How it is ordered. Each agency gets a "best for" label and agencies are grouped by that need. By the way, this is our list, and we've put ourselves first.
Criteria. Whether the agency states a focus on IT, MSP or technology buyers, which channels it runs and whether they run as one programme, what it measures, whether pricing is published, and named clients or results we could read on its own site.
Sources. Each agency's own website (services, pricing and case study pages), its LinkedIn company page and public client reviews. Where an agency does not publish something, the table says "not published"; that means we could not find it, not that it does not exist.
Kiin is a LinkedIn-led B2B paid media agency. Its entry uses the same format and has a tradeoff like everyone else. Nobody paid to be included.
Last checked: 3 November 2026. Spot something out of date? Email [email protected] and we will fix it.
The shortlist by need
- LinkedIn-led paid media run to pipeline: Impactable, Kiin
- MSP and channel marketing: Filament Digital, Opollo
- Integrated B2B programmes for long, complex sales cycles: Directive, Elevation, Ironpaper, Walker Sands
- Technical and industrial technology specialists: Konstruct Digital, OTReniX, TREW Marketing
- PR and analyst relations for technology sold into government: Merritt Group
"IT marketing agency" covers three different businesses. MSP and channel specialists market managed service providers and the vendors that sell through them. Technical content and PR firms win the engineer, the architect and the analyst who will pull your claims apart. Paid media and demand generation agencies run LinkedIn, Google and the rest to a pipeline number. An IT buying committee usually includes a technical evaluator, a business sponsor and someone in procurement or security, so most IT companies need more than one of these, and the useful decision is which one to hire first.
Comparison table
Facts only, no scores. Each row comes from the agency's own site or public profile.
| Agency | HQ / markets | Channels | Published pricing or minimum | Typical client | Standout proof |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kiin | London; UK, Europe, US | LinkedIn, Google, Meta, Reddit | $2,500 to $5,500/mo; about $5,000/mo ad spend | Sales-led B2B SaaS | Storysnap $3M+ influenced pipeline; Lumi AI CPL $455 to $176 |
| Directive | Irvine, CA; US | Paid media, content, programmatic, RevOps | Not published | Funded and public B2B | 100+ strategists; 420+ brands served |
| Elevation | US | Strategy, brand, creative, content, media | Not published | Mid-to-large B2B, long cycles | Not published |
| Filament Digital | Sydney and Fremantle | Content, ABM, SEO and GEO, SEM, Google, LinkedIn | Not published | B2B tech vendors, channel programmes, MSPs | Clients Veeam, GlobalSign, AUCloud, Probax |
| Impactable | US | LinkedIn core; search, programmatic | Not published | Cybersecurity, SaaS, financial services | $50M+ B2B ad spend managed; Lacework |
| Ironpaper | New York City | Demand gen, content, paid, sales enablement | Not published | B2B with long, complex sales cycles | Founded 2003; team of 70 |
| Konstruct Digital | Not published | SEO and GEO, PPC, LinkedIn, ABM, programmatic, web | Not published | Logistics, industrial, manufacturing | Proterial +147% non-branded clicks (organic) |
| Merritt Group | McLean, VA; Dallas | PR, analyst relations, SEO, paid, web | Not published | B2B and B2G technology | Case studies for Microsoft and Samsung |
| Opollo | San Francisco and Melbourne | SEO and AEO, paid media, Google, email, web | Not published | MSPs and cybersecurity firms | ThreatAdvice +1,115% lead generation |
| OTReniX | Wyoming (registered) | Demand gen, SEO, LinkedIn, Google, Bing, Meta | $5,000 to $25,000/mo indicated in FAQ | Cybersecurity, industrial, B2B SaaS | 2.4x pipeline in nine months (anonymised) |
| TREW Marketing | Not published | Content, brand, HubSpot, PR, ads, ABM | Not published | Companies selling to engineers | Clients Ansys, Silicon Labs, Panduit |
| Walker Sands | Not published | PR, content, paid, SEO, GEO, RevOps | Not published | Growth stage and enterprise B2B | Clients John Deere, Paylocity, Ensono |
The agencies, by what they are best for
Best for LinkedIn-led paid media run to pipeline
IT and technology companies whose buyers can be found by job title and company on LinkedIn, with search capturing existing demand.
Kiin
Best for LinkedIn-led paid media for sales-led B2B SaaS and technology companies selling to IT buyers
LinkedIn lets a campaign reach the IT director, the architect and the security lead at the same target accounts by job title, function and company list, while Google captures the search demand IT services already have. We judge it on landing page clicks and influenced pipeline by account in HubSpot or Salesforce, not on engagement rate.
Named results: Storysnap, $3M+ influenced pipeline and $1.28M closed won; Lumi AI, blended CPL from $455 to $176. All results: case studies. Service page: how Kiin runs LinkedIn Ads for B2B SaaS.
Tradeoff: we are a LinkedIn-led paid media agency for sales-led B2B SaaS, not an IT services or MSP specialist. If you sell through the MSP channel or need technical content for engineers, start with the specialists on this page.
Impactable
Best for LinkedIn Ads with paid search and programmatic attached
Impactable positions on "pipeline engineering", with LinkedIn as the hub and search and programmatic around it. It is deepest in cybersecurity, SaaS and financial services; Lacework and HeyReach are its published case studies.
Tradeoff: US based, with no published pricing, and outside its core verticals the advantage narrows.
Best for MSP and channel marketing
Managed service providers, and the vendors that sell through MSP and partner networks.
Filament Digital
Best for vendors marketing through the MSP channel as well as to it
Filament works both sides of the channel: marketing MSPs to their own buyers, and marketing vendors through partner networks. Named clients include Veeam, GlobalSign, AUCloud and Probax.
Tradeoff: Australian based, so time zones matter for US and European buyers, and no team size, tenure or quantified client results are published.
Opollo
Best for MSP and IT services growth with search and paid together
Opollo publishes a long list of named results, including a 1,115% lead generation improvement for ThreatAdvice, 24x lead ROI for Technology Solutions and 7.5x conversions for Intelliworx. Named clients also include AMD, Shartega IT, Essential Tech and Xello.
Tradeoff: the headline multiples are mostly organic rather than paid and come without baselines, so ask what each one was measured against; no team size or tenure is published.
Best for integrated B2B programmes for long, complex sales cycles
Mid-to-large technology companies that want strategy, content, media and measurement from one agency.
Directive
Best for LinkedIn Ads inside a large US B2B performance agency
Directive runs LinkedIn as part of a paid media programme alongside Google and programmatic, positioned on pipeline rather than MQLs. The fit is a funded or public B2B company that wants scale and process.
Tradeoff: scale cuts both ways; a small LinkedIn account will not get the agency's most senior people.
Elevation
Best for full-service B2B for mid-to-large companies with complex buying cycles
The offer runs from brand consolidation to ad campaigns and sales enablement, with testing plans behind each recommendation. Its own FAQ says the fit is a company whose pipeline is inconsistent, whose team is stretched thin, or whose messaging is not landing with senior buyers.
Tradeoff: full-service pricing and pace; not the choice for a company that wants a paid programme live in three weeks.
Ironpaper
Best for lead generation for long, complex B2B sales cycles
Ironpaper is built around the enterprise buying process rather than any one channel: research the buyer, educate before and during the sale, and hand qualified leads to sales with the context to work them. It suits a company with a six to eighteen month cycle.
Tradeoff: programme-led and content-heavy; a company wanting a lean LinkedIn media specialist will find it broad.
Walker Sands
Best for integrated B2B across PR, content, demand and RevOps
Named clients include John Deere, KUKA, Paylocity, Semrush, Ensono, e2open, Hub Group, Aspentech and commercetools. It publishes its own B2B Growth Maturity Assessment and a B2B AI Search Visibility Benchmark.
Tradeoff: breadth over channel depth: paid media is one capability among five practices, no client results with numbers are published, and the client list sets the expected engagement size.
Best for technical and industrial technology specialists
Technology companies whose buyer is an engineer, or who sell into industrial, logistics or security markets.
Konstruct Digital
Best for logistics and industrial B2B with search and LinkedIn under one roof
Konstruct aims at complex sales with multi-stakeholder buying groups. Named clients include Wabash, Crane, Regal Rexnord, Gates and Proterial Cable America, with published results of 147% more non-branded clicks for Proterial and 485% more organic visibility for AbeTech.
Tradeoff: the published results are organic rather than paid, and the sector list is long enough that no single vertical is the whole business.
OTReniX
Best for a three-sector specialist across cybersecurity, industrial and SaaS
OTReniX works in three sectors only: cybersecurity, industrial and manufacturing, and B2B SaaS. Published results include 2.4x pipeline in nine months on a cybersecurity engagement and +86% lead growth over 14 months on an industrial one.
Tradeoff: the clients behind the results are anonymised, and 15+ clients is a small base for a service list this long.
TREW Marketing
Best for content, SEO and brand for companies selling to engineers
TREW co-publishes the State of Marketing to Engineers report with GlobalSpec, so it argues from its own research. Named clients include Ansys, Silicon Labs, Panduit, IEEE, nVent SCHROFF and Knowles Precision Devices.
Tradeoff: content, brand and automation are the centre of the practice; digital advertising is on the list but is not what you hire them for.
Best for PR and analyst relations for technology sold into government
Security and infrastructure vendors where analyst and trade press relationships move procurement more than media buying does.
Merritt Group
Best for PR and analyst relations for technology sold into government
A Washington DC area firm built around the public sector, with named case studies for Microsoft and Samsung. If you sell security or infrastructure into federal buyers, this is the PR-led route.
Tradeoff: security is one of several verticals rather than a specialism, there are no published results with numbers, and PR is plainly the centre of gravity.
What it costs to reach IT and technology services buyers on LinkedIn
IT is the most engaged audience in our entire panel and the most internally inconsistent. Four of the facets below engage above 3.7%, roughly double the panel norm, and the spread between the cheapest and dearest click is nearly threefold across categories that describe much the same buyer.
| Targeting facet | CPM | Landing page CTR | Cost per landing page click | Engagement rate | Accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IT Services and IT Consulting | $31.96 | 0.15% | $18.01 | 2.11% | 121 |
| IT System Custom Software Development | $35.75 | 0.18% | $29.00 | 3.31% | 51 |
| Data Infrastructure and Analytics | $29.24 | 0.17% | $22.37 | 2.29% | 41 |
| Computer Networking Products | $26.56 | 0.05% | $17.23 | 1.78% | 26 |
| IT System Data Services | $35.78 | 0.26% | $18.37 | 3.88% | 23 |
| Information Services | $32.51 | 0.15% | $17.07 | 4.01% | 22 |
| IT System Training and Support | $29.95 | 0.09% | $49.06 | 4.44% | 20 |
- IT System Training and Support engages at 4.44% and costs $49.06 a click. That is the highest engagement rate and one of the highest click costs anywhere in our panel, caused by a 0.09% landing page click through rate. It is the clearest example in the whole dataset of an audience that reads everything and leaves the feed for nothing.
- Information Services engages at 4.01% at a $17.07 click, and IT System Data Services at 3.88% for $18.37. Those two are the efficient corner of this sector: high attention, normal traffic cost. If your buyer plausibly sits in either, test them before the default.
- IT Services and IT Consulting is the default and it is a compromise. 121 advertiser accounts, a $31.96 CPM and an $18.01 click, but only 2.11% engagement against the 3.7% to 4.4% of the narrower IT System facets. Broad reach, average attention.
- Computer Networking Products runs a 0.05% landing page CTR, the lowest of any facet we measure. A traffic campaign aimed at it does not work, however good the creative is. Budget it for reach and conversation, never for clicks.
Source: Kiin Intelligence, 1,000+ advertiser accounts, 22,942 campaigns and $65M+ of spend across 1.34 billion impressions in the twelve months to 7 September 2026. Medians across advertiser accounts, never pooled totals, LinkedIn Audience Network excluded. The industry is the campaign’s targeting facet, not the advertiser’s own industry. Full tables and method: LinkedIn Ads Benchmarks 2026.
What a lead costs in IT and technology services
An IT services content offer lead costs $83 against a $164 panel median, roughly half. We withhold the IT demo request figure because we do not hold enough IT lead campaigns to publish one honestly, and the nearest comparators in software and technology run at $459 and $386. Read that as the shape of the sector: IT buyers will take your content readily and commit to a call slowly, which is exactly what a 4% engagement rate and a 0.1% click rate already told you.
| Industry targeted | Content offer lead | Accounts | Demo request lead | Accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IT Services and IT Consulting | $83 | 22 | withheld | — |
| Software Development | $81 | 17 | $459 | 7 |
| Technology, Information and Internet | $102 | 21 | $386 | 13 |
| Panel median, all industries | $164 | 217 | $343 | 115 |
Cost per lead figures from Kiin Labs Report No. 3 (lead gen forms, 489 advertisers). Two rules follow from any version of this table. A content offer lead and a demo request lead are different products and putting them in one cost per lead column guarantees the cheaper one wins the budget. And a figure built on fewer than about ten advertiser accounts is a direction, not a number, which is why the account count sits next to every figure here and why some cells say withheld.
Which of these run LinkedIn, paid search and paid social as one programme
Search captures demand; social creates it. Run them as separate engagements and the cheaper cost per lead column wins the budget every quarter, which removes the demand that search was harvesting, and the decline shows up two quarters later in a channel nobody changed. IT services is one of the sectors where this matters most, because it has real search demand and a long consideration period at the same time. Of the agencies here, the ones that state paid search and paid social under one owner are Kiin, Directive, Konstruct Digital, Filament Digital and Opollo, with Impactable running LinkedIn alongside paid search and programmatic. Walker Sands, Merritt Group and TREW Marketing lead with PR, research and technical content and attach media, which is a different shape and sometimes the better one.
The test in a first call: ask which campaign creates demand, which captures it, and how a lead that arrived through the second gets credited to the first. An agency that cannot answer the third part is running two disconnected programmes and calling it full funnel.
Which of these report pipeline rather than MQLs
Stating a pipeline or revenue measure rather than platform reported leads, where each appears on this page: Kiin (influenced pipeline by account in HubSpot or Salesforce), Directive (pipeline, not MQLs), OTReniX (2.4x pipeline in nine months on a cybersecurity engagement and $50M+ revenue generated), Elevation (pipeline consistency as the stated fit) and Walker Sands (revenue operations including CRM implementation). Ironpaper reports on a long or complex sales process rather than lead volume.
Last click will always under credit the demand creation layer, because a buyer sees a dozen touches over months and then converts on a branded search. So the useful question is not whether an agency reports attribution, it is what they replace last click with. Self reported attribution on the booking form, one free text field asking how the person heard about you, is the most underused measurement method in B2B and the cheapest to add.
Which of these publish their pricing
Almost none, which is normal for the category rather than a mark against anyone in particular. Kiin publishes $2,500 to $5,500 a month with no media mark up. Everyone else on this page quotes on request. Published fees are the cheapest available test of whether an agency’s incentives point at your pipeline or at your media budget, so ask early: what is the fee, is it a percentage of spend, what is the contract length and what is the notice period.
What goes wrong in IT and technology services specifically
Optimising to engagement in the most engaged sector in the panel
IT audiences engage at up to 4.44%, double the panel norm. An engagement optimised campaign here will produce the best looking report you have ever seen and almost no website traffic. This is the single most common way IT accounts waste money, and the sector's own strength is what causes it.
Taking the default facet without testing the narrow ones
IT Services and IT Consulting is where almost everyone starts. Information Services costs $17.07 a click at 4.01% engagement and IT System Data Services $18.37 at 3.88%. Same rough buyer, far better attention, similar price. The default is rarely the best cell in this sector.
Selling the service instead of the architecture
IT buying committees include an engineer who will take your claims apart. Marketing that survives that scrutiny converts; marketing that does not gets filtered before procurement sees it. This is the vertical where technical accuracy in the content matters more than the creative.
What to budget
Using this sector’s own measured numbers, a $31.96 CPM and $18.01 per landing page click, against the panel’s demo economics of 2.9 demo leads per $1,000 at the median and 6.2 in the top quartile. Media only; agency fees sit on top.
| Media budget | Impressions a month | Landing page clicks | Demo leads, median to good |
|---|---|---|---|
| $3,000 a month | 93,867 | 167 | 9 to 19 |
| $8,000 a month | 250,313 | 444 | 23 to 50 |
| $20,000 a month | 625,782 | 1,110 | 58 to 124 |
Three things to take from that. At $3,000 a month in a sector with a 0.1% to 0.2% click through rate you are buying a small amount of traffic and a lot of impressions, so point it at one narrow facet and one offer rather than spreading it. Somewhere around $8,000 a month the programme can carry a demand creation layer and a capture layer at the same time, which in IT means content for the technical evaluator and a direct ask for the business sponsor. And the gap between the median and good columns is larger than the gap between the budget rows, which is the whole argument for caring who runs the account.
The clicks column and the demo leads column are not a funnel and should not be divided into each other. Landing page clicks are traffic to your site; the demo figures come from the panel’s demo request campaigns, many of which convert inside LinkedIn on a lead gen form and never produce a landing page click at all. Ranges are median to top quartile performance across the panel, not a forecast for your account.
How to choose
- Decide whether you are buying technical credibility or media. If your content cannot survive an engineer reading it, a technical content specialist is the more urgent hire; if it can and your media is not delivering, hire for media.
- Decide whether the channel matters. If you sell through MSPs or partners, start with the MSP and channel group.
- Insist that engagement rate is not the headline metric. IT audiences engage readily and click rarely; ask for landing page clicks, not LinkedIn's default click field. Check any numbers against the LinkedIn Ads benchmarks.
- Ask which LinkedIn targeting they would use and why. IT Services and IT Consulting is the default; an agency that has looked will name the narrower alternatives and the tradeoff.
- Get the number. Fee, media mark-up, contract length and notice period, in writing, in the first conversation. Kiin publishes its fees and OTReniX indicates a range; everyone else on this page quotes on request.