Why generative AI doesn’t fit into a standard in-housing playbook – yet

ClickZ Indie Agency News

Here's what's happening this week in the world of indie agencies and performance marketing:

- Mastercard shifts $180M media to WPP for global scale
- The world’s top indie agencies 2025
- MSCHF spins up a stunt-first creative shop for brands

💸 The $200B Miscalculation Marketers Can’t Afford

The missed connection is clear: shoppers often discover on TikTok, Meta, or Snap, but complete their purchase on Amazon, Walmart, or Target. Traditional attribution frameworks rarely connect those dots. As a result, channels that spark demand are stripped of credit, while budgets overweight the “closers” - whether or not they truly created the sale.

Dom called this the bottom-of-funnel trap: over-investing in channels that finish the purchase while underfunding those that generate demand. The fallout is higher acquisition costs and shrinking pipelines of future customers.

Fospha’s Halo platform was built to break that cycle. By integrating marketplace and DTC sales into one unified ROAS, it captures the full impact of discovery spend across the funnel. For brands like Nécessaire and Give Me Cosmetics, that visibility has unlocked the confidence to double down on demand generation while protecting profitability.

📥Download Fospha’s Halo Report to see how leaders are funding growth where it really starts.

📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

MARKETPLACES
Podean and Commerce Canal Create Largest Indie Marketplace Agency

Podean acquired Commerce Canal with backing from Mountaingate Capital, forming the largest independent, marketplace-focused agency across Amazon, Walmart, Target, Instacart and more. The combined team of 200+ will run end-to-end strategy, ops and media, powered by the Purvey.AI platform to scale insights and optimizations. This raises the bar on marketplace execution and pressures rivals to match AI-driven speed, coverage and licensor management at global scale.

MEDIA ACCOUNTS
WPP Media Wins Mastercard’s $180M Global Media Mandate

Mastercard moved global media from Carat to WPP Media, covering strategy, planning and buying in 70+ markets, with Ogilvy handling social and McCann retained for creative. The shift follows WPP’s rebrand and turbulent 2025, signaling a potential rebound and a tighter creative-social-media stack for the client. Expect new global standards on audience strategy and pricing, plus partner realignment across markets.

AI OPERATIONS
Brands Shift to Hybrid AI Models, Stalling Full In-Housing

Digiday reports brands like U.S. Bank are splitting AI work between in-house teams and specialist agencies due to budget, IP risk and tooling complexity, while Unilever builds bespoke systems. Agencies are productizing AI services and in-housing platforms to close the talent and cost gap. The near-term reality is hybrid: build for core IP, buy for speed, and budget for ongoing maintenance as tools and governance mature.

🧐 What Does Brand Building Really Mean in eCommerce?

⚡QUICK READS

The World’s Top Indie Agencies 2025: Agencies lean into flexibility, collaboration, and specialist talent, showing marketers that independence isn’t about going it alone but about delivering sharper, more agile global partnerships. (More)

MSCHF Launches Applied Agency for Limited Client Work: The culture-hacking collective is formalizing brand work under Applied MSCHF, offering stunt-grade creativity for select briefs; high upside for buzz, high need for risk calibration. (More)

Kemps Refresh Shows Smart Legacy Modernization: Betty evolves “It’s The Cows” with humor and local cues, proving legacy brands can protect their core while updating storytelling to win millennials. (More)

ClickZ is a ClickZ Media publication in the DTC eCommerce division