Trying to decide between in-house and agency for your marketing needs? Here’s how to make the right call – plus why the smartest brands are blending both for greater agility, scale, and strategic advantage
With the relentless pace and change of today’s digital and marketing landscape, brands are constantly evaluating the best approach to managing their marketing. Should you build a team in-house, or partner with a specialist agency? It’s a question we’re often asked at M3, and one that doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer.
But with our recent recognition as a Google Premier Partner (an accolade awarded to the top 3% of agencies), we wanted to share a few strategic thoughts to help inform your decision-making – drawing from our own experience in delivering performance-driven marketing for some of the UK’s leading brands.
The Case for Outsourcing: Depth and Breadth
One of the biggest advantages of partnering with an agency like M3 is the breadth and depth of expertise that comes with it. While an in-house team may offer deep business insight, agencies offer something that tends to be much harder to build internally: access to multi-channel specialists, cutting-edge tools, and cross-sector experience.
For example, our Paid Media team alone manages up to £1 million in monthly client spend across Google, LinkedIn, Meta and more. We’re talking high-volume, high-performance campaigns, including clients investing over £250k per month. That’s the kind of scale that demands a dedicated, multi-person team. And we cap our media specialists to just 8-12 clients each, ensuring true focus and quality.
More than that, being a Premier Partner unlocks exclusive access to Google beta features – tools and insights that 97% of agencies and in-house teams simply don’t have. If your business thrives on innovation and early access – many of our clients love to come and play in the sandbox – this level of support can be a game-changer.
Tools and Tech You Can’t Always Justify In-House
Tech is another differentiator. In-house marketers often rely on a single tool (say, the basic SEMrush subscription). By contrast, we invest over £15,000 a month in advanced marketing software. From granular keyword research to cross-platform competitor insights, our toolkit spans multiple platforms (because no single tool does it all).
And it’s not just paid and SEO. Our in-house team is full-service, covering everything from web development to creative production. Even when elements are outsourced (think video production or animation), our black book of pre-approved specialists means you're accessing top-tier talent quickly and efficiently.
Collaboration and Culture: Built for Performance
It’s easy to underestimate the value of culture and collaboration in delivering digital excellence. Our 10-strong Paid Media team thinks outside of siloes as well as boxes. They’re always sharing insights, testing strategies, and pushing each other to go further. That kind of culture, and the collective learning mindset that goes with it, is hard to replicate in a smaller in-house setup where one or two people are trying to cover multiple bases.
On the softer side, agency life demands strong communication skills. Our specialists regularly present strategy and performance updates directly to clients, not through layers of account management. That means clients hear directly from the people doing the work, not just on SEO or PPC but across the whole full-service repertoire.
We also support our team to grow these skills. Internally, everyone practises monthly report presentations and participates in initiatives like our ‘Meet the MD’ sessions, where they walk through accounts with leadership. This builds not just confidence, but real commercial awareness.
Why Agencies Might Be the Smarter Choice for Brands
Choosing between in-house and agency isn’t just about headcount – it’s a strategic decision that can impact your marketing effectiveness, efficiency and innovation. Here’s why many brands tell us they opt to work with agencies like M3:
✅ Access to Specialised Expertise
Agencies bring together experienced SEO strategists, PPC pros, designers, developers, copywriters and more. It’s a level of talent diversity that’s difficult, and costly, to replicate in-house.
✅ Cost Efficiency and Flexibility
Hiring a full in-house team requires significant investment in salaries, training, tools and onboarding. Agencies offer an agile model where you can scale services up or down depending on your needs, without long-term commitments.
✅ Staying Ahead of Trends
Agencies are immersed in the marketing world across multiple industries and sectors. That exposure means they’re constantly evolving – adopting the latest platforms, trends, and technologies faster than most in-house teams can.
✅ Fresh Thinking and Objectivity
Sometimes, being too close to your brand can limit creativity. Agencies offer an external perspective, challenging assumptions and introducing bold new ideas to help your marketing stand out.
✅ Access to Premium Tools
Most agencies invest heavily in top-tier tools for everything from performance tracking to content optimisation – costs that would be hard to justify for an internal team alone.
✅ Faster Turnaround
Need to launch a campaign quickly or pivot direction? Agencies are designed for speed, with the infrastructure, processes, and teams to get things live fast.
So, When Should You Build In-House?
There are cases where building in-house makes sense. If your business has a singular focus (e.g. one product line or a very niche audience), going deep internally can work – especially if you’ve already built strong foundations and need someone to scale them consistently over time.
In-house teams are often closer to the business, which can be powerful. They know what keeps the board up at night, they sit in on product planning meetings, and they live and breathe the brand.
And yet even then, many companies still choose to blend internal ownership with agency firepower to bring in that broader market view, deeper channel expertise, and advanced tooling.
Final thought: Build or Buy? Think Bigger.
Ultimately, the decision isn’t just in-house vs. agency – it’s about what mix gives your brand the best return, fastest innovation, and strongest strategic direction.
At M3, we pride ourselves on becoming a true extension of your team. We take the time to understand your business, your challenges, and your goals. So whether you’re looking to outsource entirely or supplement your in-house function, we’re ready to make it work.
Drop me a line if you’d like to explore how M3 can take your digital marketing to the next level.
