Best Marketing Agencies in New York (2026)

Introduction

New York is home to most of the marketing agencies that large US brands shortlist, from full-funnel performance firms managing billions in media to small growth teams working for startups. The 14 agencies below were chosen for recent work, 2025 and 2026 recognition, and the depth of their client rosters.

The market moved quickly over the last year. Omnicom completed its acquisition of IPG at the end of 2025, and independents and private-equity-backed firms used the disruption to grow. Wpromote bought the New York experiential agency Giant Spoon in December 2025, Tinuiti appointed former Dentsu Creative US chief Abbey Klaassen as CEO in April 2026, and DEPT built up its senior US team ahead of a New York flagship. Brand and performance work, once bought separately, is increasingly sold as one service.

Every agency here has an active New York office in 2026. The list covers integrated, performance, content and B2B specialists and runs in no fixed order of merit, since the right choice depends on your goals, budget and how much of the funnel you want one partner to own.

The best marketing agencies in New York

1. Code and Theory

Stagwell · Financial District · codeandtheory.com

Code and Theory is a digital transformation agency founded in 2001 and owned by Stagwell, with its headquarters on the 69th floor of One World Trade Center. It keeps a deliberate split of roughly half creatives and half engineers. In 2026 it was named to Ad Age’s A-List, received The One Show’s AI Pioneer recognition and placed on Fast Company’s list of the most innovative advertising and marketing companies.

Recent work includes an AI-native publishing platform for TIME, a design system spanning more than 30 Stanley Black & Decker brands, a rebuild of JBL’s content architecture and a redesign of NFL.com. It suits marketing leaders whose problems sit as much in websites, data and product as in campaigns.

2. Huge

Owned by AEA Investors · Flatiron · hugeinc.com

Huge left IPG in December 2024 when private equity firm AEA Investors bought it, and in April 2025 AEA folded its other agency, the performance and commerce specialist Hero Digital, into the Huge brand. Former Razorfish chief Josh Campo became CEO in January 2026. The firm describes itself as an independent design and technology company and lists New York as its headquarters, at 53 West 23rd Street.

The Hero Digital merger added performance marketing and commerce to Huge’s experience design work. Its long-standing relationships include NBCUniversal, for which it built the AI assistant OLI for Olympics coverage. Leadership has changed twice in two years, so ask who will lead your account day to day.

3. VaynerMedia

Part of VaynerX, privately held · New York · vaynermedia.com

VaynerMedia, founded by Gary Vaynerchuk, calls itself a modern agency of record and puts social at the centre of creative, media and strategy. It runs 15 offices worldwide, with New York the largest. It was shortlisted for Adweek’s 2025 Agency of the Year, and PepsiCo was named TikTok’s Advertiser of the Year in 2025 for work the agency led.

In 2025 JCPenney appointed it social and influencer agency, and H&R Block consolidated social creative and media with it. It also made Duracell’s first Super Bowl commercial. Other clients include Mondelez, Diageo, Indeed and Tinder. It is a strong fit for brands that want a high volume of social content feeding paid media.

4. Jellyfish

The Brandtech Group · Midtown · jellyfish.com

Jellyfish is a digital marketing company that combines media, creative and data, and has been part of The Brandtech Group since 2023. Its Severance season 2 campaign for Apple TV, including a pop-up at Grand Central Terminal, won a Grand Clio in November 2025 and helped place Jellyfish third on Fast Company’s 2026 list of the most innovative companies in PR and brand strategy.

In September 2026 it launched HOKA’s Run Your City challenge, which pitted the five boroughs against each other on digital billboards in Times Square, Tribeca, SoHo and Williamsburg. It was also named Google Cloud’s 2026 Partner of the Year for training in North America, and its Share of Model tools track how brands appear in AI answers.

5. Tinuiti

Backed by New Mountain Capital · Herald Square · tinuiti.com

Tinuiti describes itself as the largest independent full-funnel marketing agency in the US, with more than 1,200 staff and around $4 billion in digital media under management. Abbey Klaassen, formerly CEO of Dentsu Creative US and chair of the 4As board, succeeded long-time leader Zach Morrison as CEO in April 2026. Its New York office is on West 33rd Street.

In March 2026 Carter’s Inc. named Tinuiti full-funnel agency of record for all five of its brands in the US and Canada, using the agency’s Bliss Point measurement tools. Other clients include e.l.f. Beauty, Instacart and Liquid I.V. It is particularly strong in retail media, marketplaces and measurement.

6. Wpromote x Giant Spoon

Independent, backed by ZMC · Financial District · giantspoon.com

Wpromote, a performance agency managing more than $3 billion in annual media, acquired Giant Spoon in December 2025 to form Wpromote x Giant Spoon. Giant Spoon’s three co-founders joined the executive team under Wpromote CEO Andrea Bendzick, and the New York office sits at 44 Wall Street. Giant Spoon topped Fast Company’s 2026 list of the most innovative companies in PR and brand strategy for its Lucid Motors film starring Timothée Chalamet.

Giant Spoon is known for large experiential work, such as wrapping a dragon around the Empire State Building for HBO’s House of the Dragon. The combined agency’s clients include GE, Walmart, Vuori and Intuit QuickBooks, and Purely Elizabeth named it media agency of record in July 2026.

7. Day One Agency

Independent · New York · d1a.com

Day One Agency is an independent communications and creative firm that marked its tenth year in 2026. It won Outstanding Midsize Agency at the PRWeek US Awards and ranked tenth on Fast Company’s 2026 list of the most innovative companies in PR and brand strategy, for work for e.l.f. Beauty and Lyft around women’s sports.

In February 2026 it became creative agency of record for three Groupe SEB brands, and in April Häagen-Dazs named it US consumer PR and influencer agency. Other clients include Chipotle, Pacifico and Converse. It suits brands that want earned media, creators and culture to lead the marketing plan.

8. DEPT

Backed by The Carlyle Group · NoMad · dept.global

DEPT started in Amsterdam and now employs more than 4,000 people, with the US producing about half its revenue. It has been building a New York flagship at 470 Park Avenue South and hired senior leaders from WPP, PMG, Edelman and R/GA in 2025 to support it. In April 2026 it was named both Agency of the Year and Network of the Year at the Webby Awards, and in August Gartner placed it as a Leader for global digital marketing agencies.

Its Webby-winning work included NVIDIA’s Signs sign-language platform, Google Antigravity and an Uber Eats Super Bowl campaign. Other clients include eBay, Meta, OpenAI and Lufthansa. The model pairs marketing and engineering talent in roughly equal measure.

9. Brainlabs

Independent, backed by Falfurrias Capital Partners · Midtown East · brainlabsdigital.com

Brainlabs is a London-founded performance media agency with a New York office in Grand Central Tower on East 45th Street. Its July 2025 acquisition of Los Angeles media agency Exverus took its US billings to about $1 billion and its US headcount to around 500, turning it into a full-service media agency of record.

UNICEF USA appointed Brainlabs as its digital media agency of record in 2025, covering search, paid social, programmatic and SEO. Earlier wins include Estée Lauder Companies, Adidas and Formula 1. It is a good option for brands that want data-led paid media without a holding company.

10. Stein

Part of MSQ · New York · steinb2b.com

Stein, known as Stein IAS until its May 2025 rebrand, is one of the most awarded B2B marketing agencies. It has been named Agency of the Year at the ANA B2 Awards every year from 2023 to 2026 and was The Drum’s B2B Agency of the Year in 2025. It is part of the MSQ group, with New York one of six hubs.

In August 2025 JLL appointed Stein its global strategic and creative agency of record. Other clients include HSBC, Juniper Networks, Becton Dickinson and Celonis. Its Brand-to-Demand model joins brand building and demand generation in one plan, which suits long B2B sales cycles.

11. NoGood

Independent · SoHo · nogood.io

NoGood is a growth marketing agency headquartered in SoHo, with further offices in Miami and Dubai. It builds small squads that combine paid, organic, creative, analytics and answer engine optimisation, and publishes its own research, including a 2026 social insight report.

Clients range from Nike, TikTok and Intuit to MongoDB, Oura and Citi. It works well for SaaS, B2B and direct-to-consumer brands that want structured testing and clear growth targets rather than a long brand programme.

12. Horizon Media

Independent · New York · horizonmedia.com

Horizon Media, founded by Bill Koenigsberg in 1989, is the largest privately held independent media agency in the US. In December 2024 it opened One Horizon, a full-service creative agency, so clients can buy creative and media from one independent group. In 2026 it added agentic buying to its HorizonOS platform and formed a partnership with Kartel to bring creative and media closer together.

In March 2026 Gallo moved its media account to Horizon from UM, citing the agency’s independent model. It suits large advertisers who want holding-company scale without holding-company ownership.

13. Barbarian

Cheil Worldwide · New York · wearebarbarian.com

Barbarian is a creative and innovation agency founded in 2001 and owned by Cheil Worldwide. In June 2026 it launched Adaptive Brand Solutions, a practice for AI-driven commerce and personalised experiences, with Citizen Watch America as founding client and Adobe as a partner.

Recent work includes a smartwater campaign tied to The Devil Wears Prada 2 and a Wildlife Conservation Society Earth Month campaign that placed wild animals around New York. It also publishes research on women’s sports fandom with The Gist.

14. Ruckus

Independent · Garment District · ruckusmarketing.com

Ruckus is a New York marketing agency founded in 2004, working from West 37th Street. It covers branding, websites and e-commerce, performance advertising, an in-house production studio, and trade show and experiential design, and has exhibited at CES for ten consecutive years.

Clients include BMW, Crayola, VAST Data, Mobileye and Zoox. Its mix of brand, web and event work makes it a practical choice for technology companies with a busy launch and trade show calendar.

What to look for in a New York marketing agency

Be clear about which part of the funnel you are hiring for. Performance agencies such as Tinuiti and Brainlabs are built around media, measurement and retail platforms. Integrated firms such as Code and Theory, Huge and DEPT also build websites and products. Many agencies now sell brand and performance together, and it is worth asking how the two teams share data and targets in practice.

Ask how results will be measured before work starts. A good agency will agree on a small set of business metrics, explain the attribution or mix modelling behind them, and say how often it will report. Be cautious of reporting that only covers platform metrics such as clicks and impressions.

Check ownership and stability. Several firms on this list changed owners or chief executives in 2025 and 2026. Private equity backing can fund new tools and acquisitions, but it is reasonable to ask how a recent deal affects your account team and pricing.

Finally, look at how the agency runs content operations. Marketing teams produce a steady stream of ads, landing pages, social cuts and reports, often in many versions. Agencies with a clear system for storing assets, gathering feedback and recording approvals spend less time chasing the latest file and more time on the work.

How Fabric helps marketing agency teams

Fabric gives a marketing team one workspace for its files, campaign assets and client knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The agency setup works with one space per client, and the content marketing setup keeps briefs, drafts, creative and performance reports together.

For content calendars, any folder can become a Kanban board whose cards are the files themselves, so a draft moves from brief to approved without a separate tracker. There is more on this in Fabric’s guide to content planning. Search works by meaning across documents, images, PDFs and connected apps such as Google Drive and Notion, and recorded calls and webinars are transcribed so a quote or a client request can be found by timestamp.

When reports and decks go to clients, any file or folder can be published as a web page and protected with a password. Link analytics shows when each named recipient opened a link and how long they spent with it, which helps when following up on a proposal or a quarterly review. Clients can leave threaded comments through a shared link without signing up.

On Team plans, self-writing docs maintain a page for each client from meetings, Slack and the workspace, covering decisions, deliverables and open items. It helps when accounts change hands, which happens often in agency life.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans, and self-writing docs on Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best marketing agency in New York?

It depends on what you need. On 2026 recognition, DEPT won both Agency and Network of the Year at the Webby Awards, Giant Spoon (now part of Wpromote x Giant Spoon) topped Fast Company’s list for PR and brand strategy, and Code and Theory made Ad Age’s A-List. Tinuiti is the largest independent full-funnel performance agency.

What happened to Giant Spoon?

Wpromote acquired Giant Spoon in December 2025, and the two now operate as Wpromote x Giant Spoon. Giant Spoon’s New York office at 44 Wall Street remains, and its co-founders joined the combined executive team.

What is the difference between a marketing agency and an advertising agency?

Advertising agencies focus mainly on campaign ideas and creative. Marketing agencies tend to cover a wider set of work, including media buying, search, social, content, data and measurement. For campaign-led creative shops, see the best advertising agencies in New York.

Which New York agencies specialise in B2B marketing?

Stein is the most awarded B2B specialist on this list, with ANA B2 Agency of the Year titles from 2023 to 2026. NoGood works with many SaaS and B2B clients on growth programmes, and Ruckus has a long record with technology companies at trade shows such as CES.

Should I hire one full-funnel agency or several specialists?

One agency makes it simpler to connect brand spend with sales results and reduces hand-offs. Specialists can go deeper in a single channel. Many brands start with one lead agency for strategy and media, then add specialists for areas such as influencer work or B2B demand generation.

Related lists

Marketing agencies in other cities: Los Angeles · London · Chicago · San Francisco · Toronto

More in New York: Creative agencies · Advertising agencies · Social media agencies · Branding agencies · Content studios · Design agencies

Run your agency on Fabric: Fabric for agencies · Content marketing on Fabric · Best digital asset management for agencies