From Freelancer to Digital Marketing Agency in Thailand: What’s Different?

Transitioning from a digital marketing freelancer to running your own agency is a significant step with many differences. For any freelancer out there who feels ready toregister a company, what can you expect to face?

Having been a freelancer for many years before establishing my own company less than two years ago, I’ve compiled the key differences you’ll encounter when moving from a solo freelancer to operating a corporate Digital Marketing agency.

Controlling Work Quality and Managing Freelancers to Maintain Standards

As a freelancer, you alone create and control all work standards. Everything comes from you. However, when managing a company, even if you’re still the primary person working, you’ll inevitably collaborate with freelancers or, in some cases, hire full-time staff.

Therefore, the quality of work no longer rests on you alone.

What’s required is a more rigorous control of quality to meet your established standards. If quality drops, you need to speak with the freelancer and provide feedback to get the work to meet expectations. If it truly doesn’t work out, you may need to find other freelancers, all while balancing cost. This isn’t just about standards, but also about time—delivering work punctually is just as crucial.

Managing Finances: P&L, Taxes, and Cash Flow are Key to Survival

Money is a major issue; it’s the key to your business’s survival and must be monitored closely.

First, look at revenue. Is it consistent? If not, what can you do to keep clients retained? (For my business, the monthly retainer model for ad management and advertising provides stability. This is different from creative, project-based work like artwork or videos, where clients often disappear after a single project).

Once you have revenue, you must review expenses to ensure they are reasonable. For example, if you hire a freelancer, what is their cost versus the project’s value? Revenue must, of course, exceed expenses. Other costs, such as ad spend, software fees, or necessary office supplies, must be strictly business-related. Never mix personal expenses into the company’s books; this ensures your Profit & Loss (P&L) statement reflects the true financial picture and makes your business easier to analyze.

Next up is taxes. It’s essential to choose a professional accounting firm that is responsive, transparent, and timely. You also need to learn the basics yourself—VAT (Value Added Tax), Withholding Tax, Corporate Income Tax, and forms like P.P. 30 and P.P. 36, which are common for a Digital Agency in Thailand. A basic understanding ensures you are on the same page as your accountant.

Finally, even with good revenue and controlled expenses, never forget cash flow. Cash flow is what keeps your business running without interruption. In the agency business, many of us face the challenge of paying for client ad spend upfront and then billing the client later. This credit period can cause a serious cash crunch, especially with high ad budgets or slow-paying clients. The same can happen with freelancers if you need to pay a deposit to start work.

To solve this, try reducing credit terms for some clients, ensure you are billing on time, or try to stagger client payment dates (e.g., Client 1 pays early-month, Client 2 mid-month, Client 3 end-month) so you have cash flowing in throughout the month. For freelancers, try to arrange payment after work is received. This all helps to protect your cash flow from drying up.

Balancing New Client Acquisition and Old Client Retention

You must manage both acquiring new clients and taking care of old ones simultaneously.

Don’t get so busy with existing clients that you forget to find new ones, and don’t get so focused on new business that you neglect your current clients. Both are equally important. For your long-term clients, don’t take them for granted. Maintain consistent, high-quality work and remember that their business is always changing. You can propose new tools or services that fit their needs, allowing you to grow “vertically” and increase revenue from your existing client base.

New clients, however, represent “horizontal” growth and should not be overlooked. They are a sign of a growing business. Of course, acquiring new clients is significantly harder and more expensive than retaining old ones. This also ties into the next topic: doing your own marketing. Furthermore, new clients help you expand your expertise into new industries, making you more specialized across various fields.

For my own agency, we take on relatively few new clients (only two this year) because our time and resources are limited. We still have almost all of our old clients. While it’s always unfortunate when some don’t continue, balancing this with new acquisitions keeps our revenue stable.

Don’t Forget to Make Time for Your Own Digital Marketing

This is something I’ve noticed many new agency owners do: they give 100% of their time to their clients. They are extremely dedicated to client work, wanting the best performance possible, which is great. But they forget their own agency.

Suddenly, their own website hasn’t been updated, no new content has been published for months, or their own ad campaigns are on “set it and forget it,” only checked occasionally.

The best solution is to treat your own agency as a client. It needs a plan, a monthly budget, a set amount of content to be published, and performance reports. You need to measure your own results to know if your agency’s marketing is working, how many leads you’re getting, and what needs to be optimized. Don’t forget, your own business needs to move forward, too.

Conclusion: A Digital Marketing Agency Requires Big Adjustments from Freelancing

Everything I’ve mentioned comes from my own real-world experience. When I first started the company, I faced many obstacles and had a steep learning curve, especially regarding taxes, financial management, people management, and client relations.

It’s certainly a big adjustment and very different from the freelancer life. If anyone else running their own agency has other insights or lessons learned, feel free to share them as well.

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Originally in Thai. Translated to English with the help of Gemini.