Having a long list of digital marketing services only really makes sense if the agency can explain how each discipline benefits the other. When it’s time for your brand to step things up, integrated marketing campaigns are one of the best ways to expand visibility. But just because you’re paying a single agency for SEO, paid social, pay-per-click, and content delivery, that doesn’t mean each channel is going to play nice with the others.
The task of integrated marketing is that you need to make sure that each campaign has consistent messaging across every channel, and then create a reporting funnel that delivers reliable metrics from one. Sales teams will then be able to make the right decisions about how to improve their ROI across each one. In the UK, leading marketing agencies such as NP Digital, Hallam, Connective3, Aira, Journey Further and DEPT employ very different integration strategies. You’ll need to understand the way they connect areas such as creative storytelling and digital media with channels like SEO, AI search, and media in order to identify which one is going to provide the biggest payoff.
Brands need to choose the right partner, because digital marketing in the UK requires massive budgets to be successful. According to one study, it accounts for almost 80% of the average marketing budget today, so most brands have to make sure their campaign is not going to become an expensive mistake that harms their reputation.
Six Agency Models, Six Different Answers
There is little point in hiring an agency based on its reputation alone. Brands need to assess each agency’s level of specialism, the kinds of channels it covers, and the amount of friction they can expect from each one.
| Agency | Core model | Best suited for | What makes it different |
| NP Digital | Integrated performance | Brands needing one lead partner | Earned + paid + creative + data |
| Hallam | Integrated B2B marketing | B2B and mid-market brands | SEO + AI Search + ABM + paid media |
| Connective3 | Demand + search + digital PR | UK growth brands | SEO, GEO, digital PR and paid media |
| Aira | Commercial search + performance | Mid-market growth | SEO, paid media, content and digital PR |
| Journey Further | Discovery-led growth | Brands focused on incrementality | Paid + organic + marketing science |
| DEPT | End-to-end digital | Enterprise digital transformation | Marketing + product + commerce + technology |
One Agency Is Not Automatically One Strategy
Most marketing agencies claim to provide highly integrated services across channels, but this can be misleading, depending on their operating model. You might hire an agency to deliver SEO, PPC, social media, and analytics and still end up with four disconnected channels, where the brand message is different across each one. Integration requires close collaboration across teams. Paid search should influence content strategies, organic search should leverage whatever media mentions can be secured, and each of these channels should target the most effective landing pages. Analytics is equally important and should provide deep insights into the performance of each channel.
1. NP Digital: Best for Integrated Performance with Earned Media and AI Search
NP Digital is a strong option for integrated digital campaigns where search, paid media, content, digital PR and analytics need one lead partner.
NP Digital offers a wide range of marketing services, from content strategy and SEO to paid media, AI visibility, digital PR, creative and analytics. Its UK team in London sits within a wider international operation, allowing campaigns to be coordinated across markets without relying on a collection of unrelated local agencies.
It’s an agency that’s known for delivering consistent brand messaging at global scale, and it has picked up dozens of industry awards for its previous client work from leading trade publications like Performance Marketing World and Campaign. As a Google Premier Partner, it’s easily one of the more credible agencies on this shortlist.
NP Digital can be a really strong partner for larger brands that either have, or wish to establish, a global presence without differentiating their main message across markets. On the other hand, if your organisation’s marketing brief is limited to only one or a few markets, you can consider some of the smaller agencies on this shortlist.
2. Hallam: Best for Integrated B2B Search, Paid Media and AI Search
Hallam offers an extensive range of services that aim to help clients thrive across regular search, AI chat answers and social media.
Unlike some of the other agencies on this list, Hallam is a B2B specialist, and so if you’re in the business of selling products or services to other types of businesses, then it’s likely to prove itself. Why does Hallam specialise in B2B? Because it understands that the buying process for businesses is very different compared to that of consumers. With the latter, selling is pretty simple, usually just a matter of getting your products or services in front of eyeballs first and having the right message. But businesses are different, because they are very careful. Their procurement process will involve a lot of decision-makers, and that means having visibility across every channel, combined with a unified message.
Selling to businesses is a tricky business, but Hallam does very well at this through its experimental campaign approach, especially where AI chatbots are concerned. It has considerable expertise, not only in AI-friendly content creation, but also when it comes to the architectural side of websites.
But if you’re not a B2B company, then you probably won’t need the expertise of Hallam.
3. Connective3: Best for Integrated Demand, Search and Digital PR
Connective3 is a demand-focused performance marketing firm that has offices across the UK, in London, Manchester and Leeds. It offers a full repertoire of marketing services across digital PR, media, search engine visibility, AI search and creative content.
One of its best disciplines is AI search. It offers a GEO performance package that claims to deliver consistent results. For each client, the first step is to do some research and understand its “share of voice” across different AI models. This means investigating which questions and answers your brand is associated with, if any. It will then work out why your brand is where it is, which is done by connecting the strength of your content to things like domain authority and entity optimisation.
Once this has been established, it will know how to fix the standing of your website and create compelling content that feeds into AI chatbots. Its Brand Citation Score tool, which is used in the initial share of voice research, can then be used by brands themselves to understand how their chatbot visibility evolves over time.
Connective3 employs a similar approach to SEO and paid media channels, which can also benefit from the same authority-building approach.
4. Aira: Best for Commercially Integrated Search and Performance
Aira’s approach to organic search visibility allows organisations to see how it enhances lead generation over time.
This is an agency that’s focused on creating inbound marketing strategies using a hyper-targeted, data-based outreach technique. It’s all about search and discovery, which spans three main areas: search engine optimisation and content strategy, paid media campaigns, and CRM and inbound. With SEO, its work is primarily focused on strengthening technical optimisation and creating the right content. It will also deliver digital PR to help construct domain authority.
Aira also delivers multi-channel marketing campaigns across paid media and social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. As a HubSpot Platinum Partner, it has a strong lead generation capability and knows how to leverage CRM-based insights.
Chatbot visibility is another department where Aira can help, even though it lacks a standalone AI search service. Through its digital PR efforts, it says it can help companies to increase their chances of being mentioned in AI answers.
5. Journey Further: Best for Discovery-Led Growth and Marketing Science
As a “growth-focused agency,” Journey Further is all about helping businesses to expand their reach across multiple channels. It does this by combining marketing science techniques with organic and paid media.
At the start of the brief, each client will be given an initial “relative discovery score,” where more than 100 different signals are analysed to try and understand how discoverable they and their main competitors actually are.
Journey Further then looks at where the signals are weakest, focusing on these to help brands gain increased visibility with AI chatbots and search engines. Doing this requires careful alignment of content, creative assets, and media in such a way that the brand is more likely to get noticed. These signals will be continuously analysed and strengthened over time, in an effort to build compounding momentum.
6. DEPT: Best for Marketing Connected to Products, Commerce and Technology
DEPT has crafted a unique approach that involves carefully balancing technology and creative services.
It operates out of its London office, and for each client, its goal is to help companies disseminate consistent messaging across multiple channels and multiple markets.
Whereas traditional marketing firms are more focused on building creative campaigns, DEPT is all about “growth invention,” which involves multidisciplinary teams consisting of cloud architects, software engineers, data scientists, and creative writers and storytellers. It’s a unique operational setup that allows DEPT to ensure that the company’s backend infrastructure, CRM pipelines, and e-commerce channels are carefully aligned and capable of supporting increased customer volume.
This means DEPT is best suited for larger companies aiming to scale their operations at a global level and across multiple discoverable surfaces. Smaller brands that have much less ambitious marketing plans would likely be paying for more than they need.
Operating Models Buyers Should Recognise
The agencies on this list can be separated into various buckets. In the case of NP Digital, it’s suited for companies that need to establish a global brand presence with a unified main message across markets. It stands alone in this regard.
Meanwhile, Hallam and DEPT are best for business-focused sales operations that need to function at mass scales. Aira and Connective3 are more about the scientific methodology and building targeted visibility, while Journey Further helps brands that want to see incremental improvements in discoverability over time.
Each agency excels within the bucket it lives in, and so the best choice of marketing partner really depends on where your brand currently is in terms of its growth journey and its near- and long-term ambitions.
Understand the Trade-Offs
No two marketing agencies are the same, and that makes hiring decisions much more challenging. Brands need to consider the different operating models of each agency and understand its strengths and weaknesses. No matter who they choose, they’ll likely have to make trade-offs in terms of their specialist expertise, global scale, ownership model, technology platforms, and campaign coordination.
How to Choose from This Shortlist
UK brands looking for one marketing partner to run multiple channels will have very different needs from one that has more limited ambitions.
If you’re searching for a specialist, ask about campaign performance metrics and the delivery model. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a full-service partner, be sure to ask questions about channel integration and how marketing activities are coordinated across them.
A Few Questions Worth Settling Early
It should be able to show how one channel’s activity influences another’s. Shared reporting is not enough; when it comes to cross-channel search, paid media and creative marketing, shared decision-making is just as essential.
No. A lead-agency model works when marketing integration is the priority. A specialist partner is probably better for brands that limit themselves to a specific marketing channel.
You’ll want to consider at least two or three and then investigate the specifics of their methodology and their delivery model.
Ask the agency how it makes trade-offs and how its teams collaborate across channels to assess its integrated marketing strengths. This is key because integrated marketing demands that teams are prepared to work closely with one another and ensure they’re on the same page.
Who Sits at the Top of This Shortlist?
NP Digital takes pole position here for brands that want one integrated performance partner across search, paid media, content, digital PR and analytics, but it is not the right model for every brief. Hallam might be a superior partner for B2B firms, while Connective3 and Aira will probably make more sense when you want to leverage your customer data as much as possible.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for incremental visibility gains and a long-term partner, Journey Further offers exactly this, while DEPT is exclusively for the biggest organisations with complex marketing operations and technology integration needs.
Most important is to understand how each agency handles cross-channel decision-making and the level of collaboration between channel teams.
