What you need to know:

• Finder digital marketing boss Jennifer Snell says the success of the comparison site's in-house success has been primarily driven by the use of a 'T-shaped' marketing model.
• These T-shaped marketers work across key product verticals in the business, rather than being a channel specialist.
• She says while not a "one-size-fits-all" strategy, key factors to consider are scale, staff education and progression, agency and tech vendor transparency and contract ownership.
• Since implementing the structure, Snell has seen a decline in the rate of churn, staff engagement and better agency relationships.
• Despite the apparent benefits, she warns that a "cost and efficiency-led" mindset will likely negative the benefits and ultimately lead to a return to a pre-existing agency model.

The shape of things to come?

Finder's digital marketing boss Jennifer Snell claims the key to her team's success with in-housing is driven primarily by the approach it takes to hiring, training and retaining its staff.

While marketers have spoken throughout the media, including most recently on the Mi3 podcast, around graduates leaving university with narrow skillsets, and lacking the fundamental capabilities to excel in marketing teams, Snell thinks she has found a possible solution.

Her T-shaped marketers work across key product verticals in the business, rather than being channel specialists.

"We really try to develop T-shaped digital marketers. We have one person who is responsible for a product vertical as opposed to for a channel," Snell said at the recent Programmatic Summit in Sydney.

"We do that deliberately. The reason is that from a buying perspective, we think it’s  important for somebody to have a really good understanding of the product that they're working on - and also the customer journey."

As a result, Finder has found that centralising people around the actual product means the business can better build and leverage employee knowledge.

The retention factor

Snell says the model helps with both hiring and retention - especially now that the company has digital marketing and media buying in house. 

While not critical of agencies, Snell claims her team feel greater accountability for the work they produce, as the responsibility for success lies solely with them.

"Agencies have got loads of clients they work on. So one of the things that we find really beneficial about in-housing is that you're always your top priority. You're prioritising against your own work," she says.

"That does sometimes lead to difficult conversations, because when we want to push something else forward, we internally have to decide what's going to drop. But at least that decision is on us and we can have that conversation really transparently."

Snell says Finder also hires, in a media buying perspective, from agencies where people have "cut their teeth".

"One of the big things that we find is that often people from agencies often have specialised in one channel and they're really interested in diversifying," she says.

"Often candidates come to us and say, 'Hey, I've been a search specialist here. I've been a programmatic specialist here. I'd like to do more.' We find that by giving people that wider remit, it's something that we can really use to encourage them to make that jump in house."

Not a cash grab

Snell said perceiving in-housing as purely a "cost-saving" exercise is a classic misconception. For in-housing to work, she suggested, the organisation must treat marketing as a profit generating tool, not a cost centre.

"What's critical from a cultural perspective is actually having marketing and media respected at the top levels of the organisation," she says. 

"That's really crucial because it allows people to feel pride in their work. It allows people to feel respected. It also means that people have got certainty that their budget isn't going to be taken away, that they've got activity that's always on, for them to be managing long-term."

Snell said if boards are willing to do this, then they also must be open-minded around briefs, campaigns and executions - marketing needs the "freedom" to test new  alternatives.

"Testing is even more important if you're running an in-house team than it is if you're working with an agency," she claimed. "You get this big benefit from the perspective that your agency or partner can be going and running tests with other clients and they can be running back to you with results and suggestions."

"When you're running things in-house, you don't get anyone knocking on your door and saying that."