Client briefs and candidates from one site, without a B2B agency retainer
A recruitment agency markets to two audiences at once, the employers who send briefs and the candidates who fill them, and most agency websites serve neither. Brainito runs the marketing loop for a desk of two or a firm of fifty consultants: a weekly audit of your site, a monthly strategy, a page per specialty for each audience, case studies and reviews, a monthly email to hiring managers and a separate one to candidates, and one report the director can read in five minutes.
Free to start. Paid actions use credits; most businesses spend $20 to $500 a month.
- Built for staffing firms, search boutiques and RPO teams
- Equal opportunity and pay transparency rules in every draft
- No retainer, cancel any time
- Plans from $20 a month, most agencies spend $20 to $500 a month
What marketing costs a recruitment agency now
Typical US figures for a small to mid-sized staffing or search firm. "Recruitment agency" terms cost about $11 a click, cheap next to other trades, which is why the budget mostly goes to job boards and LinkedIn instead.
| Option | Typical monthly cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| B2B marketing agency | $2,500 to $6,000 | A website, LinkedIn content, some SEO and a monthly report, on a six to twelve month contract. Most do not know the difference between a client page and a candidate page. |
| LinkedIn Recruiter and sponsored job posts | $800 to $3,000 | Recruiter licenses, sponsored jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn, and job board slots. Necessary for sourcing, and none of it builds an asset the agency keeps. |
| In-house marketing manager | $4,500 to $7,000 | One salary fully loaded, plus $500 to $1,500 of tools, for someone who still needs help with the website, SEO and automation. |
| Brainito AI marketing manager | $20 to $500 | Weekly audit, monthly strategy, website builder, SEO, social, email, analytics, tasks and a mini CRM, paid in credits for what you run. Dashboards are free. |
Agency and job board ranges are what recruitment firms report paying in 2026 and change by specialty and market. The Brainito figure is what agencies on the platform typically spend.
What fails on recruitment agency websites
The audit checks 77 factors. These are the ones that fail most often when we scan a recruitment agency, and each one costs briefs and placements, not just rankings.
- 1Internal linking and headings
One site for two audiences and a home page that talks to neither
An employer looking for a contract engineering recruiter and a candidate looking for a contract engineering job land on the same page. The fix is a clear split at the top, "Hire talent" and "Find a job", and a page per specialty for each side.
- 2Title tags and meta descriptions
Every page is titled with the agency name
Hiring managers search "IT staffing agency Denver" and candidates search "contract engineering jobs Denver". A title that says "Summit Talent Partners" on every page wins neither.
- 3Schema markup
No EmploymentAgency structured data and no JobPosting on the jobs
Structured data tells Google and AI assistants what you place, where and for whom. JobPosting schema on each live role is what gets it into Google's job search results. Most agency sites have neither.
- 4Testimonials and reviews
Placements on the LinkedIn feed, nothing on the site
A hiring manager wants a case study with a time-to-fill number. A candidate wants a review from someone you placed. The site that shows both on the specialty page wins the brief and the application.
- 5Lead capture form
"Contact us" is the only form, for both sides
A "send us a brief" form for employers and a "register your resume" form for candidates capture different people with different fields. One generic form, with no routing, captures almost nobody and confuses the inbox.
- 6Blog and social media presence
No content for the employer audience
Hiring managers read salary guides, time-to-fill benchmarks and market notes before they pick a recruiter. An agency with no blog and a LinkedIn page that only posts jobs is invisible at that stage.
- 7Page speed and Core Web Vitals
A job board embed, two chat widgets and a slider on every page
Agency sites run a third-party jobs widget on every page, and it fails Core Web Vitals on mobile, where candidates browse roles in the evening.
- 8Google Search Console and analytics
Nobody knows which page produced the last ten briefs
Without Search Console verified and conversion tracking split between brief forms and candidate registrations, the director cannot tell whether the LinkedIn, the salary guide or the sponsored jobs brought the client, so the job boards keep the budget.
Factor names match the Brainito audit report, so an agency can run the free audit and see which of these apply to its own site.
The channels that bring briefs and candidates, in order
Ranked for a specialist staffing or search firm, with the reason. High-volume staffing shifts toward job boards and paid, executive search toward referrals and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn, from the consultants' own profiles
Hiring managers follow people, not agencies. Two posts a week per consultant on their market, placements made and salary movements, with the company page as the backstop.
Email to hiring managers and to the candidate pool, separately
A monthly market note to clients and past clients, and a separate roles-and-advice note to candidates. Most agencies hold thousands of both in the ATS and email neither.
Specialty pages for each audience
"IT staffing agency Denver" for employers and "contract engineering jobs Denver" for candidates, each a page with proof, is the asset that compounds and what AI assistants quote.
Case studies and reviews
Google reviews from placed candidates and clients, a case study per specialty with a time-to-fill figure, and the Clutch or Glassdoor profile kept current.
Google Ads for employer-side terms
At $11 a click, employer-intent terms like "staffing agency near me" and "temp agency for warehouse" are cheap when the page has a brief form and the form is tracked.
Job boards and sponsored posts for candidates
Still the fastest way to fill a role. Treat them as sourcing, not marketing, and send every applicant into a list you own.
A sample audit: fifteen-consultant IT and engineering staffing firm
A representative audit built from the factors that most often fail for firms of this size. Names and figures are illustrative. Run the free audit to see your own.
Marketing Health Score
46/100
Fifteen-consultant IT and engineering staffing firm, Colorado, 9 years, $2,400 a month on job boards and no marketing hire
Strong placements and consultants who are well known in their markets, a website that does not say who it serves. One contact form for both audiences, no specialty pages, no JobPosting schema, no content for employers, and a jobs widget that pushes mobile load time to 5.8 seconds.
Fix 1: Split the site by audience and build specialty pages for each
Highest impactAn employer path and a candidate path from the top of the home page, then a page per specialty (software engineering, data, infrastructure, mechanical engineering) on each side, with a brief form on one and a registration form on the other.
Fix 2: Add EmploymentAgency and JobPosting schema, and start the two newsletters
One afternoonStructured data for the firm and for each live role so jobs appear in Google's job search, an llms.txt file, and a monthly note to hiring managers plus a separate one to the candidate pool.
Fix 3: Move the jobs widget to the jobs page and split conversion tracking
Two daysThe widget on one page instead of every page brings mobile load time under 2.5 seconds. Separate events for brief forms and candidate registrations show which channel brought each client.
What Brainito does for a recruitment agency
Every module, in the language of a recruitment desk rather than a marketing department.
Weekly marketing audit
Your site re-checked every week across 77 factors, with the evidence behind each verdict and a fix list sorted by what brings briefs and candidates.
Monthly marketing strategy
A plan built from the audit and your specialties: which employer pages to write, which salary guide to publish, when each audience hears from you, where a small ad budget goes this month.
Website builder
A fast site split by audience, with specialty pages, a brief form and a candidate registration form wired to your contacts, published to your own GitHub and Vercel so the firm owns it.
SEO management
On-page fixes for both audiences, technical fixes, directory listings, and a check on whether ChatGPT and Gemini recommend the firm when someone asks for a recruiter in your market.
Social media management
Drafts for LinkedIn and the company page from placements, market notes and roles, a director approves on the post, scheduling handles the rest.
Email automation
A monthly market note to hiring managers, a separate roles-and-advice note to candidates, a brief follow-up sequence, and a review request after a placement.
Analytics and ads reporting
Google Ads, Meta ads, organic, LinkedIn referrals and job board traffic on one page, with briefs and registrations counted separately as the outcome.
Contacts, tasks and team chat
A mini CRM for prospective clients and referral sources alongside your ATS, a task board for whoever runs marketing on Friday afternoons, and chat for the consultants.
300+ marketing tools
Meta tag writers, schema generators, review response drafts, keyword research across 15 platforms and more, free, for the jobs in between.
The first month
Week 1: audit and plan
Run the free audit, read the findings, generate the strategy. Decide which specialties, and which side, clients or candidates, need the most help this quarter.
Week 2: fix the site
Split the site by audience, specialty pages, schema, speed and the two forms. Send the technical fixes to whoever maintains the site, or rebuild it with the builder.
Week 3: content and proof
Publish the first case study and salary note, set up review requests after placements, start the LinkedIn cadence.
Week 4: measure
Connect Search Console, analytics and ads, with briefs and registrations tracked separately. From here the weekly audit and monthly plan run on their own.
Goes with
- Marketing strategies for recruitment agenciesThe full playbook.
- Website auditThe full 77-factor report on your agency site.
- Email marketingTwo audiences, two lists, one tool.
- Social media studioLinkedIn, drafted, approved and scheduled.
- SEO suiteOn-page, technical and directories, plus the AI SEO check.
- AI marketing agencyHow the offer works for any business.
Run the free audit on your agency's site. It takes two minutes.
You get the score, the evidence and the fix list before you decide anything. If it is useful, start free and the weekly audit and monthly plan follow.