly numbers, in plain English
Revenue share
% of salesplus a lower fee
- Organic growth, funnel and sales built as one system
- A lower upfront fee
- A share of the revenue we help create, tracked at checkout
- For creators and brands we believe in
Ad spend is paid by you, straight to the platforms. Creator and influencer fees are billed at cost.