Introduction

A DTC marketing agency should do one thing for you and that is to grow the sales on your own website in a way that leaves profit behind. While this task might sound easy, the reality involves a lot of work.

The agency has to find new customers through paid social and Google, keep fresh ad creative rolling out weekly, bring those customers back with email and SMS, and make sure the site converts the traffic you’re already paying for.

A good agency also reports on the money your brand keeps, not the numbers the ad platforms want to show you. Likewise, the agency has experienced people on your account every day, rather than selling you on a senior team and then handing the work to juniors.

Your needs from an agency will change as your revenue grows. If you’re a brand that’s doing a few million a year, you need a senior person on the account. A brand worth tens of millions needs a full cross-channel team, while a brand worth hundreds of millions needs enterprise measurement and references at that scale.

We are Olifant Digital and for 7- and 8-figure brands, we are the best option on the market. The reason for this is because only senior specialists manage your account.

Paid social, Google, creative, retention and CRO all work as one system and your fee doesn't go up as your ad spend goes up. Every engagement also carries our 60-day guarantee: if we don't improve your performance, you don't pay.

For 9-figure brands, Darkroom or Tinuiti are perfect choices, and in this guide, we explain why that is the case.

What does 7, 8 and 9-figure mean in this guide?

When we talk about a 7, 8, or 9-figure brand, we are talking about how much money the brand actually makes online in a year. This guide is for brands that sell mainly on their site and still generate at least $1M/year.

This is why you need to select an agency based on the situation you are in today. Make sure the same agency can look after your account as you move into the next revenue level because changing agencies during a growth phase can cost you months.

Revenue level Annual online revenue What to demand from a DTC agency
7-figure $1M to $9.9M A named senior operator, daily work on the account, MER and contribution margin reporting, and a month-to-month contract or a guarantee
8-figure $10M to $99.9M One team across channels, a creative testing cadence in writing, and attribution that goes beyond last click
9-figure $100M+ MMM and incrementality testing, retail media and DSP depth, and references at the same scale

First, find your line. The rankings, the fees and all else in this guide are built around those three bands.

The last row contains a few terms you may not be familiar with. MMM is marketing mix modeling, which is a way to estimate the contribution of each channel to your total sales.

Incrementality testing tests whether the sale would have occurred anyway in the absence of the ad. DSP is Amazon's demand-side platform for display and video ads.

Which numbers should a DTC agency report to you?

Knowing what numbers you should be asking for before you compare agencies helps.

Most agencies lead with ROAS, which is the return on ad spend that Meta or Google shows inside the ad account. The problem is that each platform counts its sales, so you can have two platforms claiming the same order.

1
Contribution margin Revenue minus product cost, shipping and ad spend. What your brand truly keeps.
2
MER All store revenue divided by all marketing spend in the month.
3
Platform ROAS Each platform counts its own sales, so two can claim the same order.
How MER works
$100,000Store revenue
÷
$25,000Marketing spend
=
4MER

In the accounts we audit, we first look at two other numbers.

The first is MER, which stands for marketing efficiency ratio. Take all the revenue your store made in a month and divide it by everything you spent on marketing that month. So if your store made $100,000 and you spent $25,000 on marketing, your MER is 4.

The second is contribution margin. This is the money you have left after you take away the cost of the product, the cost of shipping and the money you spend on ads from your revenue. It shows you what your brand is truly keeping.

The numbers don’t always line up. Your agency can tell you that ROAS inside of Meta went up and that sounds like a good month. But if you spent more on ads to get there and the store as a whole didn’t sell more, your MER goes down and you keep less money than you did the month before.

That’s why we report contribution margin first, MER second and platform ROAS last and why we scored every agency in this guide on if they do the same.

Why listen to us

This guide is brought to you by Olifant Digital, so you know this is our ranking, and we placed ourselves at the top.

We added ourselves because we run Amazon and DTC growth for 7- and 8-figure brands and that’s exactly the work this list evaluates. No agency paid to be here.

We work on over $100M in annual client revenue across 50+ active brands, on month-to-month contracts. We added $1,098,692 in monthly revenue for COCOSOLIS, and we grew The Magic Scent from $50,000 to $411,000/month. You can find these and other results in our case studies.

Not everybody’s for us. We don't have a 9-figure DTC case study so we don't consider ourselves in that band. If a brand hasn’t found traction yet or just needs someone to make ads or buy media, we’re probably not the right choice.

The 10 best DTC marketing agencies for 7 to 9-figure brands at a glance

Here is a table showing all ten agencies, the band they fall into, what they charge and how they scored. Where an agency does not publish a price, we have written "Not published."

Agency Best for Revenue level Starting price Pricing model Score /100
1. Olifant Digital Senior-only paid social, creative and retention 7 and 8-figure $2,000 per month Flat retainer, no % of spend 92
2. Darkroom Every channel from one agency 8 and 9-figure $2,500 per month per service Flat monthly retainer per service 79
3. Common Thread Collective Growth accounting and forecasting 7 and 8-figure Not published Not published 76
4. Pilothouse Creative testing at scale 7 and 8-figure Not published Retainer, performance incentives and project scopes 74
5. Structured Daily senior operators plus lifecycle 7 and 8-figure $6,500 per month plus % of spend Flat fee plus % of spend 72
6. Power Digital Cross-channel analytics and PR 8 and 9-figure Not published Not published 69
7. MuteSix Video creative plus in-house MMM 8-figure Not published Not published 68
8. Tinuiti Enterprise measurement and streaming TV 9-figure Not published Not published 66
9. Taktical Digital Meta and TikTok-led growth 7 and 8-figure Not published Not published 62
10. Right Side Up Embedded fractional growth talent 8 and 9-figure Not published Not published 53

Use this table as a first filter, not as the answer. Start with the band fit column and cross out agencies that don’t represent your band. Then compare the remaining ones on price and what they do best.

Which agency fits which revenue band?

Here are our top three picks for each category if you want the quick answer for your band.

Pick 7-figure ($1M to $9.9M) 8-figure ($10M to $99.9M) 9-figure ($100M+)
First Olifant Digital: senior-only team and a flat retainer from $2,000 Olifant Digital: scaled COCOSOLIS to 8 figures Darkroom: built for brands between $10M and $500M in revenue
Second Structured: works with brands from $150K in monthly revenue Common Thread Collective: 12-month revenue and profit forecasts Tinuiti: Bliss Point MMM and an Incrementality Lab
Third Taktical Digital: Meta and TikTok specialists Pilothouse: 5,000+ creative assets a month Power Digital: nova analytics plus PR

You will observe that we are in two of the three columns and not in the third. Our results are in the 7 and 8 figure bands, so that's where we place ourselves.

How did we score these agencies?

Proven results is the most heavily weighted category, worth 25 points. We looked for named DTC case studies at the same revenue level with a timeframe for this one. The seniority was worth 20 points and we wanted a named senior operator to run the account on a day-to-day basis.

Creative is 15 points, and profit reporting is 15 points. For creative, we looked at the number of concepts the agency publishes per month. We checked whether it shows contribution margin or MER before ROAS for profit.Retention is 10 points and has email, SMS, and CRO in the same team. You can get another 10 points for fees. Agencies earn these points by publishing a flat or capped fee. The last 5 points are for agencies who run Amazon in-house as a channel for expansion.

Agency Results (25) Senior (20) Creative (15) Profit (15) Retention (10) Fee (10) Amazon (5) Total
Olifant Digital22181414910592
Darkroom2013131198579
Common Thread Collective2114121575276
Pilothouse2113131085474
Structured1716111287172
Power Digital1812101285469
MuteSix1911121174468
Tinuiti181191364566
Taktical Digital18108985462
Right Side Up12146666353

A high total doesn’t mean an agency is right for you. Tinuiti scores 66 here and is still one of our two recommendations for 9-figure brands because a few of these criteria are more relevant to what 7 and 8-figure brands need.

The 10 best DTC marketing agencies for 7 to 9-figure brands

One thing before the reviews. Where we quote a result for another agency, the revenue level of that client is not stated unless we say so.

1. Olifant Digital: Best for senior-only paid social, creative, retention and CRO

Olifant Digital has offices including Sofia and Berlin. Senior specialists, each with a minimum of seven years of experience, handle all accounts. We see paid social, Google, creative, retention, CRO, and ecommerce SEO as one system, not separate services you buy one by one. We produce performance ad creative productions each month, so there is always something new to test in your account.

And all of these services are powered by Olifant AI, the platform we built in-house, about which you can read more on our marketing technology page. The same team that works with the platform is also the one handling retention.

We do email, SMS, and CRO in-house, so the same people who bring customers to your site also work to get them to return. If you sell on Amazon too, we include that work in the same retainer, which also covers listing optimization.

Here are some results from our published case studies: For COCOSOLIS, we generated $1,098,692 in added monthly revenue. With Coat Defense, we hit $699,786 per month in DTC revenue. We took The Magic Scent from $50,000 a month to $411,000 a month. And Wildride, a European brand, added $179,009 in monthly US DTC revenue and reached a 7-figure run rate in 42 days.

Our services start from $2,000 per month and are custom for each project, based on the complexity and workload required. We don’t take a percentage of your ad spend, and every engagement carries our 60-day guarantee: if we don't improve your performance, you don't pay.

Olifant Digital is for 7- and 8-figure brands that want one senior team for paid media, creative and retention. We’re not the right partner for 9-figure brands or for brands still finding their traction.

2. Darkroom: Best for media, creative, retention and web from one agency

Darkroom, founded in 2017 in New York, has three hubs in Europe and Brazil. The team size is between 50 and 249 people.

Compared to most agencies on this list, Darkroom is very transparent about its pricing. It provides 14 services and displays a price for each one. Retail media starts at $2,500 a month and paid media at $5,000 a month, making retail media the cheapest. Each channel is managed by a managing director. The Amazon team deals with both Seller Central and Vendor Central.

Darkroom looks at contribution profit as it pertains to reporting, not ROAS. It confirms that figure with MMM and incrementality testing.

You can follow it in a live report called Flight Plan. You see your turnover, your costs and the profit that is left. And in results, Everlane grew Amazon revenue 123% in the first quarter of 2026, and Nécessaire grew paid media revenue 118% in a fourth quarter.

When you add services, the price goes way up. Three core services bundled start at $18,000 a month and that’s too much for a brand that makes less than roughly $2 million to $5 million a year.

It works well for brands in the upper 8 and 9 figures that want a single agency to manage all channels.

3. Common Thread Collective: Best for growth accounting and finance-grade forecasting

The Common Thread Collective (CTC) has been in business since 2012. The company is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California and has 50-249 employees.

CTC’s view of marketing is like a finance team’s. It produces a 12-month financial forecast in terms of revenue, costs and profit for each client and, on a daily basis, compares the actual results to that forecast.

This framework is termed the Prophit System. The system includes contribution margin, new customer efficiency (aMER), cohort LTV, and incrementality testing.

Each account is owned by an individual Prophit Engineer and the average client tenure is over 14 months. That’s why CTC earned the best profit reporting score on our list. Results include Born Primitive, growing 882% in two years from early 2018, and Igloo, growing 4.6 times year over year online from 2018 to 2019.

CTC does not share its pricing and does not primarily offer email and SMS. It is also not known for Amazon, so brands that want Amazon from the same agency should look elsewhere.

It’s perfect for the upper 7 and 8 figure brands that want their marketing planned and measured like a finance team would.

4. Pilothouse: Best for creative testing at scale

Pilothouse is based in Victoria, British Columbia. It is a remote-first agency of over 160 specialists.

It makes it on this list due to its creative volume. Pilothouse produces over 5,000 creative assets a month across the agency, the highest number any agency here reports. It has internal media buyers on five ad platforms. It also created its own platform, Warpdrive, to split-test your site’s traffic. This way you test your ads and your landing pages together.

Onboarding is quick and it takes 5 to 10 business days to begin. Results include a 78% increase in net sales in 12 months for Hestan Culinary and a 111% increase in ROAS in three months for RUX.

Pilothouse doesn’t disclose its price or its terms, and it doesn’t identify the senior people who’d run your account. If you are a 9-figure brand and MMM is your main focus, you are better off with Tinuiti or MuteSix.

It’s great for 7- and 8-figure brands that need a lot of new creative tested each month.

5. Structured: Best for daily senior operators across paid social and lifecycle

Structured is a Los Angeles-based agency that was founded in 2017, with 51 to 100 people under its roof.

The best thing about Structured is how they staff out an account. They have the same copywriters and the same designers on every service line. Your ads, emails and landing pages all sound like one brand. One team handles paid media, email, SMS, and CRO.

There’s a floor to work with them. Your brand needs to have a minimum of $150,000 in monthly revenue, or roughly $1.8 million annually. Pricing begins at $6,500 per month plus a percentage of ad spend, and the contract is for 60 days before moving to a month-to-month setup.

On the results side, Dollar Shave Club saw its blended CAC drop 68% after a buy-box redesign, and Hulken improved its conversion rate 20% with dynamic discounting. Remember, the fee scales up with your spending and no Amazon service is listed.

The agency is best for 7- and 8-figure brands that want senior people on the account every day and do not have plans to launch on Amazon.

6. Power Digital: Best for cross-channel analytics and PR

Power Digital is one of the larger agencies here. Founded in 2012 and based in San Diego, California, United States, Power Digital has between 250 and 999 employees.

It does paid media, PR, SEO, CRO, and Amazon out of one firm and very few performance agencies have PR in-house.

Its platform, nova, helps you figure out how to allocate your budget across channels. Its client work includes Victrola, which saw 115% revenue growth in one year, and ViX Paula Hermanny, which experienced a 22% increase in gross ecommerce revenue year over year. Another brand featured in its case studies is Catalina Crunch.

We could find no published price or published terms. We also did not find MER or contribution margin language in the way Power Digital describes its reporting. For a 7-figure brand that wants one person to run one channel, this setup is too large. It’s ideal for 8 and 9-figure brands that want analytics and PR with their paid media.

7. MuteSix: Best for video creative plus in-house MMM

MuteSix started in Los Angeles in 2014, and in August 2019 it joined Dentsu. Today the agency has between 250 and 999 people.

It is strong in two areas. The first one is video, and the agency produces all of it in-house. The second one is measurement. MuteSix has built a marketing mix model of its own, and it checks that model against incrementality tests on Meta.

This approach shows you what your paid media really brings, not just what the last click before a purchase shows.

MuteSix can also manage Amazon for you in full, and DSP is part of that. When it comes to results, Aera grew total revenue by 152% between July 2021 and July 2022. Grass Roots increased conversions by 63% and ROAS by 35%.

This agency is a better match for brands with bigger budgets. A 7-figure brand will most likely find it expensive, and the pricing is not published. It suits 8-figure brands that want strong video and a proper measurement model from the same agency.

8. Tinuiti: Best for enterprise measurement and streaming TV

Tinuiti is the largest agency on this list. Founded in 2004, located in New York, with over 1,200 employees. It calls its measurement suite Bliss Point by Tinuiti, named for Bliss Point Media, which it bought in 2021.

The suite encompasses Rapid Media Mix Modeling, an Incrementality Lab, and brand equity measures. This is the kind of measurement a 9-figure brand needs because at that size you have to prove that each channel is adding sales you wouldn’t have otherwise had.

The services go far beyond paid social. Tinuiti does streaming TV and creative, and on Amazon it does DSP, AMC, and Sponsored Ads. DSW saw a 16% increase in revenue and a 29% decrease in incremental CPA on Meta, while The Honest Company saw a 172% ROAS increase in its first month on Amazon.

This size agency is best paired with a brand that has its own in-house strategy team. Pricing is not public. A founder-led account will likely feel small here. It’s a good fit for 9-figure brands that need enterprise measurement and streaming TV at scale.

9. Taktical Digital: Best for Meta and TikTok-led growth

Taktical Digital is a MediaMint company founded in New York in 2011. It’s one of the smaller agencies here with 10 to 49 people and most of its staff works remotely.

The agency calls what they do "Brandformance". And it’s mostly paid social on Meta and TikTok. Next to that, you can also get creator content, email, SMS, landing pages, Amazon Ads and GEO from them. It does the email and SMS work in-house.

On the results side, Taos Footwear increased revenue by 79.9% year over year. Vegamour increased monthly Amazon revenues from $51,000 to $720,000.

There are a few gaps you should know about before you decide. It doesn’t offer MER, MMM, and incrementality testing, so there’s no real way for it to report on your profit. Taktical Digital also says it has a network of more than 150 partners but it doesn’t tell you who will actually do the work on your account.

It’s for 7- and 8-figure brands with a tighter budget who want to grow, primarily through Meta and TikTok.

10. Right Side Up: Best for embedded senior fractional growth talent

Right Side Up does business differently from any other name in this guide. Instead of outsourcing your marketing, it embeds vetted senior freelancers within your team.

The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in the U.S. It can fill a position in two weeks and there are no long-term contracts. Its high-growth segment is for brands with revenue of $50 million-plus, and the capabilities include creative, lifecycle, CRO, and Amazon.

The examples it gives focus on the work itself, not on revenue. Dipsea grew podcast ad spend 635% in two years, and Coast saved 67% on media management fees.

The primary reason it scored the lowest with us is because revenue results are rarely published and neither are their prices. Also, if you want a fully managed team that does the work for you, this is not the model for you.

It’s ideal for 8- and 9-figure brands that already have a marketing team and need senior specialists to support their efforts.

Two more agencies to keep in mind: Hawke Media and Y'all

We didn’t score two agencies that didn’t make the top ten, but you might want to keep them as backups. Hawke Media does outsourced CMO work on a month-to-month basis. Y’all does paid social and creative in-house.

What does a 7 to 9-figure brand actually need from an agency?

The discovery call is when you know if an agency is right for your revenue level. Below are the questions we recommend asking at each level and what a good answer would look like.

7-figure
Ask: Who works on our account each day? Good answer: One name with 7+ years' experience, and MER and contribution margin first in the weekly report.
8-figure
Ask: How many new concepts will you test a month? Good answer: A number in writing, built internally, and one clear owner for every channel.
9-figure
Ask: Which $100M+ client can we call, and how do you show incrementality? Good answer: A reference your size, plus holdout or geo tests calibrated to an MMM.

What a 7-figure brand needs from a DTC agency

The first question to ask is who will be working on your account each day. A good answer is one name and that person should have seven years' experience or more.

If you only hear "the team", ask the question again. Then ask what the agency will report to you weekly. In that report, MER and contribution margin should be first, and platform ROAS after that.

What an 8-figure brand needs from a DTC agency

Usually creative is the thing that makes you keep growing or not at this size. So ask how many new concepts the agency will be testing for you a month. A good agency will write that number down and work up the concepts internally.

You probably have your marketing people by now, so be sure to ask how the agency will work with your internal team. What you want to hear is that every channel has one clear owner.

What a 9-figure brand needs from a DTC agency

At 9 figures you need incrementality testing, attribution and MMM working together in one measurement setup.

In our experience very few agencies can do all three. Ask the agency which client that has over $100 million you can call to verify. The reference should be a brand of your size, not a small brand with a famous name.

Then ask how the agency shows incrementality. The answer you are looking for is holdout tests or geo tests calibrated to an MMM.

What do DTC marketing agencies charge 7, 8 and 9-figure brands?

There are two main ways most DTC agencies charge. Some charge a percentage of your ad spend, usually anywhere from 10% to 20%. Others charge a flat monthly retainer.

When your spend goes up, the difference becomes very real. Say you spend 300,000 dollars a month on ads. With a 10% fee you are paying the agency $30,000 a month. With a 20% fee you are paying $60,000. That’s what you pay no matter how much profit you make.

Now let’s say you raise the budget to $400,000 for the holiday season. Then the fee jumps to $40,000 or $80,000 even if that extra spend makes less profit than before. When you use a flat retainer, the fee is predictable and the agency has no incentive to push your spend higher than it needs to be.

This is shown for each band in the table below. These ad spend figures are illustrative and are not from any one client.

Revenue level Typical monthly ad spend (illustrative) What 10% to 20% of spend costs What a flat retainer costs (illustrative) The gap
7-figure $20K to $80K $2,000 to $16,000 a month $2,000 to $10,000 a month $0 to $6,000 a month
8-figure $200K to $1M $20,000 to $200,000 a month About half, or $10,000 to $100,000 a month $10,000 to $100,000 a month
9-figure $1M+ $100,000 to $200,000+ a month, rarely accepted Negotiated, sometimes with a performance component Not published, set in procurement

The two models can cost about the same at 7 figures so the gap is small. It begins at 8 figures, where a flat fee is normally half of what a percentage would cost you. If you do accept a percentage of the spend, ask for a cap and get it in writing.

Frequently asked questions

Should an 8-figure DTC brand hire an agency or build an in-house growth team?

We recommend a combination of both. Have a strategy lead in your company and use an agency for specialists and for the volume of creative you can’t easily produce on your own.

Going fully in-house means you need at least one hire per channel and it takes time to find and train each of those hires. If your team is doing well on a channel, keep it in-house and let the agency handle the rest.

Can a DTC agency take a 7-figure brand onto Amazon without cannibalizing the website?

Yes, as long as one team sets the pricing and promotions and budgets for both channels.

The trouble is when separate teams run discounts that contradict each other, like an Amazon deal trumping a site code the same week. The customer sees the lower price and goes there.

First, align your pricing. Then start with Amazon with a small catalog of the products that are already selling well on your site.

How long should you give a new DTC agency before you judge the results?

Give it 90 days or so. The first month is mostly the audit, the tracking fixes and the first round of new creative, so the numbers will not tell you much yet. In the second month, you should see tests running with a clear report every week.

By the end of the third month, both MER and contribution margin should be heading in the right direction, and if they are not, the agency should be able to tell you exactly why.

What should you have ready before your first call with a DTC agency?

Bring your revenue for the last 12 months by channel, your margin per product and your current ad spend per month.

It also helps to give read access to your ad accounts and your store analytics before the call, because the agency can then talk about your real numbers instead of giving you a general pitch.

If an agency doesn't ask for these details before sending a proposal, ask how they arrived at the particular price.

Final thoughts

The right DTC marketing agency depends on where your revenue is today. Our first choice is Olifant Digital at 7 figures, then Structured.

Olifant Digital again at 8 figures. Then Common Thread Collective or Pilothouse depending on if you need forecasting or creative volume more. A better choice is Darkroom or Tinuiti at 9 figures.

Regardless of the agency you speak to, ask who runs the account on a day-to-day basis, how profit is reported and what the fee looks like when your ad spend doubles.

If your brand is in the 7 or 8-figure band and you want a senior-only team whose fee does not climb with spend, we would be glad to look at your numbers. You can get your free marketing plan from Olifant Digital, and we will show you what a program built for your band would look like.

Alex Stoykov
Article by:
Alex Stoykov
WRITTEN BY:
Alex Stoykov

Alex is the founder and CEO of Olifant Digital, where his team manages over $100M in annual Amazon client revenue across 50+ brands, and he runs a 7-figure Amazon brand of his own. That operator background shapes how the agency works: every tactic is tested with his own money before it reaches a client account. He oversees PPC methodology, creative, and conversion rate across all client accounts to make sure Olifant Digital scales brands profitably.

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Mike Todorov
Article by:
Mike Todorov
REVIEWED BY:
Mike Todorov

Mike reviews every Amazon article on this blog for strategic and technical accuracy before it publishes. As Director of Amazon Growth at Olifant Digital, he sets marketing strategy across client accounts and personally audits PPC at every stage of growth. He brings 8 years of daily Amazon operations across 7 and 8-figure brands including Beauty by Earth, Ekster, and Bullstrap, the kind of hands-on depth most agency directors delegate away.

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