What is white-label marketing? How agencies use it, and the rules that apply
White-label marketing is marketing work one business does and another sells under its own brand. This guide explains the word and what it is confused with, how it works service by service, the platform and data rules that apply whatever the contract says, how to handle disclosure, and how to decide which services to white-label first.
What is white-label marketing?
White-label marketing is marketing work that one business does and another business sells to its clients under its own brand. A specialist runs the SEO, the ads or the email campaigns; the agency puts its name on the result, sets the price and keeps the client relationship.
The term comes from products. Wikipedia describes a white-label product as one made by one company and rebranded by others so that it appears to be theirs, and says the name comes from the image of a white label on the packaging that the marketer fills in with its own trade dress. Supermarket own-brand goods and bank cards issued by one bank for another are the familiar examples.
Marketing services work the same way with one difference that matters. A tin of beans can be inspected before it is sold. Investopedia notes that you generally cannot assess the quality of an intangible product like a service until after it is done. When an agency white-labels a service, it is selling quality it has not seen yet, under its own name, and that is the risk the rest of this guide is about managing.
Why agencies use it
Agencies use white-label marketing to say yes to work they cannot deliver themselves. A client who buys paid social asks for SEO; a web design studio is asked to run Google Ads; an SEO agency is asked for email. Hiring for each request is slow and expensive, and referring the client away hands the relationship to someone else. A white-label partner lets the agency add the service without either.
It is also how specialists reach clients they would never find directly. A technical SEO who works through ten agencies sees more sites than one who sells alone, and the agencies handle the selling. That is the side I work from: my reseller programme is built for agencies who are asked for SEO and want help scoping and selling it.
White label vs private label, co-branding and reseller
White label means the end client sees only the seller’s brand, and the same work or product may be sold by many sellers. Private label is made for one seller only, co-branding shows both brands, a reseller sells another business’s catalogue, often with that business’s name still visible, and a referral hands the client over altogether.
| Term | What it means | Who the end client sees |
|---|---|---|
| White label | One business makes a product or delivers a service; another sells it under its own brand. The same white-label product can be sold by several businesses | Only the seller |
| Private label | Made for one retailer only, often to its own specification | Only the retailer |
| Co-branding | Two brands appear together on the same product or service | Both brands |
| Reseller | A business sells another’s product or service, often from a set catalogue, sometimes with the maker’s brand still visible | The seller, and often the maker |
| Referral | One business passes the client to another, usually for a fee, and steps out | The business doing the work |
Investopedia draws the white and private label line clearly: white label products are generic and sold to multiple retailers who rebrand them, while private label products are made exclusively for one retailer. In marketing services the distinction is softer, because most service work is done to the client’s own brief. What matters in practice is the last column: whether the end client knows another business is involved.
White-label marketing and outsourcing
All white-label work is outsourced, but not all outsourcing is white-label. An agency that hires a freelancer and introduces them to the client is outsourcing; an agency that has the same freelancer deliver unbranded work the agency presents as its own is white-labelling. The cost side of that choice, including when hiring beats both, is worked through in outsourcing SEO versus hiring.
Three forms of white-label marketing
White-label marketing comes in three forms: services delivered by a specialist, software the agency rebrands and uses itself, and services delivered through a rebranded platform. They solve different problems, and agencies often mix them.
- A specialist does the work: audits, campaigns, content, builds
- The agency sells a service it could not deliver on its own
- Judgement and execution come with it
- Quality depends on people the client never meets
- The agency is accountable for work it did not do
- A platform the agency rebrands: dashboards, report builders, audit tools
- Cheap per client and fast to set up
- The agency’s own team uses it
- It produces data, not decisions
- Every agency using the same tool sells the same output
- A specialist works inside a white-labelled platform
- The client sees one branded portal for reports and requests
- Two dependencies instead of one: the specialist and the platform
White-label services
This is what most people mean by the term. A specialist does the work, from an SEO audit to a monthly ad management retainer, and delivers it to the agency unbranded or in the agency’s template. The agency sells it, manages the client and answers for the result.
White-label software
Wikipedia notes that many software companies offer white-label software to agencies, which typically needs the software’s appearance to be adaptable, management of many customers and billing to end customers. In marketing, that means reporting dashboards, rank trackers and site audit tools with the agency’s logo and domain. SE Ranking, for example, says its white-label site audit checks over 110 parameters and that the platform can run on the agency’s own domain. Software like this is useful for monitoring and reporting. It produces data; it does not decide what the client should do about it.
Services delivered through software
Some partners work inside a white-labelled platform, so the client logs in to one branded portal for reports and requests while a specialist does the work behind it. It is convenient, but it adds a second dependency: if the platform changes its pricing or closes, the agency moves both the reports and the work at once.
How white-label marketing works, service by service
In every service the pattern is the same: the agency sells and manages the client, the partner does the work, and the client owns the accounts. What changes from service to service is which accounts are involved, what access the partner needs and which platform rule matters most.
SEO
Who owns it: the client owns the website, Search Console and analytics.
Access the partner needs: a user in Search Console, which Google splits into owners, full users and restricted users; a full user has view rights to all data and can take some actions, which is enough for SEO work. Analytics access by role, plus the CMS for fixes.
What the client sees: audits, roadmaps and monthly reports in the agency’s template.
The rule to know: link building inside many SEO packages is what Google’s spam policies call link spam, starting with buying or selling links for ranking purposes. If the partner does that, the penalty lands on the client’s site. White-label SEO sets out what the work covers.
PPC
Who owns it: the client should own the Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising accounts and pay the platforms directly.
Access the partner needs: Google Ads access levels decide what a user can change. Admin users can give access and change other users’ levels, so the partner needs Standard, not Admin.
What the client sees: cost and performance reports, in the agency’s name.
The rule to know: Google’s third-party policy applies to whoever manages ads for the client, covered in the next section. White-label PPC is priced as a flat fee per account for that reason.
Local SEO
Who owns it: the business owns its Google Business Profile.
Access the partner needs: manager. Google says managers have mostly the same access as owners, except that they cannot add or remove users or remove the profile, so manager is enough and owner is not needed.
What the client sees: profile updates, review replies and a monthly report.
The rule to know: replies and posts made by a manager stay on the profile after that manager is removed, so what the partner writes in the client’s name stays after the partner has gone. White-label local SEO covers the work per location.
Paid social
Who owns it: the client’s business portfolio in Meta Business Suite owns the Pages and ad accounts.
Access the partner needs: partner access, which Meta lets an owner give as full control or partial access for specific tasks such as managing ads or responding to messages. A partner with full control still cannot share the asset with another business; only the owner can.
What the client sees: ads and posts under its own Page, and reports from the agency.
The rule to know: the client grants access to a business portfolio, so the agency has to decide whose portfolio the partner works from, the agency’s or the partner’s, before it asks.
Email and CRM
Who owns it: the client owns its customer list and its email or CRM account.
Access the partner needs: a user in the client’s account, never a copy of the list in the partner’s own system.
What the client sees: campaigns sent from its own domain, and reports.
The rule to know: a customer list is personal data. Under the EU GDPR the agency is often a processor for its client, and Article 28(2) says a processor shall not engage another processor without the controller’s prior specific or general written authorisation. A white-label partner who touches the list is another processor.
Web
Who owns it: the client should own the domain, the hosting account and the site, and the agency’s contract with the client should say so.
Access the partner needs: a named user in the CMS and, for builds, a staging site; never the client’s own login.
What the client sees: the finished site and the agency’s handover.
The rule to know: analytics on a site is set up by role. In Google Analytics, only a user with the Administrator role can add or change users, so the partner should not need it.
Two principles run through all six. First, the client owns the accounts: the website, the ad accounts, the profiles, the customer list. If the relationship with the agency or the partner ends, the client keeps its history and its data. Second, the partner gets the lowest access level that lets it do the work. Every platform above separates the right to do the work from the right to manage users, and a partner rarely needs the second.
The usual flow
- The agency sells. It agrees scope and price with its client, under its own contract.
- The agency briefs the partner. Goals, what was sold, deadlines and the accounts involved.
- The client grants access. To the partner directly, or to the agency, which adds the partner, at the levels above.
- The partner delivers to the agency. Work and reports, unbranded or in the agency’s template.
- The agency presents to the client. In its own name, and answers the client’s questions.
For SEO in particular, post 71 sets out who does what at each step, what an agency keeps on a resold retainer and the clauses a partner agreement needs: what white-label SEO is and how it works.
Rules that apply whatever your contract says
A white-label agreement decides what the agency and the partner owe each other. It cannot override the rules of the platforms the work runs on, or data protection law. Two sets matter most: Google’s third-party policy for anyone managing Google Ads on a client’s behalf, and the EU GDPR when the partner handles personal data.
| Rule | What it requires | What it means for white-label work |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads third-party policy | Third parties managing ads must be honest and transparent about their company, services, costs and expected results | The agency, as the business the client deals with, carries this. A partner managing the account works under it too |
| Google cost reporting | Where Google’s terms require a monthly report, it must show costs, clicks and impressions, with cost at the exact amount Google charged, excluding the third party’s fees | A partner’s report to the agency, and the agency’s to the client, must show Google’s charge on its own, not a marked-up figure |
| Google management fees | A management fee must be disclosed in writing to new customers before the first purchase and on every invoice | A white-label margin built into the fee still has to be disclosed as a fee |
| Google customer IDs | Third parties must give customers their Google Ads customer IDs when asked | The client can always identify its own account, which is one reason it should own it |
| Google small-budget notice | If 80% or more of a third party’s customers spend under $1,000 a month, it must share Google’s advertiser guide with all of them | An agency serving small local businesses may be in this group; check the share of your clients |
| EU GDPR, Article 28(2) | A processor shall not engage another processor without the controller’s prior written authorisation, specific or general | If the partner handles the client’s personal data, the client has to authorise it, so a partner cannot stay unknown to the client in law |
| EU GDPR, Article 28(4) | The other processor takes on the same data protection obligations, and if it fails, the first processor stays fully liable | The agency answers for the partner’s handling of the data |
| Google spam policies | Buying or selling links for ranking purposes is link spam | A partner’s link building can put the client’s site at risk |
Google Ads: transparency about costs and fees
Google’s third-party policy says advertisers working with a third party should have the same experience as working with Google directly, and that third parties should be honest and transparent about their company, services, associated costs and expected results. Its transparency requirements go further. Where the advertising terms require a monthly performance report, it must include costs, clicks and impressions at the account level, with cost reported at the exact amount Google charged, exclusive of the third party’s fees. A management fee must be disclosed in writing to new customers before each first purchase and on all invoices. Customers must be given their Google Ads customer IDs when they ask.
For white-label PPC this has three practical effects. The client’s reports show Google’s charge on its own, so the agency’s margin cannot sit inside the media cost. The fee for managing the account is a separate, disclosed line. And because the client can always ask for its customer ID, the account should be the client’s from the start. The same policy lists verifying a customer’s account as your own as a form of misrepresenting identity.
GDPR: the client has to authorise the partner
Under the EU GDPR, an agency that handles its client’s customer data is often a processor acting for the client, which is the controller. Article 28(2) says a processor shall not engage another processor without the controller’s prior specific or general written authorisation, and under a general authorisation the processor has to tell the controller about any new or replacement processor so the controller can object. Article 28(4) passes the same data protection obligations down to the other processor and says that if it fails, the first processor remains fully liable to the controller.
So a white-label partner that works with a client’s email list, CRM or other personal data cannot be invisible in law, even if it is invisible in branding. The client has to have authorised it, specifically or generally, and the agency answers for it. Services that never touch personal data, such as a technical SEO audit of public pages, are a different case, but analytics and CRM access often bring personal data with them.
Do you have to tell clients you use a white-label partner?
Whether you have to tell a client depends on your contract with that client and on rules like the ones above. I know of no general rule that requires disclosure for all white-label marketing, and none that allows concealment in every case. Where the partner processes the client’s personal data under the GDPR, the client has to have authorised it, so disclosure in some form is required.
| Approach | What the client is told | When it fits | What it needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unbranded | Nothing about the partner | The partner never touches personal data or the client’s accounts in its own name | A contract with the client that does not require subcontractor approval |
| Delivery partners | That the agency uses specialist partners, without naming them | Most service work | A clause in the client contract allowing subcontractors |
| Named | Who the partner is and what it does | The partner processes personal data under the GDPR, or the client asks | Written authorisation from the client, and the partner’s non-solicitation terms |
A client contract may say whether the agency can use subcontractors, and may require the client’s approval first. Read yours before you choose an approach, because the contract decides more of this than any industry habit does. Whatever the client is told, the agency remains accountable for the work.
Protecting the client relationship
Disclosure raises a fair worry: a client who knows the partner exists might go to it directly. That is what a non-solicitation clause is for. It stops the partner approaching, or accepting work from, clients it met through the agency, for a set period. How to write one, and how its enforceability varies by jurisdiction, is covered in the guide to non-solicitation agreements.
What white-label marketing costs, and what the agency keeps
A partner charges the agency a wholesale price; the agency charges its client a retail price; the difference pays for the agency’s own time, payment fees and profit. How large the difference is depends on the service and on what the agency adds, such as strategy, account management and reporting the client values.
Two things are easy to get wrong. The first is reading the gap as profit: selling and managing the account takes time, and that time has a cost. The second is confusing markup with margin. A $1,600 gap on $1,650 wholesale is a 97% markup but a 49.2% margin on the client’s price, and the two are easy to mix up when quoting. Markup vs margin explains the difference, and the markup calculator has a resold-service mode that adds your own hours and fees and gives the price that leaves the margin you want.
For PPC, remember the Google rule above: the media cost is reported at Google’s exact charge, so the agency’s margin comes from the disclosed management fee, not from the ad spend. The price list in the example shows each wholesale price next to the retail or market rate it is based on, with the source for each.
Which services to white-label first
White-label the service your clients keep asking for and your team cannot deliver. Demand you are already turning away is a better signal than a list of services that might sell, because the client and the budget already exist.
| Your team’s skill | Rarely | Sometimes | Often |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | Refer | Sell | Sell |
| Some | Keep | Split | Extra |
| Strong | Keep | Keep | Keep |
A service clients rarely ask for, and nobody on your team can do, is not worth a partner relationship yet. Refer the client to a specialist and keep your attention on the work you sell.
This is where white-label marketing earns its place: demand you keep turning away, and no one to do it. Start with one partner and one client.
Frequent demand with no skill in-house is the strongest case for white-label, at least until the volume would keep a hire busy. Then compare the cost of hiring.
Occasional requests your team can already handle do not need a partner. Do them in-house and note how often they come up.
Your team can do part of the work. White-label the parts it cannot, such as technical fixes or ad builds, and keep the client-facing parts.
Your team can do the work but not all of it. White-label the overflow so the team is not stretched, and keep the accounts that matter most.
You already have the skill and little demand to fill. Keep doing it yourself.
Steady demand and a strong team: keep it in-house. A partner would take margin you could keep.
This is a core service. Keep it in-house and consider whether to sell it to other agencies yourself.
The grid has two blind spots. It ignores how close a service is to your own work: an SEO agency adding link building is closer to home than one adding web development, and it will judge a partner’s work more easily. And it ignores how much of the client relationship the service carries. A monthly ads retainer puts the partner’s work in front of the client every month; a one-off audit does so once. Start with a service you can judge and that sits a step from the client, and add closer, more visible services once a partner has proved itself.
When white-label marketing is the wrong choice
- When you cannot explain the work. If the client asks why a ranking fell or a campaign changed, and nobody at the agency can answer without asking the partner, the client will notice.
- When the service is your core. The work your agency is known for is the work to keep in-house.
- When the numbers only work at a high price. If the price that leaves you a margin is above what clients in your market pay, refer the client instead.
- When the partner needs ownership-level access. A partner that insists on owning the client’s accounts is asking for more than the work needs.
Starting with white-label marketing
Start small: one service, one partner, one client, for one quarter. The aim of the first three months is not revenue; it is to find out whether the partner’s work is good enough to carry your name and whether the numbers work after your own time.
- Weeks 1 to 2Choose one service and one partnerUse the grid above to pick the service. Talk to two or three partners, read their terms and ask for a sample report.You should haveA signed agreement with confidentiality and non-solicitation terms, and the partner’s sample report.
- Weeks 3 to 4Check your client contractRead what your client contract says about subcontractors and data. If the partner will touch personal data, get the client’s authorisation in writing.You should haveA client contract that allows the arrangement, and authorisation where the GDPR needs it.
- Month 2One client, with the accounts in the client’s nameGrant access at the levels in the service tabs. Agree what the partner reports, when, and in what template.You should haveAccess granted at the right level, and a first report you would send under your own name.
- Month 3Review before you scaleCompare the work with what you sold, the time you spent managing it and what you kept after that time.You should haveA decision: add clients, change partner, or bring the work in-house.
If you are looking for a partner for search work, my own terms are published: unbranded work, a mutual NDA before client details, no contact with your clients unless you ask, and accounts that stay in your client’s name. A white-label SEO audit is a low-risk first piece of work, because it is fixed in scope and shows you how a partner thinks before you hand over a retainer.
White-label marketing lets an agency sell work it does not do itself, under its own name. It works when the client owns its accounts, the partner has only the access the work needs, the agency follows the platform and data rules that come with the service, and the agency can still explain every piece of work it sells.
I work on the partner side of this, so I have a view. The arrangements that last are the ones where the agency could explain every line of the work to its client without me in the room. When that stops being true, the agency is no longer selling a service; it is selling access to someone the client cannot see.
The rules section is there because it is the part most guides leave out. A contract between an agency and a partner can say almost anything, but it cannot change what Google requires of whoever manages a client’s ads, or what the GDPR requires when the work touches personal data.
Frequently asked
What is white-label marketing?
What does white label mean?
What is the difference between white label and private label?
Is white-label marketing legal?
Do I have to tell clients I use a white-label partner?
Which marketing services can be white-labelled?
How much do agencies make on white-label marketing?
Partner enquiries are open. My terms include unbranded work, a mutual NDA, no contact with your clients and accounts that stay in your client’s name.
See the white-label services