Marketing agency vs PR agency.
Earned or owned?
A PR agency gets other people to talk about you: journalists, podcasts, industry outlets. A marketing agency builds channels you control and pay for: your website, your search rankings, your ads, your email list. Knowing the difference between earned, owned, and paid media is the key to picking the right one.
At a glance
The short version.
SearchPod
A marketing agency works in channels you own or pay for. That means your website, your Google rankings, your search ads, and your email list. Each channel is measured, and each one can be turned up or down. SearchPod is one of these: Google Ads management costs a tenth of your spend, SEO pages cost $50 apiece, there is no setup charge, and you can stop any month.
PR agency
A PR agency works in earned media. The team builds a media list, pitches stories to reporters and editors, writes press releases, preps your founders for interviews, and handles a crisis when one hits. Tools of the trade include press releases sent over a wire service, embargoed briefings before a launch, and a media kit reporters can pull from. Most PR firms bill a monthly retainer. Coverage can never be promised, because the outlet, not the agency, decides what runs.
Comparison
Feature by feature.
| Feature | SearchPod | PR agency |
|---|---|---|
| Channel type | Owned and paid: site, SEO, ads, email | Earned: press, podcasts, industry outlets |
| Can guarantee output | Yes: pages, ads, and campaigns go live on schedule | No: coverage is up to the journalist |
| Measured by | Leads, cost per lead, revenue | Placements, reach, share of voice, sentiment |
| Speed to results | Ads can run within days | Stories take weeks to months to land |
| Handles a crisis | No | Yes |
| Runs paid search | Yes | No |
| Helps SEO | Directly: pages, technical work, content | Indirectly: links from coverage help rankings |
| Pricing | Posted rates: 10% Google Ads fee, SEO at $50 a page | Monthly retainer; scope varies by firm |
Why it matters
The bottom line.
You control the volume
Earned media is powerful, but you cannot dial it up on demand. With owned and paid channels, you can. Raise the Google Ads budget in a busy month, add ten SEO pages the next, and pause a campaign in a slow week. A marketing agency gives you those controls, and the report shows what each change did.
Every dollar is tracked to a lead
A press mention is hard to trace to a sale. A search ad is not. Call tracking, form tracking, and conversion data show what each click cost and what it produced. That is why a marketing agency can report cost per lead while a PR agency reports impressions.
Results that keep paying
A news story has a short life. A page that ranks for 'commercial roofing contractor' keeps bringing calls for months or years. SEO work builds an asset on your own site. PR builds attention on someone else's.
One partner from click to customer
The marketing agency owns the full path: the ad, the landing page, the form, and the follow-up email. When one piece is weak, the same team fixes it. PR ends when the article is published; what happens on your website after that is not the PR firm's job.
Common questions, answered.
Choose PR when trust and reputation are the goal. Announcing funding, launching a product that reporters will care about, building a founder's profile, entering a regulated field where ads are limited, or facing bad news that needs a calm response are all PR jobs. Regulated fields such as pharmaceuticals, cannabis, and some financial products face ad limits, which makes earned coverage worth more there. Search ads cannot earn you a feature in a trade magazine.
Yes, indirectly. When a real outlet links to your site, that link helps your rankings. Good PR also gets your brand name searched more often, which helps too. But PR alone will not fix a slow site, missing pages, or bad structure. A marketing agency handles that side.
Often that is the best setup for a growing company. PR builds the reputation and the links; marketing turns the attention into leads through search and a strong website. Keep the two teams sharing one calendar so a press push lands when the pages are ready.
PR firms mostly bill a monthly retainer based on scope and the size of the team on your account. Some do project work for a launch. SearchPod's rates are on its pricing page: a tenth of your Google Ads budget (never below $600 a month), $50 for each SEO page starting at ten pages, and websites priced once from $1,500.
Go with marketing. PR takes time and depends on outside decisions. A search campaign can be live in days and reach people already looking for what you sell. Once the lead flow is steady, PR can add a layer of trust on top.
Comparisons are based on publicly available information and our honest read of it, last reviewed July 2026. Competitors change — if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it fast.