Marketing agency support: sharing roles with your in-house team
Partner · Strategy, advertising and measurement
A marketing agency supporting your in-house team works when each area has a single decision owner and a single execution owner, written down in black and white. Your in-house team keeps the brand, the budget, the data and the final call; the agency takes on specialized execution where your team lacks time or skills. The accounts stay in your name, and measurement lives in a single source that both sides read.
- The hybrid model is common among large advertisers: according to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which brings together large American advertisers, 82% of its members had an in-house agency in 2023, and 92% of respondents also worked with an external agency.
- An in-house agency is a salaried team that does an agency's work for its own company only. The marketing department decides, the in-house agency produces, and an external agency serves several clients.
- Deciding and executing are two separate roles, to be named for each area.
- Advertising, analytics and tag accounts stay in your company's name. The agency is invited with the access level it needs.
- Each metric has one number that counts, taken from a source agreed on at the start.
On this page
Marketing agency supporting an in-house team
A marketing agency supporting an in-house team works alongside a marketing team that already exists, rather than in its place. It takes on part of the execution, often the most technical channels (advertising, SEO, visibility in AI answers, measurement), while the in-house team keeps brand strategy, the budget and the decisions. The difference from a full-service engagement lies in the split: every task has a named owner on one side or the other.
In-house agency, marketing department or external agency
The figures in this article often refer to in-house agencies. The term can be confusing: an in-house agency is neither an ordinary marketing department nor an external agency like Falia. Each of the three has its own role.
| Marketing department | In-house agency | External agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who works there | Company employees | Company employees, organized like an agency (creative, content, media) | Employees of an independent firm, hired for a mandate |
| Who it serves | Its own company | Its own company, only | Several client companies |
| Its role | Deciding and coordinating: strategy, budget, choice of suppliers | Producing: campaigns, content, online advertising | Advising and producing, drawing on what it sees across several clients |
| Where you find it | In companies of all sizes | Mostly at large advertisers | Working with companies of all sizes |
In a small or mid-sized business, the line is often blurrier: a small marketing team decides and produces at the same time. That is the team a supporting agency comes to complement.
Even large in-house agencies work with external agencies. At Labatt, Draftline, the in-house agency of parent company AB InBev, arrived in Canada in 2019 to create social and digital content for all its brands. Todd Allen, then Labatt's vice-president of marketing, described that work as "complementary" to that of its agency partners rather than a replacement. In the United States, Draftline even had to pitch alongside AB InBev's other agencies to win a project.
At Unilever, U-Studio was set up in 2016 to produce the brands' practical content: how-to videos, articles, product information. Within three years, it had become the group's largest digital agency. Its model is hybrid: most of its staff come from the agency Oliver and work in Unilever's offices, next to the marketing teams.
Why the hybrid model is common
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which brings together large American advertisers, measures the place of in-house agencies among its members every five years. Its 2023 edition (162 respondents) found that 82% of members had an in-house agency, compared with 42% in 2008. Yet in-house work does not replace external agencies.
The trend is holding. In June 2026, the ANA presented its 2026 State of In-Housing Report: respondents were five times more likely to say brands are in-housing more than ever than to see a pullback. For 53% of them, the in-house agency is first and foremost a strategic partner, involved upstream in brand decisions.
The future of in-house agencies remains strong.
Announced today at the ANA In-House Agency Conference, the new 2026 State of In-Housing Report finds that marketers continue to invest in in-house capabilities, with respondents five times more likely to say brands are in-housing more than ever than pulling back.
Explore the latest benchmarks, trends, and insights on AI, strategy, creative effectiveness, and the evolving role of in-house teams.
ANA members can download the report now. shorturl.at/koqjP
The reason for the split is practical. According to the ANA, work goes to an external agency mainly for two reasons: the in-house team is too busy, or the agency has a capability that does not exist internally.
The same holds in B2B. In Forrester's 2026 B2B Brand And Communications Survey, 93% of respondents use agencies in some capacity. Analyst Karen Tran notes that AI is leading these teams to reassess work that can be automated, accelerated or brought in-house. In her view, agencies are not becoming less important: teams are becoming more disciplined about where agencies add value.
In Canada, the question comes up with smaller teams. In 2025, the Digital Marketing Sector Council surveyed more than 1,000 marketing professionals in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Halifax: 50% to 60% of teams have three people or fewer, and 70% to 80% of respondents say they feel stretched or under-resourced.
None of these surveys covers Quebec. For a company here, B2B or B2C, they point to a direction: the real question becomes how the roles are split.
Who decides and who executes
When you work with an agency, each area carries two distinct roles. The first decides: it sets the objective, approves the budget and settles conflicts between priorities. The second executes: it builds the campaigns, writes the content, configures the tools and reports on results.
When support works, decisions stay in-house. Your team knows the brand, the margins, the commercial calendar and leadership's priorities. The agency brings a reasoned recommendation, then executes what has been decided.
The split is written area by area. "The agency handles digital" does not say who makes the call. The grid below is a starting point, to discuss when the engagement begins and to review every quarter.
The who-does-what grid
| Area | Your in-house team | The supporting agency | Decided together |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid advertising | Total budget, sales objectives, brand messages, commercial calendar | Campaign structure, bidding, ad testing | Budget split between channels |
| SEO | Catalogue or service priorities, content approval | Technical audit, page structure, ranking tracking | Order of technical projects |
| Visibility in AI answers | Accurate facts about the offer (prices, lead times, return policies), approval of answers | Content that ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google can pick up | Customer questions to cover |
| Measurement | Ownership of GA4 and Tag Manager accounts, definition of a sale, link with the CRM | Tags, dashboards, data quality | Metrics that count |
| Documentation | Access to internal tools, final approval | Writing procedures, change log | Format and location of the shared folder |
At a large online retailer with an extensive catalogue, your team's column carries margins by product line and stockouts. In a B2B company, it carries the sales cycle and the definition of a qualified lead.
Who owns the accounts and the data
Splitting roles means little if the accounts belong to the agency. Google Ads, GA4, Tag Manager, Search Console and social media accounts are created in your company's name, and the agency is then invited. The question is covered in detail in who really owns your ad accounts and your data.
The invitation is then set by access level. Google Ads offers five: email-only, billing, read-only, standard and admin. According to Google, standard access lets a user edit campaigns without managing user access: that right, reserved for admins, can stay with your team.
Exports, audience lists and dashboards also live in your tools, not in a space the agency controls. The day the engagement changes, your team keeps the full history.
A single source of truth for measurement
Two teams that each measure on their own can end up with two different numbers for the same week. The ad platform attributes a sale to the campaign, the analytics tool attributes it to organic search, and the CRM ties it to a sales rep.
The rule is set at the start: for each metric, one source counts. Sales and revenue come from your order system or your CRM. Traffic and on-site conversion come from GA4. Ad platform numbers are used to manage campaigns. The agency works from those sources, in a dashboard your team can open without it.
The lines leadership actually looks at are described in the six-line marketing dashboard.
Working rhythm and shared documentation
Support fits into your team's rhythm, not the other way around. Three meetings cover the essentials: a short, regular check-in on current execution, a monthly results review with the person who decides, and a quarterly review of the roles grid. The channel stays the one your team already uses: Slack, Microsoft Teams or email.
Documentation matters as much as meetings. A shared folder, hosted on your side, holds at least four things.
- The change log: what was changed, by whom, on what date and why.
- Procedures: how a campaign is launched, how a tag is added, how content is approved.
- Decisions: what was decided and by whom.
- Access: who has which level in each tool.
Knowledge transfer to your team
Well-run support leaves your team more skilled than at the start. The transfer is planned from day one: someone on your team follows each area entrusted to the agency, sits in on important execution decisions and can explain what was done. The procedures in the shared folder are written for that person, not for the agency.
Movement between in-house and external goes both ways. The ANA notes that over the previous three years, 65% of respondents had moved some established work from their external agencies to their in-house agency. A well-prepared transfer keeps that door open.
That movement takes time. Jean-François Renaud, co-founder of the Montréal agency Adviso, told Grenier aux nouvelles in 2020 that the successful in-housing efforts he knew of had taken two to three years, not three months.
Signs a split is not working
Two people do the same work
Your team and the agency adjust the same campaigns or rewrite the same pages. The duplication costs hours on both sides, and changes can cancel each other out.
Two versions of the numbers circulate
The agency's report and your team's report do not show the same number of sales for the same month. Until the source that counts is set, every meeting can turn into a reconciliation exercise.
Your team waits for the agency
A simple change (ad copy, a tag, a page) stays stuck because only the agency knows how to make it or has access. Access and the procedure should then come back to your team.
The agency waits for your team
Recommendations pile up unanswered because no one is there to decide. The agency may end up deciding alone to move forward, which shifts control.
What this changes for you
Before signing with a marketing agency to support your team, settle three questions in writing.
- For each area, who decides and who executes, with a name on each side?
- Are our advertising, GA4 and Tag Manager accounts in our name, with the agency invited at the right access level?
- Which source counts for sales, revenue and leads?
If you are looking for support for your team, our page for marketing teams describes how we fit into your processes.
Before splitting roles, choose the right model: specialized or full-service agency.
A split that has already gone off track can be recovered: see what taking over a poorly executed engagement really costs.
Frequently asked questions about agency support
Does an agency supporting our team replace part of it?
No, it adds to it. Your team keeps the decisions, the brand and the budget; the agency takes on execution where your team lacks time or a specific skill.
What is the difference between an in-house agency and a marketing department?
The marketing department decides: it sets the strategy and the budget, then chooses suppliers. The in-house agency produces: it is a salaried team, organized like an agency, that handles creative, content or media for its own company only.
Who should own our Google Ads and GA4 accounts?
Your company. The accounts are created in your name with an internal email address. The agency is then invited with the access level it needs: in Google Ads, standard access lets a user edit campaigns without managing user access.
How do we keep the agency and our team from reporting different numbers?
By setting a single source for each metric from the start: sales come from your order system or your CRM, and traffic and conversion come from GA4. Every report starts from those sources.
- Association of National Advertisers (ANA), In-House Agencies No Longer A Trend: They're Here To Stay, press release on the study "The Continued Rise of the In-House Agency: 2023 Edition" (162 respondents, February and March 2023), May 2, 2023, accessed September 28, 2026.
- Google Ads Help, About access levels in your Google Ads account, accessed September 28, 2026.
- Association of National Advertisers (ANA), The Resilient Rise of the In-House Agency: 2026 State of In-Housing Report, public summary of the report, June 2026, accessed October 5, 2026.
- Karen Tran, Forrester, As AI Use Expands, B2B Marketers Become More Selective About Agency Spend, on the 2026 B2B Brand And Communications Survey, July 15, 2026, accessed October 5, 2026.
- Shaniece MacNeil, Marketing News Canada, What SocialNext Heard from Marketers Across Canada in 2025, data from the Digital Marketing Sector Council (more than 1,000 respondents), December 22, 2025, accessed October 5, 2026.
- Grenier aux nouvelles, Internalisation : l'agence ne fait-elle plus le bonheur ? (in French), February 28, 2020, accessed October 5, 2026.
- Josh Kolm, Strategy, Labatt launches in-house social agency, May 24, 2019, accessed October 5, 2026.
- Molly Fleming, Marketing Week, How Unilever's U-Studio is breaking down the barriers between marketers and agencies, July 22, 2019, accessed October 5, 2026.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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