In-housing is not living up to marketers’ expectations

In-housing has been a hot topic over the past couple of years as marketers look to reduce costs and increase efficiency. But what works for some brands won’t work for others, and in many cases in-housing is falling short of companies’ expectations.

Increased productivity is a major draw for 47% of marketers, for example, according to new research by the Data and Marketing Association (DMA) and MailJet. But just 32% of brands are happy this objective has been achieved.

Likewise, 38% thought they could improve creativity as a result of bringing processes in-house, but only 27% believe this has happened in reality.

The top outcomes brands hoped to achieve by in-housing include cost saving (57%), better brand consistency (53%), better control of campaigns (48%) and improved decision making (46%).

Yet, in all cases in-housing has failed to live up to expectations. While there is just a four percentage point gap between marketers’ expectations and achievements on cost saving, there is a seven percentage point gap for brand consistency, a nine percentage point gap for improved decision making and a two percentage point gap for control.

Despite the outcome gap, just 9% of those that have tried in-housing say will not continue with it in future. The vast majority of brands (86%) are currently in-housing some aspects of marketing and will carry on doing so.

According to the research, future in-housing will focus on acquiring key skills within teams, including data analytics (40%), search (37%) and online ad buying (35%). By bringing these skills in-house, marketers hope it will help boost business growth (25%), improve productivity (20%) and be a better use of budget (19%).

Challenges and concerns with in-housing

Although marketers are looking to in-house more functions, they raised some key concerns about relying on internal staff over external expertise.

These include being trapped in an echo-chamber with no outside perspective to innovate (37%), too many people being involved with no clear process (37%) and the fact it could mean deadlines are pushed back or missed (35%).

Another concern for just under a third of the 200 marketers questioned (29%) is the fact no one will question proposed campaigns or strategies.

This risk became a reality for Pepsi when it launched its now infamous Kylie Jenner campaign in 2017, which was developed by its in-house creative team.

Pepsi’s ad failure shows the importance of diversity and market research

The research confirms in-housing is more than a short-term trend, but the performance gap in a number of areas shows it has a way to go to prove the benefits of having everything exist under one roof.