Marketing agencies in Philadelphia: 775 offices across four states, by county and type

Written for companies in the Philadelphia region choosing an agency, and for vendors whose customers are agencies. The figures cover the whole metro, which takes in South Jersey, northern Delaware and Cecil County, Maryland, because that is where the region's agencies are.

Philadelphia's agencies by the numbers

US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metro Area (CBSA 37980), NAICS 5418 (advertising, public relations and related services):

By size, 514 offices have one to four employees, 103 have five to nine, 63 have 10 to 19, 59 have 20 to 49, 14 have 50 to 99, 19 have 100 to 249 and 3 have 250 to 499. The Census Bureau doesn't publish the 500-or-more classes here, but the published cells already add up to all 775 offices, so none has 500 or more employees. In bands: 680 offices under 20 people, 73 with 20 to 99 and 22 with 100 or more.

Where the offices are

Employees per office is our calculation. These eight counties hold 755 of the 775 offices. The city has the largest offices on average, but the four suburban Pennsylvania counties together have 381 offices and 4,037 jobs, well over twice the city's count of offices.

Limits. CBP counts establishments with paid employees in March 2023: a firm with a Center City office and a King of Prussia office counts twice, and freelancers without payroll are left out. The codes are NAICS 2017; marketing consultancies (541613), with 945 offices in the metro, are a separate industry.

What kind of agency, and its code

The six-digit codes below come from the same Census file and add up to the 775 offices. The descriptions paraphrase the Census Bureau's definitions.

"Not reported" means the Census Bureau published the figure but flagged it as high-noise: the noise it adds to protect confidentiality moved the value by 5% or more.

Three related industries sit outside 5418 and often compete for the same work: 945 marketing consulting offices (541613) employing 7,465 people, 290 graphic design studios (541430), and 139 market research and polling offices (541910) with 2,500 employees. Performance agencies, the paid search and paid social specialists, usually file as advertising agencies (the Census index lists digital and online advertising agencies under 541810), while custom SEO and web builds are indexed under 541511, custom computer programming.

What the payroll figures say about price

Agencies here don't publish rates, but the Census payroll shows what their people cost, which sets a floor under any fee. Average pay per employee, our calculation from the same file:

Omnicom's 2025 10-K lists the ways agency contracts are priced: an agreed fee or rate per hour of staff time, commissions on the client's media spend, incentives tied to results, and reimbursement of third-party costs. Ask which of these a proposal uses, and get any media commission or markup stated as a number. Federal schedule contracts are the one place agencies publish hourly ceilings; GSA's CALC+ data lists them by labor category.

If you market a drug, device or health service

Many drug and device makers operate in the region (see pharmaceutical companies in Philadelphia), and prescription drug promotion is regulated. FDA's Office of Prescription Drug Promotion reviews prescription drug advertising and promotional labeling so that it is "truthful, balanced, and accurately communicated," comments on draft materials sponsors send it, and issues letters over misleading promotion. An agency that hasn't worked inside that system will cost you review cycles. Ask how it builds fair balance into a concept, how many rounds of medical, legal and regulatory review it plans for, and to see work that went through that review.

Red flags, and what to get in writing

Google's own guide for advertisers working with agencies lists warning signs: not sharing the cost and performance of campaigns, guaranteeing ad placement or a specific position, claiming that Google ads will lift your organic ranking, deceptive pricing, and pressure to sign. Beyond those, agree five things before any money moves:

1. Accounts in your name. Google says the agency "must set up a separate Ads account for you," and must give you the customer ID on request. Apply the same rule to Meta, LinkedIn and your analytics.
2. Fees you can see. Google requires a separate management fee to be disclosed in writing before the first purchase and shown on every invoice.
3. Reports at account level. At minimum, clicks, impressions and total cost for each Google account.
4. The work assigned to you. Under the Copyright Act a commissioned logo or campaign isn't a work made for hire unless it fits one of nine categories and both sides sign; get a written copyright assignment instead.
5. References from the right state. Check the entity where it's registered: the Pennsylvania Department of State, New Jersey's business name search or Delaware's Division of Corporations. An agency with a Philadelphia office may be incorporated in Delaware, so search the state of formation, not just the office address.

Selling to Philadelphia agencies

The region's 73 offices with 20 to 99 employees are the easiest buyers for most tools: big enough to have an operations or department lead, small enough that a partner still signs quickly. The 22 offices with 100 or more people buy through operations and finance, often inside a network's approved list. Two segments are distinctive here: 50 direct mail offices with 625 employees, which buy data, print and postage services, and 16 media buying offices whose people earn the highest average pay of any agency type in the region.

Illustrative example. The vendor, price and reply rate are invented.

Delmarva Lists (delmarva.example) sells verified business mailing data to direct mail and full-service agencies at about $6,000 a year. It starts with the 50 direct mail offices and the 59 agency offices with 20 to 49 employees: 109 accounts. Its research finds an agency that just announced a regional bank as a client, which means branch-area mailings. If an illustrative one in ten agrees to a call, that's 11 conversations a quarter. How to build a prospect list covers the method.

Hi [first name], it's [your name] from [company]. I saw [agency] picked up [client] last month. Banks usually start with branch-area mail in the first quarter, and the list is the part that goes wrong: closed businesses, wrong addresses, duplicates.

We supply [what you sell, e.g. business mailing data checked against state registries] and [proof, e.g. replace any undeliverable record].

Is the list for [client] being built in-house, or is that still open?

Local and regional sources

No SEC-registered company in the advertising codes (SIC 7310 to 7319) lists a business address in the metro, so there are no local public agency groups to profile.

Next step: compare Philadelphia's offices with the national holding companies in the largest advertising agencies and how to build a list.