One of the most common questions campaigners ask is some version of "Who should I hire to do digital?" It sounds like a straightforward staffing decision, but it usually reveals a deeper misunderstanding about what digital actually requires and how the vendor relationship works.
Most campaigns picture hiring a single person or firm who will run their ads, manage their email program, post to social media, build a great website, and make their content go viral. When you start to list it out, that is an enormous ask. Each of those is a distinct skill set, and finding all of them in one vendor is rare. What campaigns often need is not a vendor who does everything but someone who can help them navigate what to prioritize. The problem is that we are conditioned by how other campaign vendors work, and the expectations carry over even though the business model is completely different.
A Different Business Model
When a campaign hires a mail firm or a TV consultant, the model is well established. The firm produces the creative, the campaign funds the buy, and the vendor earns a commission on placement. There are clear deliverables and discrete approval points.
Digital firms typically make their money through commissions on fundraising and on placing ads. That model works when there is an existing donor file to raise money from. But if you are an early-stage candidate without an established fundraising track record, there is no list for the vendor to monetize. The campaign has to invest money through ads to build that list first, and it can take months before the fundraising operation comes close to breaking even.
This creates an unreasonable expectation that has become common in campaign politics: "I want digital, but you have to pay for yourself." We don’t ask that of other vendors. Hiring a digital firm and expecting it to cover its own costs without ad budget is like hiring a mail firm but refusing to pay for postage, or hiring someone to produce TV ads but not paying to put them on the air.
Realistic Budgeting
For a lot of campaigns, spending more than $5,000 a month on a digital vendor is too much of a lift. If your budget is limited, the smarter approach is to separate the ongoing tasks from the specialized ones. Posting to social media and sending emails to your list are things your campaign can and should handle in-house. You will post more effectively than someone who is not on the ground with your campaign every day.
Where a vendor adds real value is when you have a specific budget to place ads and need expertise on targeting, creative, and optimization. Instead of hiring one firm to do everything all the time, bring on specialized help when you have the resources to fund the work that firm needs to do.
Get Help Early
There are two areas where professional help tends to pay for itself early. The first is your website. Getting the site set up correctly matters more than most campaigns realize, especially when it comes to being found through Google search and AI-powered discovery tools. A professional can make sure the technical foundation is right so that your site actually works as a campaign tool, not just a digital brochure.
The second is your email infrastructure. Having someone help you set up your email marketing program at the outset – making sure your deliverability is solid, your welcome series is in place, and your list is segmented properly – can save you from problems that are much harder to fix later. Once the foundation is set, the day-to-day sending is something your team can manage.
A Warning
Be cautious about any vendor who is not upfront about how difficult the challenge is. Digital fundraising is hard, especially for first-time candidates, and anyone who glosses over that is either inexperienced or not being honest with you.
Hiring a digital vendor does not take things off your plate. It actually adds new demands on your attention – approving copy, reviewing ad creative, responding to requests for content. If you’re hiring because you want to stop thinking about digital, you are going to be disappointed.
Digital Integration
The digital agency relationship requires more from the campaign than most other vendor arrangements. Your digital partner needs to be fully integrated into what is happening on the ground. They need access to campaign updates, swift replies from your communications team, and visibility into who the key stakeholders are.
This is not like your relationship with a pollster, where there are a handful of discrete check-ins over the course of a cycle. Digital moves fast, and the vendor needs to be trusted as part of the inner circle to do their job well. Campaigns that treat their digital vendor as an outside contractor who just needs a weekly call will get outside-contractor-quality work in return.
Conclusion
The honest answer to "Who should I hire to do digital?" is often that you aren’t yet ready to hire anyone. What most campaigns actually need at the early stage is guidance on where to start and the discipline to do the daily work themselves.
When you do reach the point where hiring a vendor makes sense, go in with clear expectations, a real budget, and the understanding that digital is a partnership, not a purchase order.