The trend towards businesses ‘in-housing’ digital marketing initiatives continued to gather pace in 2021, according to new research from Bannerflow and Digiday.
The new report – The State of In-housing 2022 – gathers responses from 400 senior European marketers across a range of different industries, including entertainment and media, mobile and online gaming, retail/ecommerce, iGaming, consumer tech, financial services, telecoms, travel and CPG/FMCG.
Key findings include:
- More than half of respondents reported they increased in-house team headcount by one to two people (29%) or three to five people (28%);
- 53% no longer use external agencies for digital marketing, and are fully independent;
- 29% of respondents state that their agencies have become less flexible with their fees;
- 42% have increased their volume of production due to changing consumer demands;
- Content creation is the key skill industries want to improve upon (26%);
- Influencers are going to play a key part of digital strategies in 2022, with 38% increasing their online influencer engagement;
- The main way in-housing has helped brands become more innovative is having a digital-first mindset, and in turn this has produced new types of campaign content (43%).
At a sectoral level, the report found that: the financial services industry is leading the way in adopting full digital competency within in-house marketing teams. Meanwhile, more than one-third in the entertainment and media space said their in-house teams were larger than 11 to 20 people.
David Lundgren, CEO of Bannerflow, said: “This year’s report is our biggest yet and the most authoritative reading of European in-house marketing available. In-housing continues to play an important role in ensuring success and resilience during what have been testing times. Indeed, external factors have once again helped to shape the state of in-house marketing in 2022. It’s clear that what was once called the ‘new normal’ is now very much ‘normal’.”
Read the full report here.
