Choosing a Digital Creative Agency: Lessons from Deliveroo

Deliveroo is looking for a digital creative agency, with Ingenuity+ managing the review. That’s the whole news item—but it’s a useful signal for UK startups and scaleups: even brands with serious reach still treat digital creative as a competitive advantage, not a “nice to have”.

If you run a small business in the UK, this matters because the bar for digital marketing has moved again. Your competitors aren’t just other local businesses; they’re apps, marketplaces, and well-funded brands that have trained customers to expect sharp, fast, personalised creative across every channel.

This post is part of our British Small Business Digital Marketing series, and it tackles a practical question founders ask at least once a year: when does it make sense to hire a digital creative agency, and how do you choose one without wasting money?

Why Deliveroo is still agency-shopping (and why you should care)

Deliveroo’s search is a reminder of a simple truth: creative performance decays. Audiences fatigue. Platforms change formats. Competitors copy what works. Your internal team (even a strong one) can get stuck shipping the same patterns because they’re busy keeping the machine running.

For startups, the takeaway isn’t “spend like Deliveroo”. It’s this:

If growth depends on paid social, app installs, SEO content, or lifecycle marketing, creative is a growth input—just like pricing, product, and distribution.

January is also when many UK businesses reset budgets, reforecast demand after Q4, and plan spring campaigns. If you’re going into 2026 relying on last year’s ads, last year’s landing pages, and the same social templates, you’re choosing slower growth.

The myth: agencies are only for “big brand” awareness

Most companies get this wrong. They assume agencies are for glossy TV ads.

In reality, a good digital creative agency improves the stuff that directly touches revenue:

• Paid social creative systems (new angles weekly, not quarterly)
• Landing page strategy (message match, faster testing, higher conversion)
• Content marketing (search-led topics, quality control, distribution)
• Brand consistency across web, app, email, and social

That’s why an established brand still reviews agency partners. It’s not vanity; it’s maintenance of marketing performance.

What startups should look for in a digital creative agency

A strong agency fit is less about awards and more about whether they can plug into how you actually grow.

Here’s what works in practice.

1) They understand performance creative, not just “nice design”

A portfolio can look beautiful and still be useless for your P&L. You want a partner who treats creative like a testable asset.

Ask for evidence of how they work:

• How many concepts do they ship per month?
• What’s their process for turning insights into new angles?
• How do they learn from losing ads and recycle winners?

Green flag: they talk about iterations, hooks, offers, and message match.

Red flag: they only talk about aesthetics and “brand vibes.”

2) They can map creative to the funnel (awareness → conversion → retention)

In UK small business digital marketing, a common failure is producing “top-of-funnel” content that never connects to conversion. A good agency should be able to build a simple funnel plan where each asset has a job.

A practical funnel-based creative map might look like:

• Awareness: short-form video, creator-style ads, outdoor-to-digital cutdowns
• Consideration: comparison pages, FAQs, proof-led landing pages
• Conversion: offer-led ads, retargeting sequences, conversion rate optimisation (CRO)
• Retention: email templates, referral prompts, seasonal reactivation

If they can’t explain how a TikTok concept connects to a landing page, they’re not thinking commercially.

3) They have platform fluency (Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Google, email)

Formats matter. A “one-size” creative approach burns budget.

A real digital partner will design for:

• Meta: thumb-stopping first 1–2 seconds, rapid pacing, clear benefit
• TikTok: native storytelling, less polish, stronger hook density
• YouTube: longer narrative arcs, deliberate opening, brand cues without killing watch time
• Search + landing pages: query intent, proof placement, fast page speed
• Email: scannable structure, consistent branding, deliverability-safe design

This is especially relevant in food tech and on-demand categories, where you’re competing at the moment of intent (hungry now, need it now) and creative must match that urgency.

4) They can work with constraints (because you have them)

Deliveroo can brief big. Startups can’t. Your agency should be comfortable with:

• limited footage
• small teams
• fast approvals
• tight budgets

The best partners don’t complain about constraints; they build a system around them (templates, modular shoots, creator content, repeatable layouts).

A simple agency brief you can actually use (and why it wins pitches)

Most startup briefs are either too vague (“we need more awareness”) or too restrictive (“make it look like this competitor”). Both create bad work.

Use this structure instead:

The 7-line brief

1. Goal: (e.g., “Increase qualified demo leads by 30% in 90 days”)
2. Primary channel: (Meta paid social, Google Search, SEO content, etc.)
3. Offer: (what’s the reason to act now?)
4. Audience segment: (one clear segment, not “everyone”)
5. Customer pain: (the moment they feel the problem)
6. Proof: (reviews, case studies, stats, guarantees)
7. Constraints: (budget, brand rules, assets available, compliance)

This matters because agencies do their best work when the brief forces prioritisation. You’re not buying “content”. You’re buying decisions.

How to evaluate agencies: score them like you would a hire

Treat agency selection like hiring a senior growth marketer. You’re looking for thinking quality, not charisma.

A practical scoring rubric (out of 20)

• Strategy clarity (0–5): Do they diagnose your problem well?
• Execution system (0–5): Can they ship consistently and learn fast?
• Commercial thinking (0–5): Do they connect creative to revenue?
• Team fit (0–5): Are you getting seniors or an “inbox”? Who actually does the work?

Ask for one tangible deliverable during the pitch process:

• a rewritten landing page above-the-fold
• three new paid social angles with hooks
• a simple 30-day creative testing plan

Agencies that refuse any “sample thinking” usually hide behind process.

Questions that reveal the truth fast

Use these in pitch meetings:

1. “What would you test first in week one, and why?”
2. “Show us an example where creative improved conversion rate, not just clicks.”
3. “How do you handle approvals when we need speed?”
4. “What do you need from us to succeed?” (Great partners are specific.)

Budgeting: what a small UK business should expect to pay

There’s no universal rate, but here’s a reality-based way to think about spend.

The budget rule that prevents pain

Set creative investment as a percentage of what you’re already spending to distribute it.

• If you spend £5k/month on paid media, spending £0 on creative production and testing is a mistake.
• If you spend £30k/month on paid media and you’re recycling assets, you’re effectively paying to learn slowly.

A practical starting point for many small businesses is:

• 10–20% of paid media spend allocated to creative production and iteration

That can include:

• concepting
• editing
• design systems
• landing page updates
• monthly testing cadence

If you’re mostly SEO-led, budget time and money for content strategy + production + distribution, not just writing.

What Deliveroo’s review suggests about 2026 digital marketing

We don’t have the full details of Deliveroo’s scope from the snippet, but the fact that it’s a digital creative search (not just media buying) aligns with where the market is heading.

1) Creative is the targeting now

With privacy changes, weaker signal, and platform automation, you often win by making creative that self-selects the right customer. Your hook and offer do the filtering.

2) Brands are building “always-on” content engines

High-growth brands don’t think in campaigns only. They run systems:

• weekly creative drops
• seasonal bursts
• constant refresh of landing pages and app store assets

3) Differentiation is getting harder—so brand matters more

Delivery, food, and on-demand services have converged on similar features. When products look alike, brand is what customers remember. Startups in crowded categories need a clear point of view, not just performance ads.

People also ask: quick answers for founders

When should a startup hire a digital creative agency?

Hire when you have a repeatable acquisition channel (paid social, search, outbound) and your growth is limited by creative volume, speed, or quality.

What’s the difference between a creative agency and a performance marketing agency?

A creative agency focuses on ideas, design, and production. A performance agency focuses on media buying and optimisation. The best partners can connect both, but many don’t—so check capability early.

Can we do this in-house instead?

Yes, if you can hire a creative lead who can build a system (briefs, templates, testing cadence) and you can produce consistently. If not, an agency is often faster.

The practical next step for UK startups

Deliveroo’s agency search is a useful nudge: don’t wait until results dip to fix creative. Build your creative pipeline before it becomes an emergency.

If you’re planning your 2026 growth targets, do one thing this week: audit your last 90 days of marketing assets and answer these three questions:

1. Which messages actually drove conversions (not just engagement)?
2. Where are we repeating ourselves because we ran out of ideas?
3. What would we ship weekly if speed was the priority?

The teams that win this year won’t be the ones with the fanciest strategy decks. They’ll be the ones who can produce, test, and learn faster—while keeping the brand consistent.

What would change in your growth if you could ship twice the amount of creative next month, with the same budget?