What the ANA’s 2026 Jurors Reported
The Association of National Advertisers ran its 2026 State of In-Housing survey among 404 jurors of its own In-House Excellence Awards, a pool the report describes as brandside marketers, agency professionals, and independent consultants with direct, day-to-day experience running or partnering with in-house teams. Their answers point the same direction on two separate questions: 35% agree that marketers are in-housing more than ever, against only 7% who believe the pendulum is swinging back toward outside agencies, and 34% observed in-house agencies expanding their scope of work, against 7% who saw work moving the other way, back out to external shops.
The functions most commonly pulled in-house, per the same report: social media (58%), influencer and creator marketing (37%), and SEO (35%). Among US-based in-house teams specifically, media now runs at 67%, the highest single function measured.
Why Cost Savings Stopped Being the Reason
What changed is not just how much work moves in-house, but why a company says it made that call. Cost savings, the reason usually assumed to be driving in-housing, fell from 30% of respondents citing it in 2023 to just 9% in 2026. In its place, 53% of respondents now expect an in-house team to deliver big creative ideas at a strategic level, not simply execute production work more cheaply than an outside agency would.
A prior wave of the same ANA survey put member in-housing prevalence at 82% in 2023, up from 78% in 2018, 58% in 2013, and 42% in 2008, since the ANA has run some version of this study every five years going back to 2008. That historical trendline is reported across multiple pieces of industry trade coverage of the study rather than independently re-fetched from ANA’s own site this research cycle, so treat the specific percentages as well corroborated but not freshly re-verified.
The Numbers
35% of the ANA’s 2026 In-House Excellence Awards jurors agree marketers are in-housing more than ever, against only 7% who believe work is moving back to outside agencies.
IHALC, reporting on the ANA’s 2026 State of In-Housing Report
34% of respondents observed in-house agencies expanding their scope of work in 2026, against just 7% who saw work moving back to an external agency.
IHALC, reporting on the ANA’s 2026 State of In-Housing Report
The functions most commonly handled in-house are social media (58%), influencer and creator marketing (37%), and SEO (35%); among US-based in-house teams specifically, media runs at 67%.
IHALC, reporting on the ANA’s 2026 State of In-Housing Report
Cost savings as the top-cited reason for in-housing dropped from 30% of respondents in 2023 to just 9% in 2026, while 53% now expect an in-house team to deliver strategic, big-idea creative work.
IHALC, reporting on the ANA’s 2026 State of In-Housing Report
A prior wave of the same ANA survey put member in-housing prevalence at 82% in 2023, up from 78% in 2018, 58% in 2013, and 42% in 2008, a historical trendline reported across trade coverage of the study rather than independently re-verified against ANA’s own site this research cycle.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- IHALC, reporting on the ANA’s 2026 State of In-Housing Report
- ANA, “The Continued Rise of the In-House Agency: 2023 Edition,” as reported across industry trade coverage