---
title: "Ad Specialist vs. DIY – Ad Specialist"
description: "Run influencer marketing yourself or use an agency? Explore the real cost of DIY, when it is enough and when experience from over 20,000 campaigns matters."
canonical: https://www.adspecialist.de/en/vergleich/selbermachen/
---

# Ad Specialist vs. DIY – Ad Specialist

> Run influencer marketing yourself or use an agency? Explore the real cost of DIY, when it is enough and when experience from over 20,000 campaigns matters.

Kanonische URL: https://www.adspecialist.de/en/vergleich/selbermachen/

## Ad Specialist vs. DIY

A tool, a few creators, discount codes: DIY is easy to start. The learning curve costs more, because every mistake in selection, briefing or price hits your budget. See when DIY is enough and when experience from over 20,000 campaigns matters.

## The comparison at a glance

Three ways to build influencer marketing. None is always right, and each has a cost.

## What DIY really costs

- The invoice shows creator fees and perhaps a tool licence. It doesn't show the hours spent scouting, contacting, contracting, shipping, briefing and tracking. If one part fails, an entire campaign can deliver no return.
- The bigger cost is learning. Every channel needs that phase, and without experience it takes longer. What should a placement cost? What CAC is realistic? Without benchmarks, intuition decides and results are hard to repeat.
- Then there's measurement. Codes and links in a spreadsheet rarely show a creator's full contribution. Someone watching a video and ordering days later is rarely credited to the creator in last-click attribution. The channel can lose internal budget even when it works.

## When DIY is enough

- If you want to explore the channel, have a small budget and someone with the time and enthusiasm, DIY is a good start. A few collaborations show how creators work and how your audience responds.
- To learn faster, explore our freely available knowledge: the 192-page Performance Influencer Playbook under [Playbooks](/en/playbooks/) and the Creator Learning Suite under [Courses](/en/kurse/), which we use to train our own team.
- Once creators need to become a predictable acquisition channel, competing for budget with Meta and Google, you need a system. That's when a conversation is worthwhile.

## The results

- **Duschbrocken: 3,877 new customers through YouTube**: New-customer costs fell from €38 to €25, generating around 20% of the brand's new customers.
- **BlueBrixx: €156,000 in revenue from one placement**: One creator, €7,800 invested, and 1,575 conversions at a €5 CAC after one month.
- **MagicHolz: over 4,000 conversions from one placement**: An outdoor format in the middle of Q4, new-customer costs below €10 and a reach of two million.

## Your questions answered

- **Can we test it ourselves and come to you later?**: Yes, and your past campaigns will be valuable. During onboarding, we review the creators, platforms and verticals you've already tested. Those findings feed directly into the potential analysis.
- **What budget makes working together worthwhile?**: There is no universal figure; we assess every case individually. A typical starting point is €5,000–€10,000 in monthly creator spend plus our retainer. We assess the potential before any budget goes to creators.
- **How soon will we see results?**: After four weeks, you receive the potential analysis: response rates, suitable verticals and a budget recommendation. The testing roadmap typically identifies the first top performers within three months. From month four, we scale what works.
- **What do you need from us?**: We need your target KPIs, store and tracking access, products for creators and a dedicated approval contact. We handle scouting, negotiation, briefing, booking and reporting.
- **What if the potential assessment is negative?**: We stop there. You receive the findings — response rates, verticals and audiences — and an honest recommendation, even if it is not to build the channel yet. No retainer, no commitment.

## Want to see what creators could do for you?