A Guide to In-House Agency Services – More than a playbook

The term ‘in-housing’ has been part of our industry for several years, and it’s fair to say that results have been varied. Some organisations have successfully integrated elements of creative ideation, production, or media buying services; some have tried and then reverted to an outsourced model; and some have found a balance in a hybrid approach, combining what they still need from their agencies with what they can manage in-house.

Agencies, too, have adapted to the changing landscape and are now more willing and capable of considering different servicing or scoping models tailored to their clients’ specific requirements or operations.

Just like everything else, in-housing presents both challenges and opportunities, pitfalls and peaks. At TrinityP3, with over twenty years of global experience in marketing management consulting, we’ve helped multinational corporations and local businesses alike navigate the complex process of agency relationship optimisation and marketing operations improvement. Our unique perspective—covering five continents and numerous industry sectors—has enabled us to identify the key success factors and common pitfalls of in-house agency models. This paper, grounded in our practical experience, aims to offer guidance and ideas to those contemplating in-housing their agency services.

This paper is particularly beneficial to:

• Executive Marketing & Brand Leaders: Obtain a comprehensive understanding of the strategic implications and potential ROI of in-housing.
• CMOs & Marketing Directors: Craft a clear roadmap for designing, implementing, and scaling an in-house agency.
• Procurement & Finance Directors: Gain detailed insights into cost analysis, value measurement, and risk mitigation approaches.
• In-House Agency Leads & Managers: Explore best practices for operational efficiency, talent management, and stakeholder engagement.
• Organisations at Any Stage of Their In-House Journey: From initial feasibility studies to mature operations aiming for optimal performance.

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The decision to establish or significantly expand an in-house agency must be based on thorough analysis, not just anecdotal evidence or knee-jerk cost-cutting. This phase focuses on building a solid business case that can withstand scrutiny and pave the way for real success.

What do you want to do in-house and why do you need to in-house? The ‘what’ could be all operations currently undertaken by rostered agencies; it could be a single discipline; or it could be anything in between. The ‘why’ could be any number of operational, commercial, or service-driven reasons.

It’s important to remember that in-housing doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing process. A phased or test-learn-evolve approach makes sense for clear reasons and can also be more effective in a business case, especially if your organisation is fairly risk-averse.

There could be influences, both internal and external, that make in-housing seem like a good idea.

Cutting out the white noise and conducting an in-depth audit of the agency or agencies under consideration as having in-housing potential enables clarity of focus on any areas of imbalance between marketing objectives and your perceived return on agency investment.

In general terms, an audit is necessary to articulate the following clearly:

1. The accurate, objective current state of your agency relationships and operations, and the desired future state for marketing within your organisation.
2. The resultant ‘opportunity gap’ between current and future states that could be filled by in-housing. It’s highly unlikely that an agency does everything wrong. In-housing is not about complete transformation, in this sense; it’s about providing a better fit for the current state, it’s about setting up for success or achievement of the future state, and it’s about identifying those gaps which only in-housing can really fill.
3. The ‘effort in, reward out’ equation – is the identified opportunity gap big enough to justify the investment into in-housing?

To ascertain the opportunity gap, it’s best to adopt a Green/Amber/Red framework in audit to allow objectivity across what’s working well, what could be better, and critical areas of under-delivery in the current state.

It’s also necessary to objectively consider the desired future state in cultural and organisational terms. How well, in practice, is an in-house model going to work with your stakeholders? What cultural challenges might you encounter? Who’s going to be on board? Internal consultation in these areas, in addition to executive sponsorship, is critical to successful change management and onboarding of an in-house solution.

A current state audit can be challenging to drive from the inside, given the sensitivities involved (you’re asking your own people to discuss weaknesses/areas of challenge in their own roles, as well as those on the agency side they work directly with). A solution is to appoint third party consultation (TrinityP3 performs many independent operational and commercial assessments of incumbent agency-marketer relationships). What’s essential is to ensure that the opportunity gaps identified by an audit are:

• Evidence-based – via previous reviews, specific examples or similar.
• Trend-based – repeated occurrences of the same challenge
• Scope-based – is the problem actually within the agency’s scope of services to fix?
• Consultation-based – what are your people telling you? What is your agency telling you?
• Process-based – what steps have been taken to resolve the issue, over what time period? What KPIS or SMART goals are in place, if any?
• Priority based – on a scale of 1-10, how critical is the issue in overall terms?
• Objectively based – employing radical candour, what problems stem from the agency/s and what problems are of your own team’s creation?

Examples of agency-driven pain points that cause opportunity gaps to arise could be speed and agility-related (agency too slow, either to respond or to cluster and solve); knowledge-related (agency doesn’t know enough); commercial-related (too expensive or unwieldy); people-related (skillset gaps or relationship issues); leadership-related (lack of proactivity, follow-through, strategic initiative); output-related (good work is too hard to achieve, or not achieved); outcome-related (not seeing the necessary ROAS or ROMI).

On the ‘client side’, pain points might include a lack of information sharing with the agency/s, poor briefing, insufficient time allowance to complete tasks, scope creep, workflow prioritisation issues, avoidance of contact with agency leads, or other interpersonal challenges, along with a general, culturally ingrained disrespect for ‘agencies’ that manifests in negative behaviours towards them.

Building a weighted assessment rack tailored to your organisation, covering all identified pain points, would help clarify the level of need and the perceived benefits of transitioning to an in-housed model.

If the outcome of this assessment shows a strong case for in-housing, the next step is to consider the logistics and costs (both OPEX and CAPEX) involved in making the change.

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A common misconception from an organisation tired of paying marked-up agency head-hour rates, inflated production costs or hidden media buying charges is that in-house automatically equals cheaper.

The truth is that hidden costs and underestimating complexity can rapidly diminish perceived savings.

In a nutshell, the agency model that has existed for decades, in many industries, is fundamentally based on the concept of ‘outsourcing expertise, to avoid internal overhead and remove internal skillset gaps.’

Objectively speaking, this idea is more accurate today than ever before. This is because of the increasing complexity of skillsets now held by agencies, which explains why most organisations prefer to bring things in-house gradually (e.g., handling part of creative production but not all; managing paid search and affiliates but avoiding programmatic trading or traditional media buying).

Of course, agency fees come with a profit, and therefore a higher base cost, attached (and rightly so; they’re businesses).

However, the investment involved in in-housing means that your organisation becomes responsible for the overheads related to headcount – covering everything from building space, payroll tax, healthcare responsibilities, superannuation, insurance, amenities, energy costs, IT expenses (hardware and, importantly, software – especially specialised software platforms, licences, or technologies needed in areas such as workflow management or ticketing, consumer research, design, media buying, and others), legal costs, paid vacation, training, and development, among others.

Another thing to consider is the internal management cost involved in embedding an in-house team and providing ongoing oversight. This isn’t just in terms of resource drain, but also opportunity cost (i.e. your management team working on management of the in-house agency, when it could be doing other things).

Furthermore, there is the cost and difficulty involved in recruiting the required talent. It is true to say that most corporate marketing teams work in very different environments, and in this context, both recruiting and retaining agency people over to ‘the client side’ can be fraught with challenges.

Finally, as with any business case involving investment in headcount, you need to consider team structure and required resourcing as a central part of your business case. When in-housing ‘agency services’, this can be challenging, given that there are likely to be agency resources working on your business that you will not be aware of, and sometimes will not be included on a retained resource plan (instead, the cost to the agency of this resource is taken up in overhead).

To overcome these challenges, there are several options:

• Hire consultants to identify and build a recommended structural and resourcing approach, tailored to your needs.
• Hire consultants offering a ‘fully managed’ in-housing service (which can involve a mix of in-house talent and offshore talent).
• Hire a knowledgeable leader ahead of the curve, with a remit to build the department from scratch.
• Undertake a phased transition and/or a hybrid model by negotiating with your incumbent agency and agreeing a plan whereby specific parts of service are in-housed, with external agency support continuing in oversight or in other areas.

The option you choose will inform the financial business case/projection plan you need to submit to your business. All have pros and cons attached, and you can, of course, tailor your solution in any way you choose; however, a summary of the most common models is listed below (these descriptors are based on advertising agency in-housing but can, of course, be applied to media agencies as required).

• Pure Production Hub:
  • Focus: High-volume, tactical asset creation (e.g., social posts, banner ads, email graphics, simple video edits).
  • Characteristics: Highly process-driven, emphasis on speed and cost efficiency, often junior to mid-level talent. Strategic direction comes from marketing teams or external agencies.
  • Best For: Organisations with high content velocity needs and mature brand guidelines.
• Strategic Hub (Hybrid Model):
  • Focus: Internal team handles strategic creative direction, brand guardianship, and potentially project management. Execution is often outsourced to a roster of specialised external agencies or freelancers.
  • Characteristics: Senior creative and strategic talent in-house. Offers deep brand immersion without needing to scale full production capabilities.
  • Best For: Brands where strategic oversight and brand consistency are paramount, but diverse execution needs make a full-service internal team impractical.
• Full-Service In-House Agency:
  • Focus: Handles end-to-end campaign development, from strategy to execution across multiple channels.
  • Characteristics: Significant investment in diverse talent (strategists, creatives, media planners, producers), complex operational structure. Requires strong internal “client” relationships and clear P&L accountability.
  • Best For: Very large organisations with sustained, high-volume, complex marketing needs where deep internal knowledge provides a consistent competitive edge. Often functions as an independent business unit.
• Embedded vs. Centralised:
  • Embedded: Small creative teams sit directly within brand or business units. Pros: Deep category knowledge, close collaboration. Cons: Potential for siloed work, inconsistent brand application across business units, and limited career progression.
  • Centralised: A single in-house agency serves multiple brands/business units. Pros: Consistency, economies of scale, clear brand guardianship, diverse project exposure for talent. Cons: Can feel less responsive to individual brand needs, potential for internal “client” friction. A hybrid central model with embedded client service leads often works well.

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A robust business case is a sales document for your internal agency. It needs to articulate value clearly to diverse stakeholders.

• The Business Case Narrative: Go beyond spreadsheets. Use the results of your audit to tell a story that highlights the strategic importance, measurable benefits, proposed solution, and risk mitigation. Include a detailed financial model (ROI, payback period, net present value).
• Early & Continuous Stakeholder Engagement:
  • Marketing Leadership: Clearly explain how the in-house agency aligns with and supports broader marketing objectives and brand strategy.
  • Finance: Emphasise cost transparency, ROI, and budget management. Tackle the “hidden costs’ early on.
  • Procurement: Work together on managing vendors for external agencies, purchasing technology, and ensuring compliance. Make sure they understand the new internal “supplier” dynamic.
  • HR: Essential for talent acquisition, salary benchmarking, career development, and performance management in creative roles. Their grasp of agency culture versus corporate culture is crucial.
  • Legal: IP ownership, contract templates for freelancers, and compliance with advertising standards.
  • IT: Infrastructure, software licensing, data security, and system integrations.
• Success Roadmap. Setting up in-house agencies can be complex. It’s crucial to manage expectations with a realistic planning roadmap that outlines how long it will take for the model to be fully operational.
• KPI Framework. Clear, concise, measurable (SMART) goals designed to achieve the future-state vision, with built-in review periods.
• Executive Sponsorship: This is non-negotiable. An in-house agency marks a major organisational change. Secure a senior executive champion who will advocate for the initiative, remove roadblocks, and ensure long-term commitment. Without this, your agency will struggle for legitimacy and resources.

Furthermore, there is the cost and difficulty involved in recruiting the required talent. It is true to say that most corporate marketing teams work in very different environments, and in this context, both recruiting and retaining agency people over to ‘the client side’ can be fraught with challenges.

Finally, as with any business case involving investment in headcount, you need to consider team structure and required resourcing as a central part of your business case. When in-housing ‘agency services’, this can be challenging, given that there are likely to be agency resources working on your business that you will not be aware of, and sometimes will not be included on a retained resource plan (instead, the cost to the agency of this resource is taken up in overhead).

To overcome these challenges, there are several options:

• Hire consultants to identify and build a recommended structural and resourcing approach, tailored to your needs.
• Hire consultants offering a ‘fully managed’ in-housing service (which can involve a mix of in-house talent and offshore talent).
• Hire a knowledgeable leader ahead of the curve, with a remit to build the department from scratch.
• Undertake a phased transition and/or a hybrid model by negotiating with your incumbent agency and agreeing a plan whereby specific parts of service are in-housed, with external agency support continuing in oversight or in other areas.

The option you choose will inform the financial business case/projection plan you need to submit to your business. All have pros and cons attached, and you can, of course, tailor your solution in any way you choose; however, a summary of the most common models is listed below (these descriptors are based on advertising agency in-housing but can, of course, be applied to media agencies as required).

• Pure Production Hub:
  • Focus: High-volume, tactical asset creation (e.g., social posts, banner ads, email graphics, simple video edits).
  • Characteristics: Highly process-driven, emphasis on speed and cost efficiency, often junior to mid-level talent. Strategic direction comes from marketing teams or external agencies.
  • Best For: Organisations with high content velocity needs and mature brand guidelines.
• Strategic Hub (Hybrid Model):
  • Focus: Internal team handles strategic creative direction, brand guardianship, and potentially project management. Execution is often outsourced to a roster of specialised external agencies or freelancers.
  • Characteristics: Senior creative and strategic talent in-house. Offers deep brand immersion without needing to scale full production capabilities.
  • Best For: Brands where strategic oversight and brand consistency are paramount, but diverse execution needs make a full-service internal team impractical.
• Full-Service In-House Agency:
  • Focus: Handles end-to-end campaign development, from strategy to execution across multiple channels.
  • Characteristics: Significant investment in diverse talent (strategists, creatives, media planners, producers), complex operational structure. Requires strong internal “client” relationships and clear P&L accountability.
  • Best For: Very large organisations with sustained, high-volume, complex marketing needs where deep internal knowledge provides a consistent competitive edge. Often functions as an independent business unit.
• Embedded vs. Centralised:
  • Embedded: Small creative teams sit directly within brand or business units. Pros: Deep category knowledge, close collaboration. Cons: Potential for siloed work, inconsistent brand application across business units, and limited career progression.
  • Centralised: A single in-house agency serves multiple brands/business units. Pros: Consistency, economies of scale, clear brand guardianship, diverse project exposure for talent. Cons: Can feel less responsive to individual brand needs, potential for internal “client” friction. A hybrid central model with embedded client service leads often works well.

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You’ve completed phases one and two. You’ve hired your people, and it’s day one with a whole team in place. What happens now?

It’s unlikely to be as straightforward as that; roles will take time, teams will need time to settle in, and adjustments to a new reality for everyone will have to be made. But never forget that, as a function so heavily reliant on human IP, an in-house agency is a living entity. Without ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation, it will stagnate. So, you need to foster a culture of excellence and accountability.

KPIs must align with the initial objectives set in Phase 1 and show clear value. Additionally, they should naturally align with your broader business; the more your in-house agency operates in isolation, the more it will be perceived as such, which, in our experience, is not the best approach for success.

Some examples of KPIs are provided below, noting that this serves as a somewhat of a ‘laundry list’ for consideration. Our recommendation is that any KPI framework should be clear, easy to engage with and measure, based on aligned values, and where possible or at least partly, rooted in outcomes (business performance) rather than inputs (cost).

• Outcomes
  • Measured attribution of marketing/advertising activity on sales, enquiries, leads or similar metrics
  • Brand saliency, awareness or similar markers
  • ROMI
  • ROAS
• Productivity & Output:
  • Number of completed projects/assets per FTE.
  • Utilisation Rate: Percentage of billable/productive time vs. total time (for cost analysis).
  • Throughput: Number of items completed in a specific time period.
• Efficiency & Turnaround:
  • Average time from brief submission to final asset delivery.
  • Rework Rate: Percentage of projects requiring significant revisions after initial delivery.
  • Cycle Time: Time taken for specific recurring tasks.
• Quality & Effectiveness:
  • Brief clarity and adherence.
  • Creative quality and strategic effectiveness.
  • Timeliness and responsiveness.
  • Overall service.
  • Brand Consistency Score (if quantifiable).
  • Creative Impact: Link creative performance to marketing outcomes (e.g., A/B test results, engagement rates, click-through rates, conversion rates).
• Financial Performance:
  • Actual internal cost per asset/project vs. external benchmark
  • Cost savings achieved vs. initial projections.
  • Return on Investment (ROI) of the in-house agency.
• Talent & Culture:
  • Employee Retention Rate (especially compared to industry benchmarks).
  • Employee Engagement Scores.
  • Professional Development Hours/Spend per employee.

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An in-house agency is often a new entity within an organisation. Naturally, this can bring some trepidation, scepticism, or, when it comes to making cuts, a ‘last in, first out’ mentality.

Therefore, it’s always wise to keep your C-Suite in the loop; transparency and regular reporting are essential for maintaining support and driving improvements.

• Executive Dashboards: High-level, visual dashboards for leadership focused on key strategic KPIs (e.g., ROI, strategic impact, overall efficiency).
• Operational Reports: Detailed reports for the in-house agency lead focusing on productivity, workflow bottlenecks, and resource allocation.
• Client Reports: Share relevant KPIs with internal clients to demonstrate value and manage expectations.
• Regular Review Meetings: Monthly or quarterly meetings with marketing leadership, finance, and procurement to discuss performance, challenges, and future strategic alignment.

The in-house agency acts as a service provider. This can take some time to get used to. However, the ideal approach should be an agency mindset, with an additional advantage; the enhanced knowledge, focus, and expertise that being in-housed delivers to the entire operation.

To make this benefit real, it is crucial to foster and sustain a strong working relationship between the in-house agency and other internal stakeholders. Stakeholders need to recognise the potential benefits and communicate effectively with the agency; however, it is also important to treat internal clients with the same professionalism and responsiveness as a reputable external agency would.

• Formal Feedback Mechanism: While you may opt to use the current internal structure, experience shows that it’s preferable to engage a specialist consultancy like TrinityP3’s Evalu8ing™. It’s a systematic, objective tool specifically designed for marketing-agency relationships, used for gathering client feedback after each major project. This structured data is far more valuable than random emails.
• Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs): proactive meetings with key internal clients to review past projects, discuss upcoming needs, identify potential issues, and strategise for future collaboration.
• Internal Client Councils: Form a small, representative team of internal clients to give ongoing strategic input and feedback on the in-house agency’s direction and services.
• Actionable Insights: Turn feedback into clear action plans for process improvements, training, or resource adjustments. Relay these changes back to clients.

As we’ve mentioned previously, the in-house agency should not exist in a silo. But this doesn’t stop at your internal walls. The in-house agency is a critical component of your overall agency roster and should be engaged as such.

Other agencies in your roster should be –

• Communicated with regarding change and vision
• Kept in the loop with development
• Given the opportunity to facilitate leadership and operational connections with the in-house agency
• Be completely clear about their role, versus the role of the in-house agency and how the two intersect.

There are several steps you can take to achieve this position.

• Clear Roster Definition: Beyond “in-house vs. external,” specify particular roles and responsibilities for each agency on your roster. Who is the lead agency? Who manages strategic branding? Who oversees media? Who is responsible for specific tactical production?
• Seamless Workflow Handovers: Set clear protocols for quick hand-offs, sharing assets, and communication between your in-house team and external agencies to keep campaigns cohesive.
• Collaborative Planning: Foster joint planning sessions where appropriate, enabling in-house and external teams to contribute to strategy and creative ideation.
• Avoid Duplication: Proactively control scope to ensure that both internal and external teams do not duplicate tasks, which wastes resources and leads to conflict.
• Gatekeeping: Establish a straightforward process or “triage” function that determines whether the project is best suited for the in-house team, an external specialist agency, or the lead creative agency, based on criteria like complexity, scale, specialisation, and cost.
• Overflow: What is the protocol for handling overflow work? If the in-house team needs overflow assistance, which other agencies should take it on? How will that agency be compensated for accepting overflow work?

The challenge associated with employing talent to work in an in-house agency was outlined in a previous section. Just as challenging will be staff churn, as those who came in become disillusioned and seek a ‘jump-back’ to agency-land.

Furthermore, one of the main challenges facing an in-house agency is the myopia it can create. When everyone operates under the same roof, the lack of external stimulus—usually provided by an external agency—can lead to stagnant thinking or application and a fallback into a ‘this is how we do it’ mentality. This mindset may also develop if internal stakeholders adopt a command-and-control approach to managing the relationship.

With this in mind, it pays to anticipate and tackle potential challenges early, preventing them from derailing your in-house agency.

• Talent Burnout & Stagnation:
  • Proactive Workload Management: Ensure that capacity is monitored, that jobs are correctly prioritised, and that over-allocation is prevented.
  • Professional Development: Allocate budget for and promote ongoing learning, skill enhancement, and engagement with external industry trends and creative inspiration. Proactively encourage in-house agency staff to seek external stimuli (as part of their role, not ‘in their spare time’).
  • Creative Challenges: Make sure the team has opportunities to work on exciting, creatively demanding projects, not just routine production.
  • External Exposure: Support attendance at industry events, awards shows, and even short sabbaticals to external agencies where possible. Incorporate external creative reviews, promote outside perspectives, rotate external creative talent for specific projects, and ensure internal political agendas do not solely influence the team.
  • Regularly reassess the business case, showcase ongoing ROI, and advocate for essential resources.
• Lack of Internal Client Respect/Utilisation:
  • Beyond the initial consultation, align and establish the approach of how we operate, proactively promote the in-house agency’s capabilities to internal stakeholders, consistently deliver high-quality work, and demonstrate value through tangible results and positive feedback.

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