You've decided to invest in YouTube, but now you're facing a fork in the road: should you hire a YouTube ads agency to run paid campaigns, or invest in organic channel growth?

Most YouTube 'agencies' will push you toward whichever service they actually offer. Ads agencies tell you organic is too slow. Organic-focused agencies say ads are a waste of money. Neither is telling you the whole truth.

After growing multiple YouTube channels from zero to hundreds of thousands of subscribers AND running six-figure monthly ad budgets, I can tell you exactly when each strategy makes sense—and why the best approach is actually a blend of both.

What YouTube Ads Agencies Actually Do (And Don't Do)

Let's start by clarifying what you get when you hire a YouTube ads agency:

Core Services:

• Campaign strategy and setup

• Audience targeting and segmentation

• Ad creative testing (sometimes)

• Budget optimization across campaigns

• Performance reporting (CPV, CTR, conversions)

• Retargeting setup

Typical Pricing:

15-20% of ad spend OR €5-12k/month flat fee, whichever is higher. So if you're spending €30k/month on ads, you're paying €5-6k in management fees on top of that.

What You DON'T Get:

• Channel building or subscriber growth

• Organic content strategy

• Brand building or owned audience

• Sustainable, compounding growth

Remember though: The moment you turn off ad spend, your growth stops completely. There's no residual value, no owned audience, no compounding effect.

What Organic YouTube Growth Actually Delivers

Organic growth is fundamentally different. You're building an asset, not renting attention:

What You Get:

• Compounding visibility over time

• Owned audience (subscribers)

• Brand authority and trust

• SEO benefits (YouTube and Google)

• Content that works in marketing ecosystem

• Decreasing CAC over time

Investment Required:

€10-30k/month for full-stack growth (strategy, production, optimization). Or €150-250k/year to build in-house capability.

Timeline to Results:

90-180 days to meaningful traction. 6-12 months to become a significant revenue driver.

The key difference: organic growth gets better with time. A video you publish today will still drive views (and conversions) in 2027, 2028, 2029. Your ads stop working the second you stop paying.

The Math: Comparing ROI Over 24 Months

Let's run the actual numbers to see which approach delivers better returns:

Scenario: YouTube Ads Only (€50k/month budget)

Month 1-6:

• Ad spend: €300k

• Agency fees (15%): €45k

• Total investment: €345k

• Estimated conversions (3% CVR, €200 CPA): 1,500 leads

• Revenue (10% close rate, €5k ACV): €750k

Month 7-12:

• Ad spend: €300k

• Agency fees: €45k

• Additional revenue: €750k

24-Month Total: €690k invested, €1.5M revenue = 2.17x ROI

But here's the problem: Turn off ads in month 13, and revenue drops to zero. You have no owned asset, no compounding growth.

Scenario: Organic Growth Only (€15k/month investment)

Month 1-6:

• Agency investment: €90k

• Videos published: 24

• Subscribers gained: ~2,500

• Revenue: €50-100k (early conversions)

Month 7-12:

• Agency investment: €90k

• Videos published: 24 more (48 total)

• Subscribers: ~8,000 total

• Revenue: €150-250k (compound effect)

24-Month Total: €180k invested, €200-350k revenue = 1.1-1.9x ROI

But here's the magic: Stop production in month 13, and the channel still generates €100-200k in year two from existing content. The ROI keeps improving.

Scenario: Blended Approach (Best of Both)

Month 1-6:

• Organic growth: €90k

• Modest ad spend: €60k + €9k fees = €69k

• Total: €159k

• Revenue: €150-200k (ads + organic)

Month 7-12:

• Organic growth: €90k

• Ad spend using best organic videos: €90k + €13.5k = €103.5k

• Revenue: €400-500k (synergy effect)

24-Month Total: €352.5k invested, €550-700k revenue = 1.6-2x ROI

The blended approach delivers: competitive ROI in year one, plus a compounding organic asset for years 2-5. Best of both worlds.

Why Organic-First Makes Sense for Most Startups

Based on these numbers and real-world experience, here's my recommendation for most B2B SaaS startups:

Start with organic growth. Add ads once you have proof of concept.

Why?

1. Organic Content Becomes Your Best Ad Creative

When you build organic first, you discover which topics, formats, and messages resonate. Then you can take your top-performing organic videos and amplify them with ads. This is dramatically more effective than creating ads in a vacuum.

Real example: At CareerFoundry, we'd publish videos organically, see which ones had strong watch time and conversion, then promote those with €5-10k in ad spend. Those promoted organic videos consistently delivered 40-60% better ROI than purpose-built ads.

2. You Build a Moat While You Learn

Organic growth forces you to get good at YouTube—understanding your audience, creating valuable content, optimizing for engagement. These are foundational skills that make your eventual paid campaigns better.

Companies that jump straight to ads often struggle because they haven't learned what actually works on YouTube. They're essentially paying to distribute mediocre content.

3. Lower Risk, Higher Long-Term Value

With ads, you need significant budget (€30k+/month) to test effectively. With organic, you can start with €10-15k/month and build something valuable even if initial traction is slow.

And unlike ads, every dollar invested in organic has residual value. A video costs the same to produce whether it gets 1,000 views or 100,000 views. The upside is unlimited.

When YouTube Ads Actually Make Sense

I'm not anti-ads. Far from it. YouTube ads absolutely have a place in your strategy—just not as your starting point. Here's when to layer them in:

1. You Have Proven Organic Content

Once you have 20-30 videos published and clear data on what performs, use ads to amplify your winners. This is the blended approach that delivers the best overall ROI.

2. You Need Immediate Volume

If you're launching a new product, running a time-sensitive promotion, or need to hit aggressive quarterly targets, ads can deliver immediate traffic that organic can't match in the short term.

3. You Have Significant Budget (€50k+/month)

YouTube ads need scale to work efficiently. If you can only allocate €10-20k/month, that budget is better spent on organic growth. But if you have €50k+ monthly to deploy, a portion should go to ads.

4. Your Conversion Funnel Is Dialed In

Don't run ads until you know your funnel works. If you're converting organic traffic at 5-10%, ads will amplify that success. If you're converting at 0.5%, ads will just waste money faster.

The Blended Approach: How We Do It at Humble&Brag

For clients who are ready, here's the system we use to combine organic and paid:

Months 1-3: Organic Foundation

• 12-16 videos published

• SEO optimization on all content

• Identify top performers by watch time and conversions

• No paid promotion yet

Months 4-6: Test & Learn

• Continue organic publishing (12-16 more videos)

• Allocate €10-15k to promote top 3-5 performing videos

• Test different audience segments

• Measure which organic content works best as paid

Months 7-12: Scale What Works

• Maintain organic cadence (still publishing weekly)

• Scale ad spend on validated winners

• Create purpose-built ad variations of top organic content

• Build retargeting audiences from organic viewers

This approach gives you the compounding benefits of organic PLUS the immediate scale of paid. And because your ads are promoting proven content, they perform 2-3x better than typical YouTube ads.

Common Mistakes Companies Make

Mistake #1: Ads-Only from Day One

They spend €50k on ads promoting mediocre content, see poor results, and conclude 'YouTube doesn't work for us.' The problem wasn't YouTube—it was the strategy.

Mistake #2: Organic Forever, Never Adding Paid

They build a great organic channel but refuse to amplify it with ads because 'we're an organic-first company.' This leaves money on the table. If you have content that converts, amplify it.

Mistake #3: Treating Them as Separate Strategies

They hire one agency for organic and another for ads, creating conflicting strategies and duplicate work. The best results come from integrated approaches where organic informs paid and paid amplifies organic.

The Bottom Line: Build First, Amplify Second

If you're a startup or scale-up deciding between YouTube ads and organic growth, here's my straight recommendation:

Start with organic. Prove what works. Then amplify with ads.

This approach:

• Reduces risk (lower initial investment)

• Builds a compounding asset

• Creates better ad creative

• Delivers sustainable long-term ROI

At Humble&Brag, we specialize in this integrated approach. We build your organic foundation properly, then layer in strategic paid amplification when you're ready. The result? Channels that deliver both immediate results and long-term compound growth.

Ready to build a YouTube strategy that actually works? Let's talk.