How MPB built a best-in-class in-house performance marketing capability

MPB spent five years buying its paid media through agencies. As the business scaled, however, acquisition costs continued to rise while its greatest competitive advantage - years of first-party customer data and lifetime-value intelligence - remained disconnected from media buying. In February 2025, MPB brought strategic and operational ownership in-house. Rather than simply recreating an agency team internally, we built an integrated acquisition engine connecting paid media with data, CRM, creative and commercial expertise. FY26, our first full year in-house, proved the model. Across our UK, US and EU operations, CAC fell 6–16% and new customer acquisition rose 7–41%, reversing a five-year trend. We reached 45% more people at a 7% lower CPM, lifted Buy ROI 19%, and used Bloomreach customer tiers plus value-based bidding to buy higher-value customers rather than cheaper clicks. Agency fees fell from £526k to £65k, and a low-cost AI stack created capacity equivalent to approximately 1.2 FTE. The result: more valuable customers, lower costs and greater value from every pound invested.