Building a Marketing Team from Scratch

10 min read | Mar 19, 2025

By Marta Gongos

Building a marketing team from scratch can be daunting, whether you’re a start-up finding your footing or an established company expanding your reach. Where do you start? What roles do you need? How do you ensure everyone works well together?

All these questions can be overwhelming for business owners, especially when you’re under pressure to drive results ASAP. Without a clear plan, it’s easy to waste time, money, and resources on hires who don’t quite fit or roles that don’t align with your business objectives.

But here’s the good news: building a winning team doesn’t have to be confusing or stressful. Whether you’re hiring versatile generalists, niche specialists, or a mix of both, we’ll show you how to structure a digital marketing team that delivers results and grows with your business. Let’s dive in!

Benefits of Building an In-House Marketing Team

Your marketing team is the backbone of your business—it drives brand awareness, generates leads, and fuels growth. But who’s to say building a marketing team from scratch is the right choice for you, especially when hiring a marketing agency is an option?

As with any business decision, the right answer depends on your business goals. A company with simple, straightforward marketing needs and a limited budget works well with agencies. However, for businesses looking to scale, having dedicated marketers who understand your brand inside and out is often the wiser choice.

An in-house team:

• maintains consistent messaging across all channels and campaigns
• delivers faster decision-making and turnaround with no middlemen
• saves money over time compared to ongoing agency fees
• offers complete oversight of strategies, timelines, and execution
• gives you full control over strategy, timelines, and execution

Pro Tip: Many companies find that a hybrid approach works best—building core capabilities in-house while leveraging specialized agencies for specific expertise or additional bandwidth during peak periods. Which one sounds like a better fit for your business?

Learn more: In-House vs. Agency Marketing

Digital Marketing Team Structure: Key Roles

One of the biggest challenges of building a marketing team from scratch is identifying which roles to hire. No two businesses are alike, even if they sell the same product. So, your marketing team structure should reflect your unique goals, budget, and industry.

We’ll discuss how to choose the right mix of marketing professionals later, but first, let’s explore the common roles essential for running a sound marketing strategy. These positions form the foundation of most effective marketing teams:

Hiring Generalists vs Specialists

Not every business needs to fill all these positions immediately—or at all. An entire marketing team can be as big or as small as needed, and marketer roles can vary. For example, a Content Marketing Manager at one company might handle everything from blogs to social media, while at another, those tasks could be split between a Copywriter and a Social Media Manager.

The key is figuring out what your business needs most and choosing between generalists who can do a bit of everything and specialists who are experts in one area. Here’s how to decide:

Generalist Model

Ideal for: small businesses and startups with limited resources or budgets

Building a marketing team from scratch often starts with hiring one or more marketing generalists skilled at handling various tasks. For instance, if you mainly want to establish a strong online presence and run basic campaigns, you can start with a digital marketing manager who can handle both SEO and social media marketing.

These marketing unicorns can wear multiple hats, so with the right talent, you can hit multiple birds with one stone.

Hire generalists when:

• You need flexibility and versatility.
• Your marketing campaigns are broad, but not overly complex.
• You want to encourage cross-functional collaboration.

Pro Tip: Hiring marketing generalists can be cost-effective, but it’s easy to risk burnout and high turnover if they’re overloaded with too many responsibilities. To avoid this, set clear priorities, provide support, and consider bringing in specialists as your needs grow.

Learn more: Tips for Retaining Top Talent

Specialist Model

Ideal for: growing businesses with complex or technical marketing needs

As your business grows, you may need specialists with deep expertise in specific areas. These professionals bring deep expertise in specific areas, which can be necessary when scaling your business or looking to dominate your local market.

Hiring unicorns with advanced technical skills is often the way to go if you plan to run a high-stakes or complex digital marketing strategy—say, if you want to overhaul your website or use different marketing channels.

Hire specialists when:

• you require deep expertise in a particular area (e.g., SEO, paid ads, or analytics);
• your campaigns are highly technical or data-driven; and
• you’re scaling your team and need to fill niche roles.

Pro Tip: While specialists excel in their areas, they’re not always versatile. To get the best of both worlds, consider pairing them with generalists in a hybrid model. This way, you get deep expertise and the flexibility to adapt to changing needs. Plus, you can hire contractors first if you’re not up for full-time commitments yet!

How to Structure a Digital Marketing Team

Understanding the type of marketers you need is just one part of building a marketing team from scratch. Next is learning how to structure and build a modern digital marketing team in a way that maximizes efficiency, collaboration, and results. Here are three common ways to structure your team:

By Function

When your digital marketing strategy covers multiple channels, creating a digital marketing structure based on function ensures each area gets the attention it needs. Here, you divide the team based on their areas of expertise, allowing for:

• clear lines of responsibility and accountability
• specialized expertise and deeper knowledge within each area
• efficient use of resources and streamlined workflows
• easier performance measurement

By Customer Stage

Structuring a digital marketing team can also depend on the customer journey. This approach aligns your marketing efforts with your sales funnel, ensuring a tailored and effective experience. It focuses more on delivering a cohesive customer experience and less on rigid departmental divisions.

Building an in-house marketing team this way helps your digital marketing efforts work more efficiently on every stage of the customer journey, from the moment they first hear about your brand to the point they make a purchase—and beyond. It allows you to hit the right notes at the right time, delivering the right message to the right audience at every step.

See the table below for an example of how this could look:

By Audience Segment

If your marketing strategy is divided according to different target audiences or market segments, the best approach is to let your team structure mirror this segmentation. This way, you can create highly tailored messaging and campaigns for each distinct customer group—a must for businesses with diverse markets or multiple product lines.

You can create the same structure for each segment or pick and choose roles based on the specific needs of each audience (hint: Gen Zs love TikTok and Instagram, while B2B clients might prefer LinkedIn and email campaigns). Implement strong brand governance to maintain consistency across teams.

Image Source: Shutterstock

Tips for Building a Marketing Team from Scratch

Building a marketing team from scratch is a huge undertaking, no matter how small your team is. So how do successful companies tackle this challenge? Here are some practical tips to help you assemble a high-performing team:

• Always align your hiring decisions with your business objectives. Before hiring, define your business goals and the skills needed to identify what roles to fill. For instance, a gap in your search engine optimization could reflect a need for an SEO team.
• Only bring in the people you need for growth. If you’re working on a limited scale and budget, start with a few generalists, then gradually add specialists as your marketing efforts grow in scale or complexity.
• Prioritize cultural alignment. Look for candidates who align with your company’s values and culture. Remember, skills matter, but so do personality and culture-fit.
• Invest in tools and training. Equip your team with the right tools (e.g., CRM, analytics platforms) and provide ongoing training to keep their skills sharp and up-to-date.
• Diversity is your best friend when recruiting talent. Hire people with different backgrounds, skills, and experiences to drive creativity and problem-solving.
• Set clear expectations for maximum efficiency. Define roles, responsibilities, and performance metrics upfront so you can accurately gauge how well your team works together. Start with a crystal-clear job description!
• Hire for potential. If you plan to grow your business, hire people who can grow with you. Look for people who are adaptable and eager to rise to new roles as your needs evolve.

Build Your Dream Marketing Team with Ad Culture

The difference between a good marketing team and a great one? The right people. Every hire matters when building a marketing team from scratch.

Ad Culture helps transform your marketing capabilities with the right people in the right roles. As a specialized marketing recruitment agency and industry insiders, we understand what makes exceptional marketing professionals stand out—because we’ve been in their shoes. We speak SEO, content strategy, paid media, and analytics, allowing us to evaluate candidates with precision that general recruiters simply can’t match.

We take the time to understand your unique business needs, culture, and goals before connecting you with pre-vetted marketing talent. So, skip the learning curve and let us handle the search while you focus on what you do best—running your business.

Contact us today to start building your dream team!