How UK Startups Choose a Digital Creative Agency

Deliveroo is searching for a digital creative agency, with Ingenuity+ managing the review (Campaign, published 9 Jan 2026). That’s not gossip for ad people—it’s a useful signal for founders and marketers.

When a brand as recognised as Deliveroo still goes shopping for specialist creative support, it tells you something simple: growth marketing isn’t a one-off project. It’s an ongoing capability. Even well-funded businesses with in-house teams still need outside partners to keep pace with new channels, new formats, new consumer expectations, and the relentless pressure to make ads work harder.

This post is part of our British Small Business Digital Marketing series, where we focus on practical ways UK small businesses can build brand awareness and demand without wasting budget. The Deliveroo news is a timely prompt—January is when a lot of teams reset plans, brief agencies, and decide what they’ll actually measure this year.

Why big brands still hire digital creative agencies

Answer first: Big brands hire agencies because they need speed, variety, and specialist craft that’s hard to maintain in-house year-round.

A common startup myth is: “Once we hire a good content person and a paid social manager, we’re set.” Most companies get this wrong. Here’s why brands keep hiring external creative support even after they’ve scaled:

In-house teams are optimised for consistency, not fresh angles

In-house teams protect the brand voice, keep campaigns moving, and manage stakeholders. Agencies often bring creative range—new concepts, new references, and the willingness to challenge a tired brief.

For startups, that matters because your first creative approach is rarely your best-performing one. You need iteration—fast.

The channel mix keeps shifting (and creative has to follow)

Digital creative isn’t just “make a nice video.” It’s a system that has to work across:

• Paid social (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn)
• Search and shopping ads (Google/Bing)
• YouTube and connected TV placements
• CRM creative (email, push)
• Landing pages and conversion design

A startup can’t afford to be average across all of these. A good agency helps you prioritise and execute the few channels that will actually move revenue.

Performance pressure has made creative a growth lever

The reality in 2026 is that distribution is expensive, so creative has become a multiplier. Better creative reduces your cost per click, improves click-through rate, lifts conversion rate, and makes remarketing more efficient.

For a UK small business running tight budgets, that’s not “branding.” That’s unit economics.

3 lessons UK startups can take from Deliveroo’s agency review

Answer first: Treat agency selection as a growth decision, not a procurement task—clarify outcomes, build a test system, and pick a partner that matches your stage.

Deliveroo’s review (managed by Ingenuity+) is a reminder that agency choice is strategic. Here are three practical lessons you can use even if you’re spending £3k/month, not £3m.

1) Don’t brief “content”. Brief outcomes and constraints

Most startup briefs are vague: “We need more content for social.” That’s how you end up with pretty assets that don’t sell.

A brief that drives results includes:

• Commercial goal: e.g., “Increase qualified demo requests from UK SMEs by 30% in Q1”
• Primary channel: e.g., “Meta prospecting + retargeting”
• Funnel stage: awareness vs consideration vs conversion
• Constraints: budget, brand rules, internal approval times
• Landing page reality: what happens after the click (often the real bottleneck)

If you can’t write this in one page, you’re not ready to hire yet.

2) Build a creative testing engine (not a single campaign)

Big brands run continuous testing because performance decays. Audiences get tired. Competitors copy. Platforms change.

For startups, the simplest “creative engine” looks like this:

1. One core offer (keep it stable for 2–4 weeks)
2. 5–8 creative variations per month (hooks, angles, formats)
3. A clear success metric (CTR + cost per lead + lead quality)
4. A weekly learning review (what worked, what didn’t, what’s next)

If an agency can’t describe how they’ll generate, test, and learn from variations, you’re buying output, not growth.

3) Choose an agency that fits your growth stage

A large network-style agency can be brilliant—but it can also be the wrong fit for a seed-stage company that needs quick iterations and direct access to senior talent.

A practical stage-to-agency fit:

• Pre-seed / early revenue: a senior freelancer or small studio that can do strategy + execution
• Seed to Series A: a boutique performance creative agency with strong paid social systems
• Scale-up: multi-discipline agency support (brand + performance + production) with governance

Deliveroo can run a formal review process. Startups should still be disciplined—but lighter weight.

What to look for in a digital creative agency (UK checklist)

Answer first: The right agency proves they understand your customer, can produce performance-ready creative, and will measure outcomes that map to your funnel.

Here’s the checklist I’d use for a UK small business digital marketing partner—especially if your goal is leads.

Strategy that’s specific to your category

Ask for evidence they can answer:

• Who is your real buyer (not your Instagram follower)?
• What objections stop them converting?
• What message would make them switch from a known competitor?

If you hear generic answers, you’ll get generic work.

Creative built for performance (not just brand guidelines)

Performance-ready creative usually includes:

• Multiple hooks in the first 2 seconds (for short-form video)
• Clear offer framing (what you get, for whom, and why now)
• Proof assets (reviews, case studies, stats, demos)
• Strong landing page alignment (same promise, same language)

A good agency will talk about creative angles, not just formats.

Measurement that matches a leads campaign

If your goal is leads, you need a measurement plan that goes beyond platform metrics.

Minimum viable reporting:

• Cost per lead (CPL)
• Lead-to-meeting rate (or lead-to-sale rate)
• Conversion rate on landing pages
• Creative-level performance (which messages drive quality)

If an agency can’t connect creative choices to lead quality, you’re flying blind.

Working process you can actually sustain

Startups have constraints: time, approvals, founder input, limited design resources.

Ask:

• What does the weekly cadence look like?
• Who is your day-to-day contact?
• How many rounds of feedback are included?
• How do we avoid “death by stakeholder” internally?

The best creative in the world fails if it can’t ship.

A practical 30-day plan to hire (or replace) an agency

Answer first: Run a structured 30-day selection process with a small paid test, clear KPIs, and a decision rubric.

You don’t need a six-month agency review to make a smart choice. Here’s a startup-friendly approach.

Week 1: Define the problem and pick one KPI

Write a one-page brief with:

• Target customer
• Offer
• Channel focus
• KPI (e.g., cost per qualified lead)
• Budget range

Be ruthless. One KPI.

Week 2: Shortlist 3 agencies and interview for fit

In the interview, ask for:

• 2–3 relevant examples (similar audience, similar goal)
• Their creative testing approach
• Who will do the work (names, not job titles)

Week 3: Run a small paid pilot

A pilot should produce real assets and real learnings, not just a deck.

Pilot scope ideas:

• 6 paid social ads (mix of static + video)
• 2 landing page variants or a landing page audit
• A tracking and reporting setup review

Week 4: Decide using a rubric

Score each partner on:

• Speed and clarity
• Creative quality + variety
• Understanding of your market
• Measurement discipline
• Communication and responsiveness

Most “bad agency experiences” are actually bad selection processes.

People also ask: quick answers for founders

Answer first: These are the questions that come up every time a UK small business tries to scale digital marketing.

Should startups hire a digital creative agency or build in-house?

If you need speed and experimentation now, hire external support. If you have stable channels and a predictable calendar, build in-house gradually. Many scaleups use a hybrid: in-house strategy + agency production/testing.

How much should a UK startup spend on a digital creative agency?

A useful starting range is 10–20% of paid media spend for performance creative, or a fixed monthly retainer that covers a defined number of assets. What matters is output cadence and learning velocity, not the label.

What’s the fastest way to tell if an agency is right?

Ask them to explain, in plain English, how they’ll improve one metric (CPL, conversion rate, lead quality) in the first 30 days. If you get buzzwords instead of a plan, keep looking.

What Deliveroo’s move signals for UK small business digital marketing

Deliveroo’s agency search is a reminder that creative is a growth discipline. The brands that win treat it like product development: ship, measure, learn, repeat.

If you’re a UK startup trying to build consistent demand, the goal isn’t to “find an agency.” The goal is to build a repeatable marketing system where creative and performance work together—and where you can tell, quickly, what’s paying off.

What’s the one channel in your business where better creative would immediately lower costs or increase conversion rates—and what would you test first?