The trend towards in-housing marketing activities may be slowing down. A new report [download page] from RSW/US shows that the majority of agencies do not expect their clients to move more of their marketing agency-like work in-house.
With benefits such as cost efficiency, dedicated staff and speed, in-housing has steadily become more popular in recent years, and the report shows that only 6% of the marketing agencies surveyed say none of their clients have in-house agencies.
While the largest share (35%) of agencies say about 11-25% of their clients have in-house agencies or do agency-like work in-house, there has been a slight lift over the last year in the percentage of those saying that more than half of their clients have in-house agencies or do agency-like work (14% in 2021 to 17% in 2022).
The majority (52%) of agencies don’t foresee their clients moving more marketing agency-like work in-house this year. Notably, the remainder were roughly split evenly, with 25% overall believing this trend will decrease compared to 23% feeling that more work will be in-housed.
Interestingly, marketers appear somewhat in agreement. This year, only 39% of respondents said that the majority of their marketing and advertising work is being managed by an in-house team, down significantly from 58% who said the same last year. However, 37% believe that the amount of work managed in-house will increase in the next few years, about twice as many (18%) as believe it will decrease to some degree.
Data Policy Updates Inspire Concern
For the past year, updates in user data policies such as the deprecation of third-party cookies have been a hot topic for marketers and agencies. Indeed 8 in 10 marketers say third-party cookies are important to their marketing strategy.
Agencies anticipate the potential impact of these updates. Per the report, three-quarters (76%) of agencies admit to being concerned about the recent and upcoming data privacy changes in relation to their digital efforts and analytics. The good news is, 6 in 10 agencies have someone who is dedicated to data and analytics capabilities, and 35% say they plan to hire someone for this task in 2022.
Short-Form Video Expected to Shine
With the explosion of TikTok during the pandemic, it’s no surprise 7 in 10 (69% of) marketers anticipate short-form video to have a significant impact on the industry and/or their clients this year. They also believe that delivering personalized experiences through smart technologies (52%), influencer marketing (38%) and first-party data strategy (35%) will have among the largest impacts on the industry and/or clients this year.
Read the full report here.
About the Data: Findings are based on a December 2021 survey of 110 agencies and 123 marketers.
