The business is growing and the agency costs more each month. An in-house hire looks more efficient: one person on your brand, available when you need them. So you hire. Here is an example we see often:
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Month 0 | A junior marketer replaces the agency |
| Months 1 to 6 | They learn your account while performance dips |
| Month 12 | You go back to an agency |
The decision gets made too fast, at the wrong threshold and for the wrong reasons.
The comparison most founders make is wrong
The instinct is to compare the agency fee with one salary. That compares a team with an individual.
A good agency brings a paid media specialist, a creative strategist, analytics support and pattern recognition from other clients. One hire brings availability, brand context and their own skills. They are not equivalent, even when the cost looks the same.
Compare output per pound instead. That depends on your stage.
What fits at each revenue level
Figures below are from our client work.
| Annual revenue | Usually right | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under £1M | Agency | You cannot absorb a specialist’s salary, and a bad hire at this size can sink you |
| £1M to £3M | Agency, plus an in-house coordinator | The coordinator manages the agency, content and organic. The agency keeps paid media strategy and execution |
| £3M to £8M | Hybrid | An in-house Head of Marketing or CMO owns strategy and brand. The agency runs channels |
| Above £8M | In-house becomes cost-competitive | A senior team across Meta, Google and email costs about £300 to 450k a year, which beats agency fees at that spend. Many brands keep an agency for review |
What an agency gives you
- Cross-client intelligence. An agency running 15 ecommerce brands sees algorithm changes, creative fatigue and seasonal swings across accounts. When Meta changes its auction, an agency notices weeks before a single-brand team.
- Cover for staff leaving. When your one paid media manager leaves, you lose account history and 8 to 12 weeks hiring a replacement. Accounts drift in the gap. An agency absorbs its own turnover.
- Speed. A new in-house hire takes 3 to 6 months to know your account, customer and product well enough to add value. An established agency is at full speed from the first brief.
What in-house gives you
- Brand context that compounds. After 2 years, an in-house marketer has sat in the customer service, product and planning meetings. That knowledge shows up in better briefs, targeting and copy.
- Speed at high spend. At £100k+ a month in ad spend, testing pace matters. In-house can brief, make and launch new ads the same day. Agency approvals add 3 to 5 days per round, and that adds up over a year.
- Live operational data. Stock levels, margin by product, support volume and conversion data, without a handover.
The hybrid most strong brands run above £3M
| In-house owns | Agency owns |
|---|---|
| Brand strategy, creative direction, content, customer insight, briefing, agency management, performance review | Paid channel execution (Meta, Google, email), campaign structure, technical account management, platform expertise, creative performance analysis |
4 questions before you hire
- Is the agency underperforming, or is the strategy? Replacing the agency does not fix a wrong strategy. An in-house hire will run the same wrong plan, only cheaper.
- What happens when this person leaves in 18 months? Model the replacement cost, the transition risk and the dip in performance.
- Is your budget big enough to justify a specialist? Below £50k a month in paid spend, a full-time specialist finds no more than a well-run agency does.
- Are you building for this year or the next 5? In-house builds knowledge that compounds. An agency gives you capability on demand.
Related reading
- The one-agency-per-channel mistake: why splitting agencies creates the same problems as hiring too early
- How to allocate your ecommerce marketing budget: the channel framework behind this decision
- The £100k mistake most ecommerce brands make: why scaling before the model works is the underlying issue
Before you add fixed cost, check what the ad budget you already have can prove.
Weighing outside help? Our growth strategy service is the lighter way to start, or book a free call and we will check the next move before you add fixed cost.
Quick answers
Is it cheaper to do ecommerce marketing in-house or with an agency?
In-house looks cheaper on paper but rarely is at smaller scales. A competent in-house paid media manager costs £45 to 65k in salary plus tools, management time, and the cost of their learning curve. A good agency can deliver stronger execution for a similar all-in cost without the headcount risk. At larger scales, typically above £8M revenue, in-house often becomes more economical for core channels.
What are the risks of going in-house for paid media too early?
The biggest risks are: hiring someone junior who lacks the strategic experience to drive real growth; losing institutional channel knowledge when they leave; and slower iteration because one person can't cover Meta, Google, email and Amazon simultaneously at a high level. Early-stage brands often lose 6 to 12 months of momentum making this mistake.
At what point should ecommerce brands bring marketing in-house?
A sensible threshold is when a single channel such as Meta Ads represents more than £100k a month in ad spend and the agency management overhead costs more than a senior in-house hire. Even then, many brands keep an agency for strategy and senior oversight while hiring in-house for execution.
Can you use both an agency and an in-house team?
Yes, and the best-performing brands usually do. A common hybrid is an in-house marketing manager or CMO who owns strategy and brand, working alongside a specialist agency for paid channel execution. This combines brand context (best held in-house) with channel depth (best held by a specialist).
