Performance marketing agency or an in-house hire: which should a D2C brand pick?

A D2C brand that is still finding which ads work should start with an agency. A brand that already knows its winning ads, spends steadily every month and needs someone checking numbers daily should hire in-house. The early stage needs many tests across channels. One hire is one person's experience, one agency is a team that has seen several brands at your stage.

The mistake is hiring in-house too early because it feels cheaper per month, then asking one person to run Meta, Google and marketplace ads at once.

One hire covers one channel well and three channels badly

Meta, Google and marketplace ads (Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho) each reward different habits. A single marketer usually arrives strong on one and learns the others on your budget. Count what you want covered in the next six months. If it is more than one channel, one hire is a gap you will notice in the second quarter.

An agency makes sense while your tests are cheap and fast

Early on, the useful work is testing: which product, which offer, which audience, which platform. An agency that already runs campaigns for other brands brings tested formats and a reporting habit you would otherwise build from nothing. You also keep the choice to stop after a few months without a notice period.

In-house makes sense once the work is repeat work

When winning ads are known, budgets are steady and most of the job is checking spend, refreshing creative and answering the founder daily, a person who sits in your team and knows your margins is hard to beat. That is the point to move the agency to a smaller advisory role or end it.

Whoever runs it, one number should decide the budget

Agencies report ad sales. A founder needs profit per order after ad spend, fees and returns. Ask any candidate, agency or hire, which number they will report. If the answer is ROAS alone, the budget will drift toward whatever looks good on the dashboard.

Five questions to ask before you pick

1. Which channels will this person or agency run for us, and which will they not?
2. Which number do you report on: ROAS, or profit per order after fees and returns?
3. Who owns the ad accounts? (They should be yours from day one.)
4. What happens to the fee or the role if we move budget from Meta to a marketplace?
5. Can we see an account you run today, with the client's permission?

How our own fee is set

Our marketplace work runs on a fixed fee from ₹25,000/month plus GST (half our usual rate) plus 5% to 10% of marketplace revenue, set per brand and ranging from 5% to 10%. The fixed fee covers advertising on every platform, so budget can move to wherever the product sells. Additional services cost extra. We report on profit per order, and you own the ad accounts from day one.