San Francisco is home to some of the most innovative and successful companies in history. Whether Apple, Facebook, or Google, all of these companies had their humble beginnings in Silicon Valley. At this point, San Francisco has practically become hallowed ground. If you are trying to change the world with a fresh, transcending business, it only makes sense to come to this place to start your business. Every day, more and more companies are coming to San Francisco to pursue their ambitious dreams and launch the next big business. Since innovation and startup culture are prevalent, it is also the perfect opportunity for marketing agencies in San Francisco.
New companies are popping up every day, aiming for rapid growth. They rely on advertising and marketing agencies to help them understand branding, messaging, positioning, and more. All with the goal of getting in front of as many new customers and users as possible.
As you can imagine, this opportunity for advertising agencies has never been a secret, and at this point in time, there are thousands of marketing agencies in San Francisco. But much like the tech companies that are popping up in the Bay Area, there are only a few advertising agencies that stand out from the rest.
Top 29 Digital Marketing Agencies in San Francisco for 2023:
- NoGood
- Argonaut
- Edelman
- Mekanism
- Cutwater
- Duncan Channon
- PR Hacker
- BarretSF
- Goodby Silverstein & Partners
- Baker Street Advertising
- Venables Bell & Partners
- Pereira & O’Dell
- Gumas
- Cibo
- Colibri Digital Marketing
- MUH-TAY-ZIK HOF-FER
- Camp + King
- HUb
- MBE Group
- Media Cause
- Flickerbox
- Propane
- Michael Patrick Partners
- Jives Media
- BSTRO
- Division of Labor
- Moburst
- Bay Creative
- JStokes
1.NoGood
Description: NoGood is a group of highly skilled data analysts, performance marketers, and creative strategists. Their diverse team comes together from a variety of backgrounds and industries, which helps them provide unique insights to their clients. NoGood’s mantra as an advertising agency is to deliver marketing and business growth with no frills. They love to work with forward-thinking businesses and create customized solutions to provide the most value to their clients.
Year Founded: 2017
Team Size: 51-100 employees
Services: Performance Marketing, Growth Hacking, Marketing Analytics
Clients: Amazon, P&G, Nike
Case Studies:
2.Argonaut
Description: Argonaut is a full-service advertising agency that works with brands looking to revamp, revitalize and reimagine to create brand comebacks and succeed. Driven by curiosity, hope, and ambition, their agency values, they are committed to being the change. Their client portfolio includes some very successful brands such as Honey Bunches by Oats, Fitbit, and Volkswagen.
Year Founded: 2013
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Advertising, Branding, Social Media, Design
Clients: Dodge, Sephora, Nerdwallet
Case Studies:
3.Edelman
Description: Based in the heart of San Francisco, Edelman is home to more than 200 experts. To produce powerful, integrated campaigns that deliver real business results for iconic and emerging brands, they combine the best talent and techniques from public relations, marketing, advertising, digital, creative, and research. This advertising agency knows how to move consumers from indifference to action. Working from tech startups to Fortune 500 companies, it helps transform brand perceptions through earned-centric, social-by-design initiatives.
Year Founded: 1952
Team Size: 200+ employees
Services: Public Relations, Digital Communications, Social Media
Clients: Samsung, Unilever, Novartis
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4.Mekanism
Description: Mekanism is one of the few full-service marketing agencies in San Francisco that specializes in the art of storytelling. They work with brands to help them build strong loyalty and messaging. Although storytelling is at the core of their expertise, Mekanism incorporates a strategic mix into their work to help companies solve real business problems.
Year Founded: 2001
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing, Creative & Brand Strategy
Clients: Uber, Peloton, Coca-Cola
Case Studies:
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5.Cutwater
Description: Cutwater is an independent creative and media agency with offices in San Francisco and New York City. They are an experienced team and the creators of famous campaigns that move the needle. They believe in great storytelling, clients with something to prove, the power of creativity, and always have a client-centric mindset. Their success is the result of integrated marketing plans that focus on strategy, creative breakthroughs, and in-house media, allowing them to evaluate the right combination of brand and performance work based on client goals and KPIs.
Year Founded: 2007
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Brand Strategy, Search & Performance Marketing, Media Planning & Buying
Clients: Peet’s Coffee, Axos Bank, Unison
Case Studies:
6.Duncan Channon
Description: Duncan Channon is a top advertising agency with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, using digital and traditional methods to build a distinctive brand for its clients. As a four-time Ad Agency of the Year, they work with companies to discover their unique positioning and unlock their full potential. They help brands achieve their goals with the right strategy, brand identity, design, and more.
Year Founded: 1990
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Strategy, Media, Creative
Clients: Udemy, Rakuten, Grubhub
Case Studies:
7.PR Hacker
Description: PR Hacker is a startup agency specializing in marketing, experiential events, and brand strategy for public relations, video production, influencer marketing, and social media. It is located in the heart of the tech scene, in SoMa. They can deliver holistic marketing services for all types of businesses by working with a diverse network of professionals. Their growth-oriented and data-driven mindset will uncover marketing opportunities, design an effective marketing plan, and optimize your campaigns to reach your brand’s full potential.
Year Founded: 2013
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: PR & Media Relations, Social Media, Influencer Marketing
Clients: Natural Balance Pet Foods, Ambronite, CrowdMed
Case Studies:
8.BarretSF
Description: Founded in 2012, BarretSF is a San Francisco-based advertising agency that combines strategic thinking with creative design to deliver visual advertising to clients. They have been awarded “West Coast Small Agency of the Year” by Ad Age. They believe that thoughtful strategy and strong creative thinking wins every time, and they offer a range of creative productions for their clients that always have a tough shell to deal with the relentless adversity and competition of today’s marketing environment.
Year Founded: 2012
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Digital & Creative Services, Social Media, Graphic Design
Clients: Walmart, Chime, XFL
Case Studies:
9.Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Description: Goodby Silverstein & Partners is a full-service advertising agency with a broad range of expertise, including creative, design, brand strategy, research and analytics, communications/media strategy, and production. They are an innovative agency that takes a people-centric approach to everything they do. Their mission is to create experiences through “mass intimacy” that reach billions but only seem to appeal to one.
Year Founded: 1983
Services: Brand Strategy, Creative Development/Execution, Production
Clients: Cheetos, Adobe, BMW
Case Studies:
10.Baker Street Advertising
Description: Baker Street is a full-service integrated advertising, branding, and one of the top marketing agencies in San Francisco. It is the merger of an award-winning advertising agency and an innovative consumer research, data analytics, and brand management company. Named after the office address of Sherlock Holmes, they look rejoice in producing dramatic content focused on uncovering hidden truths that can unlock the potential of any brand.
Year Founded: 1982
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Advertising & Digital Content, Digital Media Strategy & Buying, Branding, Public Relations
Clients: Sun-Maid, Northern California Honda Dealers, San Francisco Giants
Case Studies:
11.Venables Bell & Partners
Description: Venables Bell & Partners is a world-renowned independent San Francisco advertising agency that taps into the social energy of its culture, people, and brands to create social native ideas at the speed of the newsfeed. With profitable growth every year, their challenger approach has drawn blue-chip brands like PlayStation, Blue Moon, Intel, and others to their roster. In addition to their full-service offering, they are home to VBP Orange, a customer experience consulting firm, and Lumberyard, a content production facility.
Year Founded: 2001
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Brand Strategy, Performance Marketing, Media Planning/Buying
Clients: Chipotle, REI, Sheraton
Case Studies:
12.Pereira O’Dell
Description: Pereira O’Dell is an agency that represents strong values. The agency thinks digitally and technologically forward, yet honors and celebrates old traditions of advertising. Their capabilities span a variety of services. What’s interesting about this agency is that they understand the balance needed between what the audience wants and business results.
Year Founded: 2008
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Marketing, Branding, Advertising
Clients: MINI, Adobe, Stella Artois
Case Studies:
13.Gumas
Description: Gumas is a full-service marketing agency specializing in integrated branding, advertising, and digital marketing. They have created many award-winning campaigns for brands and their unique Challenger Brand process helps businesses discover their true brand identity and positioning. All of their work is created to help clients grow their business.
Year Founded: 1984
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Challenger Brand Marketing, Integrated Media Strategies, Branding & Messaging Strategies
Clients: Varian Medical, Monaghan Medical, KeyPoint Credit Union
Case Studies:
14.Cibo
Description: At Cibo, they are pioneers in brand and customer experience. Since its inception, Cibo has developed innovative solutions for early-stage companies and startups. Their team of data analysts, developers, strategists, and designers believe in delivering the absolute best customer experience on the web. They want to execute work that makes customers happy.
Year Founded: 2010
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Digital Marketing, Branding, Web Platform Development
Clients: Salesforce, Subaru, Lenovo
Case Studies:
15.Colibri Digital Marketing
Description: Colibri Digital Marketing represents companies of all sizes. Designed to meet the digital marketing needs of visionary organizations, they are the first and only full-service digital marketing agency certified by B Corp. San Francisco. They are leaders in forward-thinking digital marketing, reflecting the ever-increasing need for business leadership that promotes and defends individuals, the planet, and profit. Through their emphasis on triple-bottom-line results, their forward-thinking and quality-driven use of digital marketing best practices, their goal is to meet the digital marketing needs of innovative brands and nonprofit organizations.
Year Founded: 2012
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Advertising, Analytics, Content Marketing
Clients: Ν/Α
Case Studies:
- A Bay Area Financial Services Company Transforms its Digital Marketing
- A Bay Area Educational Institution Increases Their Brand Reach
16.MUH-TAY-ZIK HOF-FER
Description: MUH-TAY-ZIK / HOF-FER is a San Francisco advertising agency. The uniqueness of the agency is not only in its name. The agency is driven by creativity, innovation, and inspiration. They aim to create exceptional work on behalf of their clients. Services include brand positioning, customer journey mapping, and much more.
Year Founded: 2010
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Viral Marketing, Digital Advertising, Social Media
Clients: Staples, AAA, Intel
Case Studies:
17.Camp + King
Description: This agency makes companies and brands they work with conversation-worthy. Their process starts with researching insights that inspire conversation-worthy ideas. Then they put together a strategy to help those ideas spread. Camp and King combine brand storytelling with expertise in digital, social, and content development. Their skills span advertising, branding, social, and content.
Year Founded: 2011
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Social Marketing, Creative, Strategic Messaging
Clients: Del Taco, UGG, Insurgent Brands
Case Studies:
18.HUb
Description: HUb currently has a team of over 20 people. The team is a vast network of senior creative specialists in all disciplines. The agency has strong strategic practices and wins many creative awards for its video content. The agency has worked for some notable clients including Oculus, Blue Cross, LinkedIn, and many more.
Year Founded: 2002
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Advertising, Media Buying, Branding
Clients: Oculus, Sephora, LinkedIn
Case Studies:
19.MBE Group
Description: Marx Buscemi Eisbrenner Group is a full-service marketing agency focused on the automotive, mobility, trucking, technology, and consumer products industries. MBE Group provides strategic marketing communications programs that help B2B and B2C clients increase sales, gain market share and grow their business. The experienced team works with clients to help them stay ahead of the competition and achieve their business goals.
Year Founded: 2019
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Crisis Communications, Digital Advertising, Web & Creative Design
Clients: Philips, Armorlite, Motors Liquidation Company
Case Studies:
20.Media Cause
Description: Media Cause is a mission-driven marketing agency that helps nonprofits. Their belief in helping nonprofits, philanthropists, advocates, and educators means their approach to marketing is a little different than other agencies. Media Cause measures success for their nonprofit clients based on specific milestones and outcomes, such as supporter engagement, actions taken, lives changed, etc.
Year Founded: 2010
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Social Media Strategy, Fundraising, SEM
Clients: Bay Area Discovery Museum, Children’s Discovery Museum, Futures Without Violence
Case Studies:
21.Flickerbox
Description: Flickerbox works with businesses to help them grow for the long term. Clients appreciate their work because the agency creates a fresh, engaging, and professional digital presence. Their team helps businesses create a strong connection between their brand and their customer base. They do this through good planning, thoughtful content, engaging visuals, smart development, and regular testing and iteration.
Year Founded: 1999
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Interactive Marketing, Design, Website Development
Clients: Okta, Nylas, Yahoo
Case Studies:
22.Propane
Description: Propane is a digital experience and platform agency. For each client, it can create a digital roadmap called “Digital Business Engine Platform” that includes the following 5 key solutions: Generate Interest, Create Distinction, Drive Conversion, Build Loyalty and Increase Efficiency. A fun fact about them is that they also worked on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) for Kaiser Permanente!
Year Founded: 2003
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Digital Strategy, Market Research, Brand Strategy
Clients: Clarisonic, San Francisco Symphony, McKesson
Case Studies:
23.Michael Patrick Partners
Description:
Michael Patrick Partners is a creative agency best known for developing the identity of E*TRADE. Their expertise includes brand development, brand strategy, design, and marketing campaigns used to differentiate at every stage of a company’s lifecycle. Their experience speaks from the over 500 creative industry awards they have received over the years.
Year Founded: 1980
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Brand Development, Digital Marketing, Website Design
Clients: Standford University, Apple, Visa
Case Studies:
24.Jives Media
Description: Jives Media is an award-winning agency consisting of acclaimed web designers, growth hackers, and brand strategists. They help organizations from startups to Fortune 500 companies achieve their business goals and serve a wide range of industries including tech, medical practices, law firms, government-related organizations, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, retailers, restaurants, and hair salons. They offer complete digital marketing services including web design, hosting, SEO, SEM, and social media management.
Year Founded: 2012
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Digital Marketing, Marketing Consulting, Website Design
Clients: Thumbtack, Gulf Living Group, AMHI
Case Studies:
25.BSTRO
Description: BSTRO is one of the leading marketing agencies in San Francisco, helping brands inspire action through powerful storytelling and innovative technology. From design and storytelling to technology and development, they help companies engage their customers in exciting ways. They have helped businesses in B2B, B2C, and non-profits exceed their goals. They can also help any national or international company, as the agency represents 12 different countries and speaks 18 languages.
Year Founded: 2004
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Marketing Audit, Content Marketing, Analytics & Reporting
Clients: Band-Aid, Splenda, Rogaine
Case Studies:
26.Division of Labor
Description: Division of Labor is an advertising agency in Sausalito, CA. Their team focuses on social media marketing and video production. They develop strategies and execute creative campaigns for clients of varying sizes in marketing, entertainment, and business services.
Year founded: 2010
Team Size: 1-10 employees
Services: Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Branding
Clients: SFMOMA, Kelly, Open Door
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27.Moburst
Description: Moburst is a mobile digital marketing agency that helps businesses become industry leaders. The company specializes in mobile and app marketing, advertising, and branding. Moburst specializes in Fortune 500 companies, but works with businesses of all sizes and industries.
Year founded: 2013
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Mobile marketing, App marketing, Viral marketing
Clients: Google, Pfizer, Samsung
Case Studies:
28.BayCreative
Description: BayCreative is a San Francisco agency, CA, that provides B2B marketing, branding, and creative services. They excel in all areas of design and media. The agency has three principles it abides by in order to execute great work for its clients. This includes collaboration, holistic perspective, and finally effectiveness.
Year Founded: 1997
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Marketing, Website Development, Training
Clients: Cisco, Motorolla, Intel
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29.JStokes
Description: JStokes is a strategic marketing agency based in San Fransisco, CA. Their highly experienced team offers a range of services from real estate development to advertising. The company provides practical solutions and actionable solutions that lead to true results.
Year Founded: 1978
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Integrated marketing communications, Digital Advertising, Advertising, Media
Clients: Subway, Bay Alarm, Lennar Multifamily
Case Studies:
San Francisco is certainly an important hub for all kinds of marketing agencies working with a number of different clients. Deciding to hire a marketing agency is easy, while the hard part is deciding which agency to hire. After reading this blog, we hope that we have given you an impetus to start looking for the perfect marketing agencies in San Francisco that will meet all of your company’s needs and goals.
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