What is an in-house agency?
When it comes to marketing your brand in the digital age, advertising comes in two distinct variations. In-house agencies are an agile response to the standard external agency partner. Specifically, an in-house agency consists of a number of team members that work as employees of a business—for the duration of the project— who are meant to support, create, and manage the content marketing, advertising, or technical development strategies for that business. Many brands are finding this format to be a preferable solution to handing off business-critical projects to agency partners, sight unseen, and hoping for the best.
Depending on the size of a given business, an in-house agency might look very different from company to company. One might have an embedded team from an in-house agency partner that consists of two to three people, or twenty to thirty. The in-house agency is expected to manage, and possibly create all of the marketing materials for the business, as well as implementing strategies, buying ads, dealing with any number of digital and/or physical advertising materials and strategies.
While it is difficult to properly gauge the qualitative trends in the current market, that is, whether it’s better to go with in-house or third party advertising agencies/services, according to a study by ANA (The Association of National Advertisers) companies have resoundingly been moving to in-house teams. The ANA reported that 78% of its members have moved to in-house teams, and that the amount of work being done by in-house agencies has increased dramatically as well with 90% of respondents reporting that in-house advertising workloads have increased dramatically in their companies.
While many companies are looking to in-house marketing teams to guide them in the modern advertising environment, this is not to say that in-house marketing is without its challenges, and that an advertising agency can’t provide valuable services when required. After all, in this dynamic marketing environment it is important to stay flexible. As such, a diverse approach to marketing and business practices in general can yield surprising and valuable returns.
Activities and Responsibilities of In-House Agency Partners
So, beyond market trends, what are the day to day responsibilities of an in-house advertising agency?
To get a better understanding of this it might be helpful to consider what an advertising agency does in general, as most of these functions could theoretically be imported into an in-house role.
When one thinks of an advertising agency one probably thinks of the somewhat anachronistic (at least in a digital world) images conjured by shows like Mad Men. The pitch, in front of the board room, the presentation of the campaign, usually involving someone flipping through large colorful pieces of cardstock detailing the aim of the campaign and the way in which consumers will be targeted to convert possible sales.
This is a somewhat fanciful picture, but in general a good advertising agency will identify key demographics, taking advantage of, or in some cases even producing, valuable marketing datasets which can be exploited via advertising campaigns leading to increased revenue and profitability for companies. Needless to say the applications of advertising have become more broad with the advent of the internet and the multifaceted aspects of social media, internet marketing, google and facebook ads, as well as many other potentially lucrative avenues of widening a company’s reach.
These initial stages of advertising may be what lay-people think of as the majority of the job, but in reality the rollout, maintenance, and follow-up involved in a successful ad campaign can be just as important as the wonderful suite of ideas the agency initially produces for a given company.
How Can Companies Determine if In-Housing is Right for Their Brand?
Taking into account the broad aspects of advertising in the digital age, a company must make some important considerations. First of all:
Be honest with yourself. Companies of a certain size may want to grow quickly, and they may think that having an in-house team is the only way to grow at the speed they envision themselves needing to grow. After all, companies need to be flexible, nimble, and able to seize on opportunities as they come up almost instantaneously. Having the opportunity to immediately interface with in-house advertising teams can seem like a huge advantage over competitors that are working with the comparatively slower pace of a contracted agency where the pitch, the presentation, and the rollout can move at a decidedly slower pace.
However, the cost of maintaining a successful in-house agency is expensive, and for certain revenue brackets the cost may in fact be prohibitive. But keep in mind, you are paying for synergy within your brand, which is almost always a worthwhile cost for business-critical projects. Top performance on projects, coupled with the immediate accountability of team members—something often seriously lacking from external agency partners—can often pay for themselves over the course of a campaign. The question is—can you afford not to go in-house with an embedded team?
