Digital marketing is fast-paced, data-driven, and essential for growth. But behind the creative work lies a web of projects, platforms, and client expectations… all of which need to be tracked and managed financially. For digital marketing agencies in Singapore, staying profitable means more than winning campaigns. It requires visibility into project budgets, control over recurring expenses, and seamless approval processes.
Digital marketing services cover a wide range of strategies used to grow a brand online. Most agencies offer a mix of:
Agencies may also offer branding, analytics, and creative production services often in partnership with creative studios or internal content teams.
Hiring a full-service agency offers more than just execution. It gives businesses access to specialist knowledge, premium tools, and the ability to scale campaigns without increasing headcount.
Key advantages include:
It’s also common for agencies to manage clients’ full marketing budgets - including ad spend, production, and software licenses - making financial transparency and tracking critical to maintaining trust.
While clients see the polished campaigns and creative output, the behind-the-scenes reality of running a digital marketing agency is often far more complex—especially when it comes to managing finances across multiple campaigns, platforms, and clients.
Most digital marketing engagements are not retainer-based. Instead, they’re scoped around specific deliverables - such as a three-month PPC campaign, a website redesign, or a one-off influencer partnership. These are often billed per milestone or completed task.
The challenge? Without accurate time tracking and cost attribution, agencies struggle to understand actual margins. Staff may spend more hours than estimated, tools may exceed budget, or revisions may stretch the timeline yet the invoice amount stays fixed. If finance can’t reconcile time, cost, and revenue per project, profitability slips away unnoticed.
No two clients are the same. Each comes with its own budget caps, payment terms, contract timelines, and sometimes specific rules about how funds can be spent. Add overlapping campaigns and various internal teams managing them, and you’ve got a real visibility problem.
Finance teams must track spend per client in real time, while also ensuring compliance with the client’s scope of work. When campaigns exceed budget or services go out of scope without internal controls, agencies risk underbilling or worse, damaging client trust.
From SEO platforms and ad analytics dashboards to design software and content schedulers, most agencies rely on a stack of SaaS tools to operate efficiently. But without a central system to monitor these subscriptions, finance teams often discover:
Without proactive spend visibility, tool bloat becomes a hidden drain on profitability.
Despite being tech-savvy, many agencies still manage finance approvals through email chains, shared inboxes, or Slack threads. Vendor invoices, freelancer fees, and campaign ad spends often float through multiple channels before getting signed off if they’re approved at all.
This creates delays, miscommunication, and lack of documentation for audits or client reporting. When finance teams are left chasing down receipts, clarifying invoice details, or retroactively categorising expenses, admin time goes up and accuracy goes down.
To overcome these hurdles, agencies need more than creative tools. They need systems that connect campaign execution with financial accountability ensuring project success doesn’t come at the cost of profitability.
Summit’s spend management platform gives agencies the tools to automate approvals, track spend by project or client, and gain the real-time insights needed to grow with confidence.
Agencies thrive on the right mix of creative and operational tools. While campaign and project delivery tools are essential, finance software often lags behind. Here’s what every growing agency needs:
These tools reduce manual work, improve visibility, and make it easier to scale without compromising financial accuracy. Learn more about managing agency costs in our article on the benefits of expense management for service businesses.
Summit gives marketing agencies the financial control they need to grow confidently. You can:
Our platform integrates easily with your existing tools, helping your team stay creative while the finance side runs smoothly in the background.
Ready to simplify your finance workflows and scale your agency with confidence? Talk to us today to see how Summit supports modern digital marketing businesses.