Sure, it used to be a badge of honor. A sign that you were
“investing in your brand.” That you had a team of digital warriors
locked in a conference room, drinking cold brew and cranking
out brilliance. But let’s be real—how’s that going?
Let me guess:
- Your “full-time” marketing manager is also your part-time copywriter, unpaid strategist, and accidental IT help desk.
- Your content calendar is running on vibes.
- Your paid ad results are “meh,” and half your leads are bots or your competitors spying on you.
- You’ve got analytics dashboards that no one opens and SEO reports that might as well be in hieroglyphics.
Meanwhile, actual growth is flatlining, your brand voice sounds like an AI with a bad attitude, and your C-suite keeps whispering,
“Do we even know what ROI means?”
Here’s the hard truth: in-house marketing is dying—and not quietly.
Why? Because it’s slow, expensive, bloated, and wildly inefficient. One person can’t know everything. A small team can’t scale to cover content, paid ads, SEO, web, design, video, social, reporting, and automation. (Unless you found some kind of marketing unicorn with 14 arms and no PTO requirements—in which case, congrats. They’re probably updating their resume as we speak.)
Over half of companies have already increased their marketing outsourcing in the last year. Why? Because it works. Companies that outsource are over 30% more likely to exceed their growth targets. In-house departments? Not so much. Most of them are burning through budget 30 to 50% faster on average, trying to juggle a dozen platforms and hoping for a miracle.
Three out of four CMOs openly admit their internal teams can’t deliver what’s needed across all digital channels. Let that sink in — CMOs are calling it. And 83% of companies who outsource say it improves their ROI.
Even the big dogs are doing it.
Enterprise-level companies—the kind with actual marketing budgets—are ditching bloated teams and replacing them with agile, outside talent who specialize in getting results. They’re tired of watching their internal staff fight over Canva templates and calendar invites while campaigns stall out for weeks.
You don’t need more meetings. You need movement.
Agencies (the good ones—hi) show up with ready-built teams who actually like marketing, nerd out over data, and aren’t afraid to tell you your landing page sucks. You get strategy, execution, reporting, and results—without babysitting or office birthday parties.
So, if your “we’ll just hire a social media intern and figure it out” plan is circling the drain, maybe it’s time to evolve.
Or hey, you could keep pretending that Karen from HR has time to learn Meta Ads on her lunch break.
Totally your call.
