RSW/US New Year Outlook Report Unearths An Unexpected Trend: Less Marketer Reliance On In-House Agencies in 2022

In our latest RSW New Year Outlook Report (download at no cost at the bottom of this post), we once again asked marketers and agencies about the state of in-house agencies.

With one exception, signs point towards the trend we saw in last year’s report: marketers’ reliance on in-house teams seems to be on the wane.

We initially asked agencies,

What percent of YOUR current clients have in-house agencies/do agency-like work in-house

To provide some perspective, in January 2020, 28% of agencies indicated that 51%+ of their clients brought agency work in-house, and in January 2021, it was only 14%.

Bucking the trend a bit, in this year’s response, that number jumped slightly to 17% of agencies reporting 51%+ of their clients brought agency work in-house.

So while rising slightly, as mentioned previously, this is the only exception to the in-house trend actually decreasing.

For example,

77% of agencies expect either no change or a reduction in the amount of work being managed by their clients inhouse.

Last year’s report saw that number at 67%.

Overall, this is seemingly good news for agencies.

And the good news continues with marketer responses.

We asked marketers,

What percentage of your marketing/advertising activity is managed by an in-house marketing/advertising team?

Last year’s report saw 58% of marketers reporting more than 50% of their work was done by in-house agencies. This year, that number is only 39%, quite a decrease.

And when asked how marketers see the amount of work managed in-house changing over the next few years, last year the response was 36% saying it would not change or decrease somewhat to significantly.

This year it’s 63%!

In-house agencies aren’t going away of course.

(And interestingly, our findings are contrary to a report Adweek released in early December, 2021.  We shall see, right?)

Part of your agency new business strategy needs to include how to co-exist and work with in-house groups, but if these numbers prove themselves out, we’re looking at yet more potential opportunities for agencies to win more new business.

Part of your plan for winning new business from existing clients is to make them aware of all the things you can do for them.

In recent surveys agencies reported the vast majority of their clients didn’t have a full view of all of the potential offerings/services their agency had to offer.

Creating a comprehensive plan to organically win new business is just as important as having a solid plan to find new business outside your clients’ four walls.

Download our entire 2022 RSW/US New Year Outlook Report here