PPC Agency vs In-House Team: UK Founder's Guide

Deciding between hiring a PPC agency and building your own team is one of those classic founder headaches. Get it right, and you unlock scalable growth. Get it wrong, and you can burn through a frightening amount of cash with very little to show for it. Most people get bogged down in a simple comparison of salary vs. retainer, but that's a dangerously simplistic way to look at it. The real decision isn't about cost, it's about expertise, speed, and risk.

I've seen this play out dozens of times with UK businesses. Some have tried the in-house route first, hired someone who talked a good game, and then came to us six months later after seeing poor results and having to let them go. Others have jumped in with the wrong agency and gotten burned. The truth is, there's no single right answer, but there is a right answer for *your* business, at *this* specific stage. Let's break it down properly, without the usual fluff.

Isn't building a team in-house always cheaper in the long run?

This is the biggest myth and the first trap most founders fall into. On paper, the maths seems simple: a £50,000 salary for a PPC Manager looks cheaper than a £4,000 per month (£48,000/year) agency retainer. But the salary is just the tip of the iceberg. The real, fully-loaded cost of an employee in the UK is significantly higher, and it’s something most businesses forget to calculate.

You’ve got employer’s National Insurance contributions (around 13.8%), mandatory pension contributions (3%), plus the costs of recruitment which can be 15-20% of the first year's salary. Then there's the cost of software and tools they'll need – SEMrush, Ahrefs, reporting dashboards, call tracking – which can easily add up to hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds a month. An agency typically absorbs these costs into their retainer.

And what about training? The world of paid ads changes constantly. Google and Meta are always rolling out new features and algorithm updates. Your in-house person needs a budget and, crucially, the time to stay on top of it all. That's time they're not spending optimising your campaigns. Let's not forget paid holiday, sick leave, and the general overhead of having another employee.

When you add it all up, that £50k hire is probably costing you closer to £70k-£75k in the first year. Suddenly the agency fee doesn't look so steep. Use the calculator below to see for yourself. Adjust the sliders to see how the real costs stack up for your situation.

Beyond the raw numbers, there’s the hidden cost of risk. What happens if you spend 3 months and a hefty recruitment fee hiring someone, only to discover they're not up to the job? You're back to square one, having wasted a huge amount of time and money. With an agency, if things aren't working out after the initial period, you can usually part ways with 30 days' notice. The risk is massively reduced.

But won't an in-house team be more dedicated to my business?

This is a fair point. An employee's sole focus is your business, your products, and your success. They live and breathe it every day, which can lead to a deeper understanding of your brand and customers. That's definitely a plus.

However, this singular focus can also be a massive disadvantage. I call it the 'echo chamber' effect. Your in-house marketer works on one ad account: yours. They see one set of data, one industry, one way of doing things. After a while, their ideas can become stale. They miss out on the wider trends and tactics that are working in other sectors. When a new Google Ads feature rolls out, they have to learn it from scratch, on your dime. Their professional development happens entirely on your budget and your time.

A good agency, on the other hand, is a hub of collective knowledge. An account manager working on your business might be sitting next to someone who's just cracked a major problem for a similar client in a different niche. We run campaigns for B2B SaaS, eCommerce stores, and high-ticket service businesses. We see what works for a software client one day and can apply a variation of that winning strategy to an eCommerce brand the next. For instance, one campaign we worked on generated 4,622 registrations for a B2B software client on Meta, and we later adapted the core principle of that ad to a campaign for an eLearning company, which drove 447% ROAS in a week.

This cross-pollination of ideas is impossible to replicate with a small in-house team. An agency is constantly testing, learning, and sharing insights across its entire client base. You’re not just hiring one person; you're hiring the accumulated experience of the entire team. They've already made the costly mistakes on someone else's budget, so they won't make them on yours.

What am I actually paying for with an agency?

This is a crutial question. If you think you're just paying for someone to press a few buttons in Google Ads, you're missing the point. A top-tier agency provides a lot more than just campaign management. You're paying for a strategic partner.

-> Specialist Expertise: You don't just get a generalist. You get access to a team. There might be a Google Ads specialist, a Meta Ads guru, a copywriting expert, and a data analyst. It's highly unlikely you could afford to hire all these specialists in-house. I remember one medical job matching SaaS client whose CPA was stuck at £100. By bringing in both our Google and Meta specialists to create a unified strategy, we managed to reduce that to just £7. That's the power of specialist, combined expertise.

-> Strategy, Not Just Tactics: A good agency won't just ask for your budget and start running ads. They'll start by digging into your business goals, your customer lifetime value, and your margins. They build a strategy designed to hit your commercial targets, not just vanity metrics like clicks or impressions. They'll challenge your assumptions and bring fresh ideas to the table.

-> Efficiency and Speed: An agency has established processes for everything from onboarding to reporting. They can get campaigns live and generating data in a fraction of the time it would take a new hire to get up to speed. They're not learning your industry from scratch; they've likely worked in it, or a similar one, before. This speed to market can be a massive competitive advantage, especialy for startups in places like London's "Silicon Roundabout" where the pace is relentless.

-> Accountability: An agency's success is directly tied to yours. They live and die by their results. They have to constantly prove their value to retain your business. This creates a level of accountability that can sometimes be harder to enforce with an internal employee. The regular performance reports and strategy calls keep everyone focused on what matters: ROI. Many businesses find that understanding the real differences between running ads yourself versus hiring an agency is the first step toward true accountability in their markering efforts.

Okay, so when *does* it make sense to hire in-house?

I'm not saying hiring an agency is always the right answer. There are definitely situations where building an in-house team is the correct strategic move. The decision usually hinges on scale and complexity.

If you're an enterprise-level business spending hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds on ads every month, the agency fee (often a percentage of spend) can become enormous. At that scale, it can be more cost-effective to build a dedicated internal team of specialists. You have the budget to attract top talent and the volume of work to keep them busy.

Another reason is deep integration. If your paid advertising needs to be intricately woven into proprietary internal software, complex data warehouses, or a rapidly changing product development cycle, having someone on the inside who can collaborate in real-time with your engineers and product managers can be a huge benefit. They can attend the daily stand-ups and be part of the core operational team in a way an external agency can't.

For most startups and SMEs in the UK, however, a 'hybrid model' is often the smartest path. You start with an agency to build the strategic foundation, establish what works, and scale things up quickly and profitably. They set up the tracking, build the campaigns, and prove the model. Once the ad spend reaches a certain level (say, £20k-£30k/month), you might hire a more junior in-house marketing manager. Their role is to handle the day-to-day management and be the internal point of contact, while the agency stays on in a strategic capacity, providing high-level oversight, running major new tests, and keeping things on the right track. This gives you the best of both worlds: internal ownership and external expertise.

How do I even find a good agency in the UK? They all sound the same.

This is a genuine problem. The barrier to entry for starting a 'PPC agency' is incredibly low, so the market is flooded with freelancers and small outfits that don't always have the experience to back up their claims. Cutting through the noise to find a genuine partner is tough. I've been in this game a long time, and I've seen what separates the pros from the cowboys.

First, ignore the flashy promises. Any agency that "guarantees" results is lying. Paid advertising is an auction, and there are no guarantees. Look for realism and transparency. They should be talking about testing, learning, and optimising, not promising you a number one ranking overnight. Look for an agency that operates as a true partner; for example managing your agency effectively after the hire is just as important as the selection process itself.

The single most important thing to look at is their case studies. Are they recent? Are they relevant to your industry? Do they show real business metrics like ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) and CPA, or just fluffy numbers like impressions? If you're a UK business, do they have experience with the UK market? A strategy that works in the US won't necessarily translate here. We make a point of showcasing detailed case studies with real results, like generating £107k in revenue at 618% ROAS for a UK client, because it demonstrates genuine, local expertise.

Next, get them on a call. This is your interview. Don't let them just give you a sales pitch. Ask them hard questions about your business. What would their initial strategy be? What opportunities do they see? A good consultant will give you valuable ideas and insights right there on the first call, before you've paid them a penny. It's why we offer a free initial consultation and account review – it's the best way for a potential client to see the depth of our expertise firsthand. If they just talk about themselves and their process, it's a red flag. If they talk about *your* business and *your* problems, that's a great sign.

Finally, don't get hung up on location. Whether an agency is based in London, Manchester, or is fully remote doesn't matter nearly as much as their expertise and track record. Some businesses think they need a local agency for face-to-face meetings, but in reality, the best work happens through focused, data-driven calls and clear communication, not coffee meetings. When you start your search, remember that a solid framework for vetting and hiring the right UK paid ads agency will save you a world of pain down the line. It's about finding the right skills, not the right postcode.

The Decision Framework: Your Final Checklist

Alright, we've covered a lot of ground. To make it simple, here’s a breakdown of the key factors to weigh up. Be honest about where your business is today and what your priorities are for the next 12 months. This should give you a much clearer picture of which path to take.

So, what's the verdict?

As you can probably tell, for most businesses that aren't yet at enterprise level, starting with a specialist agency is the faster, safer, and often more effective route. It lets you tap into high-level expertise immediately, without the financial burden and risk of a senior hire. You get to prove your paid acquisition channels and build a solid foundation for growth.

The debate isn't really "agency vs. in-house." It's about "what's the right model for my business, right now?" Making the right choice requires an honest assessment of your budget, your internal resources, and your appetite for risk. Sometimes, the most efficient way to get clarity is to talk to an expert who has guided dozens of other companies through this exact same decision.

If you're still unsure which path is right for your business, we offer a free, no-obligation strategy consultation. We can take a look at your situation and give you our honest opinion on what we believe will give you the best chance of success. There's no hard sell, just straightforward advice from people who do this every single day.