In freight forwarding, new accounts do not walk in off the street. An importer bringing in containers from Asia, a manufacturer exporting machinery parts, an e-commerce brand that needs customs brokerage for the first time, a project cargo buyer moving equipment for a construction site: all of them want a forwarder who is reliable, responsive and able to explain transit times and charges in plain language. More and more of them start with a search, or by asking an AI assistant for a shortlist, before they ever request a rate.
That leads many owners of forwarding and trading companies to the same question: should we hire someone in-house to handle visibility, or hand it to a specialist partner? Both options can work. But they do not cost the same, and they do not leave the business exposed to the same risks.
The full cost of a hire
Salary is only the visible part. A marketing hire also means payroll taxes and benefits, equipment, software subscriptions, training, holidays and a ramp-up period that can run for months before they are effective in a field as specific as logistics. Then add the cost of hiring itself: job ads, interviews, the probation period and the risk of starting over if the person is not the right fit.
More importantly, one person rarely covers everything. Making a forwarder visible when a shipper searches for help moving goods takes a mix of skills: writing, industry knowledge, analysis of results and web work. A single hire often has to be topped up with freelancers, which adds cost and coordination on top of the salary.
Owner time, the scarcest resource
A marketing employee needs managing. Someone has to set priorities, approve messages, explain the details of the trade (Incoterms, customs regimes, consolidation, port congestion, demurrage) and check that work is moving. In a small forwarding company, that someone is almost always the owner, who already spends the day between clients, customs brokers, carriers and the latest crisis on the quay.
That is the heaviest hidden cost: every hour spent steering marketing is an hour taken from clients and operations. Our guide for the busy owner thinking about delegating visibility looks at this trade-off in detail.
The risks on each side
In-house
- Continuity. When the person leaves, the know-how and often the account access leave too. Work stops, and the visibility curve stalls.
- Isolation. Working alone in their field, the hire has few benchmarks to judge whether results are good.
- Priority drift. In a small team, the marketer ends up running social media, trade show booths, brochures and sometimes customer service. Visibility slides down the list.
Outsourced
- The wrong provider. Promises of the top spot, accounts in the agency's name, vague reports: the risk is real, and it is managed by asking the right questions before signing. Our list of questions a freight forwarder should ask before signing covers them.
- Industry knowledge. A partner who does not understand forwarding will produce generic messaging. The initial audit and regular exchanges are there to close that gap.
Continuity is the deciding factor for a forwarder
Visibility builds over time and accelerates. A gap of several months while you replace someone who left can cost part of the ground already gained. For a forwarder whose clients come back with every new shipment, being consistently present when an importer looks for a partner matters a great deal. An outside partner under contract keeps that continuity, regardless of resignations, holidays and sick leave.
What outsourcing costs
With Traffic Engine, the cost is known in advance. You start with a Visibility Audit at €690, deducted from the €1,500 one-time setup if you begin within 30 days. Monthly plans range from Presence at €1,100 to Flood at €3,500, with Momentum at €1,900 the most common choice. Over the first year, Momentum comes to €24,300, setup included, with no payroll taxes, no recruitment, no training and no resignation risk.
Compare that figure with the full cost of a hire in your market, then with the value of a regular shipper account. A handful of new accounts is usually enough to justify either option. The real question becomes which one is more likely to bring those accounts in, with the least risk and the least of your time. The calculator on the Traffic Engine page helps you put numbers on it, and our guide on visibility for a B2B company explains how longer buying cycles change the reasoning.
How to decide
Hiring in-house makes sense if you already have a marketing team to slot into, enough volume to justify several roles and a manager who can lead them. For most forwarding and trading companies, handing the work to a partner that commits to delivery and measurement is safer and far lighter on leadership time. It also keeps your options open: if the business later grows to the point where an in-house team makes sense, the history, the reports and the Google accounts stay with the company, ready for whoever takes over.
Traffic Engine, Kolonell's visibility service, makes your company visible when shippers search for a forwarder, on Google and in AI assistant answers. You receive a dated report every week and follow results in your own Search Console, with a measured review at three months. If what your plan includes is not live on schedule, the following month is free. Seats are capped at 3 per industry and area. See the offer and the seats still available.