Product Marketing Agency vs. Consultancy: Why the Embedded Model Wins in the AI Era
WRITTEN By Fluvio Founder & Managing Partner, Devon O’Rourke
For most of the 20th century, companies seeking outside expertise had two distinct options: hire an agency for execution or a consulting firm for strategic problem-solving. Agencies like Ogilvy and Saatchi & Saatchi built reputations on campaigns, brand storytelling, and efficient delivery. Consulting firms such as McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group became trusted advisors by embedding senior strategists inside client organizations to solve complex, cross-functional challenges.
In product marketing, these models evolved in parallel as the ecosystem developed over the past decade:
Agencies focused on outputs. Consultancies focused on outcomes.
That distinction remains critical today, especially in an environment reshaped by AI and a flood of independent, fractional talent.
The Agency Model
Product marketing agencies are designed for speed and efficiency. This reflects the traditional agency model, built by large holding companies to prioritize scale and flexible talent networks over integration. They maintain broad contractor networks that allow them to flex up and down, and quickly plug in available talent to execute projects across a broad client base. For tactical projects, this model works.
However, agencies remain structurally limited. They are reactive to scopes of work, often rely on rotating contractors whose knowledge of the client resets with each engagement, and operate at a distance from day-to-day decision-making. The result is execution without deep integration or long-term accountability.
I experienced the agency model drawbacks firsthand during my time at Publicis, one of the world’s largest agency holding companies. Agencies like Publicis had become middlemen in the marketing ecosystem. Much of the value was tied to bundled pricing models connected to large media deals, not to the quality of strategic insight. Clients rarely knew who was doing the work behind the scenes. Too often, agencies were brokers of talent and pricing, rather than true partners in transformation. That recognition was a key driver in my conviction that the traditional agency model was broken, particularly for product marketing where integration, alignment, and context are critical.
The Consulting Model
Consulting firms operate differently. While traditional strategy consulting has long been valued for its analysis and recommendations, modern embedded consultancies go further: they don’t stop at the PowerPoint. Their foundation is embedded engagement—working alongside client teams, participating in execution and decision-making, and accepting accountability for outcomes rather than deliverables alone.
Modern product marketing consultancies extend this tradition. They act as “second-party” partners, not detached vendors. They deploy only senior, full-time consultants who have led product marketing functions themselves. They apply proprietary frameworks refined across dozens of engagements. And because the firm itself provides continuity and oversight, quality is maintained and institutional knowledge is preserved.
This model is built to produce not just assets, but alignment, clarity, and durable go-to-market capability.
The Rise of Fractional Talent
The choice between agencies and consultancies is complicated today by the abundance of fractional product marketers and independent contractors. Marketplaces and networks make it easy to find individuals quickly, but that abundance brings challenges. Quality varies widely, continuity is fragile, and integration into the client organization is limited. Beyond formal marketplaces, the sheer volume of independent consultants and small partnerships has created noise. Anyone can call themselves a consultant, but expertise and impact are far harder to quantify before engagement.
For executives, this makes it increasingly difficult to separate credible talent from unproven operators, and harder still to guarantee consistent, strategic, and sustained impact.
Consulting Firms as Platforms
A consulting firm is not simply a collection of individuals. It is a platform. Clients benefit not only from the expertise of the consultant assigned to them but also from the firm’s collective knowledge, proven frameworks, and governance.
In the AI era, the platform advantage expands. Consulting firms can embed their institutional knowledge, proven frameworks, and proprietary IP into AI tools, giving clients both the speed of automation and the reliability of expertise. At Fluvio, for example, we have developed CustomGPT models trained on our proprietary go-to-market methodologies, research processes, and enablement frameworks. These tools accelerate delivery and maintain consistency while allowing consultants to focus on high-value strategic work. Clients gain the best of both: AI-enabled speed combined with human judgment and white-glove service.
Why Human Judgment is Rising in Value
AI can generate copy, summarize research, and even draft positioning. What it cannot do is define the right problem, build trust across product, marketing, and sales, or lead organizational change.
As AI makes execution more accessible, the premium on human expertise increases. Senior consultants embedded within organizations are uniquely capable of aligning stakeholders, guiding strategy, and ensuring adoption.
Evidence of Impact
Independent data reinforces the value of embedded consulting models:
A Harvard Business Review study found that companies using an embedded consulting approach reported a 25% higher project success rate than those using traditional, detached consulting. The deeper integration facilitated faster adoption and more durable results.
Deloitte research showed that 78% of companies working with embedded consultants saw measurable improvements in employee engagement and collaboration. The reason was clear: embedded consultants build trust and alignment inside organizations at levels external agencies rarely achieve.
These findings mirror our own client results. In 2025, a UserEvidence survey of Fluvio clients revealed that:
100% achieved ROI within 12 months, with an average payback of 4.75 months.
Team output increased by 34.3%.
Revenue growth improved by an average of 11.5%.
Together, this third-party research and our client data point to the same conclusion: embedded consulting is not just a different model, it is a more effective one.
Why This Matters Now
The agency model will always have its place. For campaigns that need quick execution or assets produced to a brief, agencies can deliver efficiently. But for leaders navigating today’s business environment, efficiency alone is not enough.
Markets are more competitive, buyers are more discerning, and AI is reshaping the way teams operate. At the same time, the proliferation of fractional and freelance talent has created an abundance of choice but also increased risks, including uneven quality, fragile continuity, and limited alignment. In this context, organizations need more than outputs. They need outcomes that endure.
This is why the consultancy model is increasingly indispensable. An embedded consultancy does not just deliver deliverables, embedding expertise, driving alignment, and ensuring strategies take root across the organization. It brings the stability of a platform, the accountability of senior operators, and the leverage of firm-owned IP and tools that accelerate execution without sacrificing quality.
For executives, the distinction could not be clearer. Agencies deliver projects. Consultancies deliver lasting change. And in a world defined by rapid shifts, AI acceleration, and high-stakes competition, it is the lasting change that creates a true competitive advantage.