Six Conclusions About In-House Agencies

Inhouse agencies should no longer be considered a quottrendquot They have become firmly entrenched as part of the holistic marketing ecosystem and are now a quotmainstayquot Eightytwo percent of ANA members have an inhouse agency in 2023 up from 78 percent in 2018 58 in 2013 and 42 in 2008 There is amazing consistency between the 2023 and 2018 survey results including in services offered benefits challenges and the relationship between inhouse and external agencies further confirmation that inhouse agencies have become firmly entrenchedInhouse agencies are increasingly being held to some of the same standards as external agencies When asked quotWhat KPIs do you use to assess the effectiveness of your inhouse agencyquot the importance of business performance rose dramatically from 45 percent in 2018 to 59 percent in 2023 and is now ranked second and only slightly behind cost savings 62 percent in 2023 down from 69 percent In house agencies are being evaluated just like external agencies 70 percent of respondents conduct evaluations of their inhouse agency to assess performance and identify potential issues this includes 55 percent who do so annuallyData specifically the desire to own control and protect firstparty data is a driver of bringing work inhouse Full ownership of marketing dataanalysis was noted by 34 percent of respondents as a benefit of having an inhouse agency In our qualitative discussions the importance of data ownership was brought up in multiple interviews and was of particular interest to members in regulated industries eg financial health care pharma given the critical importance of managing and protecting customer data Advertisers need to have a data management strategy that provides control oversight and ownership of their data Taking ownership of the data would also ensure that advertisers are not paying for data that should already belong to them Thirdparty cookie deprecation increases the importance of marketers having a data strategy to collect firstparty data directly from their customerMedia is the final frontier for inhouse agencies The point of entry for inhouse agencies is often creative services for traditional media eg collateralpromotional materials internal company communications followed by creative services for digital media eg email social media website developmentdesign Media usually comes later if at all Fiftyfour percent of inhouse agencies handle some media planningbuying services Meanwhile over 90 percent of respondents handle some creative inhouse Only about onethird have some inhouse programmatic capabilities consistent with 2018 Those who have considered bringing media inhouse but have not yet done so told us in qualitative discussions that is because media is quottoo complexquotExternal agencies still have important roles but have been disintermediated to some degree Ninetytwo percent of respondents also work with one or more external agencies Work goes to external agencies primarily for bandwidthcapacity reasons ie the inhouse agency is too busy or for capabilities that an external agency has that do not exist internally In addition external agencies are the place marketers often turn to for quotbig ideasquot and larger tentpole campaigns Over the past three years 65 percent of respondents have moved some established business that used to be handled by their external agency to their inhouse agency To limit the shift of work to inhouse agencies marketers cite cost knowledge of the business and speednimbleness as areas for improvement for agenciesItamp8217s all about talent Historically inhouse agencies have been about being quotcheaperquot and quotfasterquot but not necessarily quotbetterquot than external agencies That perception of not being better has been driven by the quality of inhouse talent Today the work done by inhouse agencies is no longer confined to quotlowhanging fruitquot such as collateralpromotional materials and internal videos Inhouse agencies are doing much more Just like external agencies the quality of talent will drive the success of inhouse agencies The biggest challenges for inhouse agencies have talent implications Those challenges are managing workflow increased projects and scaling efficientlymanaging resources The pandemic had a positive impact on the staffing of inhouse agencies Work and talent have gone remote either partially or completely providing greater access to talent without geographic boundaries Competition for that talent has also increasedAccess the full report here and learn even more at the ANA 2023 InHouse Agency Conference June 1214 in OrlandoPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Six Conclusions About In-House Agencies

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Bill Duggan

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Six Conclusions About In-House Agencies

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