Choosing a Digital Creative Agency: Lessons from Deliveroo

A big brand running an agency review isn’t just industry gossip—it’s a signal. When Deliveroo goes to market to find a digital creative agency (with Ingenuity+ managing the review), it’s a reminder that even well-known names don’t “set and forget” brand growth. They keep rebuilding the machine.

For UK startups and scaleups, this matters because the stakes are similar, just with fewer resources and less margin for error. If you’re trying to improve brand awareness, lower acquisition costs, or make performance marketing work harder, the agency you choose (or don’t choose) will show up in your results within a quarter.

This post is part of the Startup Marketing United Kingdom series, and I’m going to treat Deliveroo’s move like a practical case study: what it suggests about modern marketing, what you should copy, and what you should avoid when you’re selecting a partner to build your brand.

A useful rule: when a category-leading brand shops for new creative, they’re usually fixing one of two things—attention (getting noticed) or efficiency (getting better ROI from existing channels). Often both.

What Deliveroo’s agency search tells us about growth marketing

Deliveroo’s search for a digital creative agency (as reported by Campaign) is a clear sign of where growth is being won right now: in creative that performs across channels.

In mature digital markets like the UK, targeting advantages tend to shrink over time. Platforms change. Tracking gets messier. Audiences get numb. Creative becomes the most scalable lever left—because it influences click-through rate, conversion rate, and brand memory at the same time.

Creative isn’t “the fluffy bit” anymore

A lot of startups treat creative as decoration for paid social. That’s backwards. At scale, creative is what determines:

• Whether your ads earn attention in crowded feeds
• Whether your landing pages feel trustworthy enough to convert
• Whether customers remember you in two weeks (and search for you again)
• Whether your brand is distinct, or just another logo with a discount code

Deliveroo is already a household name in many UK cities, so an agency review suggests an ambition beyond “more of the same”. It usually means tightening consistency, improving content velocity, or pushing harder into new formats and channels.

Why this matters in January 2026

January is when budgets reset, teams set targets, and many startups run into the same problem: performance targets are up, but last year’s creative is tired.

If you’re planning Q1 campaigns—especially around New Year behaviour shifts (health kicks, budgeting, routine changes) or the post-holiday dip—your creative partner needs to help you move fast without producing generic work.

The real reasons startups hire a digital creative agency

The best reason to hire a digital creative agency is simple: you want outcomes you can’t reliably produce in-house.

Not more meetings. Not a prettier brand deck. Outcomes.

Here are the three patterns I see most often in UK startups.

1) You need creative volume without sacrificing quality

Most startups hit a wall where one designer (or a small team) can’t keep up with:

• Ad variations for Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn
• Landing page creative and CRO iterations
• Product marketing assets (feature launches, integrations, partner promos)
• Always-on social content and community formats

An agency can be a production engine—but only if you set it up that way (briefs, templates, approvals, feedback loops).

2) You need creative that’s built to perform

“Nice” creative is cheap. Performance creative is a specialist discipline: strong hooks, clear claims, proof, pacing, and testing discipline.

If your CAC is creeping up, don’t just blame CPMs. Audit your creative.

Practical benchmark: if you’re running paid social and you don’t have 10–20 new ad concepts per month (not just minor tweaks), you’re probably under-testing.

3) You’re scaling brand consistency across touchpoints

This is the unsexy one. It’s also where a lot of growth hides.

As you scale, customers interact with you across:

• App store listings
• Paid ads
• Landing pages
• Email and CRM
• Packaging or offline activations
• Customer support and onboarding flows

If the brand “feels different” in each place, conversion suffers. A strong creative partner can help you systemise the brand so every channel reinforces the same memory.

What to look for in a digital creative agency (a startup scorecard)

If you only take one thing from Deliveroo’s agency search, make it this: treat agency selection like hiring a senior leader, not like buying a service.

Here’s a scorecard you can actually use.

Strategy and positioning: can they create clarity?

You want an agency that can say, plainly:

• Who you’re for (and who you’re not)
• What you’re known for
• What you’re trying to make customers believe
• Why your product wins without hiding behind jargon

Ask for examples of before-and-after positioning work and how it changed creative output.

Creative effectiveness: do they show proof, not vibes?

Case studies should include numbers. Not vanity metrics.

Look for:

• Improvements in CTR, CVR, CAC, or retention
• Lift in branded search (a strong proxy for brand demand)
• Reduced creative fatigue (longer winning-ad lifespan)

If they can’t share exact figures due to NDAs, they can still share ranges, methodology, or directional results.

Production system: can they ship at your speed?

Startups don’t need perfection. They need high-quality iteration.

Ask:

• What’s your turnaround time for new ad concepts?
• How do you manage approvals when founders are busy?
• How do you version creative for different audiences and platforms?
• What’s your process when performance data contradicts creative opinions?

If the answers are hand-wavy, you’ll end up paying for friction.

Channel fluency: do they understand distribution?

A digital creative agency should understand where and how creative lives.

Examples:

• TikTok: hook in the first second, native editing language
• YouTube: storytelling and pacing, not just repurposed shorts
• Meta: volume testing, clear offers, fast learning loops
• Landing pages: message match, proof hierarchy, mobile-first layout

You don’t need an agency to run your media buying, but they must understand how creative and media interact.

How to run an agency review like a scaleup (without wasting months)

Deliveroo has a managed review (Ingenuity+). Most startups won’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t run a disciplined process.

Here’s a simple structure I’ve found works.

Step 1: Write a one-page brief that forces decisions

Include:

• What problem you’re solving (e.g., “paid social performance plateaued”)
• Primary KPI (e.g., reduce CAC by 15% in 90 days)
• Target audience and key objections
• Brand constraints (tone, legal, claims)
• What success looks like in 4 weeks and 12 weeks

Keep it to one page. If you can’t, you’re not ready to brief an agency.

Step 2: Start with a paid trial, not a long contract

The safest model for startups:

• 2–4 week paid discovery (messaging, creative territories, test plan)
• 6–8 week production + testing sprint
• Retainer only if performance and ways-of-working are strong

This protects you from polished pitches that don’t translate into delivery.

Step 3: Require a test plan, not just concepts

Good agencies don’t just present ideas. They present how they’ll learn.

Ask them to outline:

• What they’ll test first (hooks, offers, formats)
• How they’ll interpret results
• What decisions they’ll make from the data

Creative without a testing plan is theatre.

Step 4: Decide who owns what (or you’ll get chaos)

Spell out:

• Who owns brand voice and final approvals
• Who owns landing pages and CRO
• Who owns asset trafficking (naming conventions, file management)
• Who reports results (and how often)

If you don’t define this, the partnership becomes a blame-sharing exercise.

Common startup mistakes when hiring a creative agency

Most companies get this wrong in predictable ways.

Mistake 1: Hiring for “taste” instead of outcomes

Taste matters. But your customer’s taste matters more than yours.

If an agency can’t connect creative decisions to customer behaviour, they’ll optimise for awards or aesthetics.

Mistake 2: Treating brand and performance as separate worlds

This split is expensive.

Brand-building improves performance by:

• Raising conversion rates through trust
• Increasing direct and branded search traffic
• Improving retention and referral because people remember you

If you’re a UK scaleup, an integrated approach is the point.

Mistake 3: Under-investing in the inputs

If you want better creative, you need:

• Clear customer insights (calls, surveys, reviews)
• Fast access to performance data
• A decision-maker who shows up for reviews

Agencies can’t manufacture clarity from silence.

Practical Q&A: what founders ask about digital creative agencies

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

Answer first: spend in proportion to your paid media and growth targets.

If you’re spending £50k/month on paid media and your creative is weak, you’re burning money. Many startups get strong ROI from dedicating 10–20% of paid media spend to creative strategy and production. The right number depends on how ad-fatigue-prone your category is.

When should you hire in-house instead of an agency?

Answer first: hire in-house when you need deep product immersion and daily output; use an agency when you need specialist skills and rapid scaling.

In practice, a hybrid model works well: an in-house brand lead (or growth marketer) with an external creative partner for volume and specialist execution.

What deliverables should you ask for?

Answer first: ask for deliverables tied to distribution.

A sensible starter pack:

• 30–60 ad assets/month across 5–10 concepts
• 1–2 landing page iterations/month (or full CRO support)
• A monthly creative performance report with clear learnings
• A refreshed message framework (claims, proof points, objections)

What to do next (and how to make it lead to growth)

Deliveroo’s agency search is a reminder that brand-building is a continuous process, not a rebrand every few years. Strong creative partnerships help you stay distinct while still shipping at performance speed.

If you’re a UK startup and you’re feeling the squeeze—higher CAC, slower growth, more noise in every channel—your next win probably isn’t a new platform. It’s clearer positioning and better creative iteration.

The question worth asking your team this week: are we investing in the part of marketing our customers actually experience, or just the dashboards we report?