Enterprise Digital Media Consulting That Delivered Millions in Annual Savings and 500+ Campaigns Managed In-House

Most companies think building an in-house media team means hiring buyers and moving agency work internally. That’s not transformation – that’s just shifting seats.

Real in-house transformation means building an enterprise operating system for digital media that works across markets, brands, and business units. It means creating data infrastructure that didn’t exist. Training teams that never bought media before. Standardizing processes across countries with completely different ways of working.

What made this initiative stand out was the sheer complexity of coordinating efforts across markets with different workflows, legal systems, and data regulations — all while maintaining media efficiency, full transparency, and high performance in Programmatic, Social, and Retail Media.

As Head of In-House Media Team at PepsiCo Europe, I led the complete build-out of digital media operations serving 17 European markets. We didn’t just bring programmatic buying in-house. We built a four-pillar operating model that transformed how PepsiCo planned, bought, measured, and optimized digital advertising across the entire continent.

The result? 500+ campaigns annually managed in-house, 30% of European digital budget under direct control, and millions of dollars in verified annual savings.

Here’s how we built it from absolute zero.

The Challenge: 17 Markets, Different Processes, Limited Standardization

When I joined to build PepsiCo’s European in-house media capability, the situation was complex:

• 17 different markets with unique processes, languages, and regulatory requirements
• Multiple beverage brands (Pepsi, 7UP, Lipton, Tropicana, Rockstar) each with different campaign needs
• No shared infrastructure – every market operated independently with local agencies
• Zero visibility into cross-market performance or competitive benchmarking
• Limited data integration between media platforms and business systems
• No standardized measurement of what actually drove sales vs. just media metrics

The business goal was clear but massive: Build scalable in-house operations that could serve all European markets while improving efficiency, transparency, and business impact.

But here’s what made this truly complex: Every market had completely different internal processes. Vendor onboarding took 2 weeks in one country, 3 months in another. Payment terms varied wildly. Data privacy interpretations differed. IT security requirements conflicted.

Markets

We couldn’t just “go in-house” – we had to build a universal operating system that worked everywhere.

The Four-Pillar Framework: Building Enterprise In-House Capability

Instead of just hiring media buyers, we built a complete ecosystem across four specialized teams:

1. Insights & Strategy – Competitive intelligence and audience insights
2. Planning & Buying – Campaign execution across digital channels
3. Productivity & Evaluation – Performance measurement and cost savings verification
4. MarTech – Technology infrastructure and platform management

Each pillar solved specific business problems. Each generated measurable value. And most importantly – each integrated seamlessly with existing corporate systems rather than creating parallel workflows.

Pillar 1: Insights & Strategy – From Guesswork to Data-Driven Decisions

The problem: Markets were making media decisions without competitive context, audience verification, or budget sufficiency modeling.

Brand teams would say “we need more budget for digital” without proving whether current spending was even sufficient to maintain market position. Competitive tracking was fragmented. Social listening generated noise without actionable insights.

What We Built:

Competitive Intelligence System:

Every week, we tracked not just our GRP (Gross Rating Points) delivery, but our competitors’ media pressure across all channels. Markets could finally answer: “Are we being outspent? Where? By how much?”

This wasn’t theoretical reporting. When a competitor launched aggressive campaigns in Poland, we had data within 48 hours showing exact channel mix, estimated spend, and reach overlap with our audience. Markets could respond strategically instead of reactively.

Media Sufficiency Modeling:

This was the game-changer for budget discussions. Instead of political negotiation for media budgets, we built financial models showing exactly how much spend was required to maintain different levels of market communication.

Want to maintain current brand awareness? Here’s your minimum spend. Want to grow share of voice by 10%? Here’s the incremental investment needed.

CFOs loved this. No more “trust me, we need more budget.” Just data showing required investment to hit business targets.

Social Listening That Actually Mattered:

Most social listening tools generate reports nobody reads. We turned social data into campaign targeting insights.

Seeing spike in energy drink conversations among gaming audiences? That insight went directly to Rockstar campaign targeting parameters within days, not months. Real-time audience intelligence feeding real-time campaign optimization.

Multi-Channel Reach Measurement:

Here’s where we solved a problem that plagues every marketer: What’s the unduplicated reach when we run TV + Digital simultaneously?

By partnering with external data providers and integrating first-party data, we could finally show that digital wasn’t just adding frequency to already-reached TV audiences – it was expanding total reach by 23% in key demos.

This justified digital investment in ways media agencies never could.

Retail Media Network Integration:

We didn’t stop at traditional media metrics. By integrating retail sales data from major European retailers, we could see which creative messages drove actual product purchase vs. just clicks.

Turns out, the “funny” creative that agencies loved wasn’t moving products. The “boring” product-focused creative was driving 3x higher purchase intent. Data ended the creative debates.

The Business Impact:

This team became the strategic backbone for every major media decision across Europe. No budget allocation happened without their competitive analysis. No new market entry happened without their sufficiency modeling.
Markets stopped making emotional media decisions and started making financial ones backed by data.

Pillar 2: Planning & Buying – Scaling from 4 Markets to 17 in Two Years

The problem: Every market was buying digital through local agencies with zero consistency, no shared learnings, and complete opacity into what actually worked.

The Build Strategy: Start Simple, Scale Fast

Phase 1: Programmatic Advertising (Markets 1-4)

We started with programmatic because it was the easiest to centralize. But even this required massive groundwork:

Account Architecture Challenge:

Should we create separate ad accounts for in-house team vs. agencies? No. That would split campaign history and make performance comparison impossible.

Our solution: Negotiated with Google, The Trade Desk, and other DSPs to use shared SEAT IDs – same accounts for both in-house and agency. This preserved all historical data while giving us direct buying access.

This single decision saved months of data migration and made head-to-head performance comparison bulletproof. When we claimed in-house campaigns were more efficient, we had proof using identical measurement methodology.

Universal Naming Convention:

Here’s something unglamorous that generated massive value: We standardized how every campaign was named across all 17 markets.

[MARKET]_[BRAND]_[CAMPAIGN TYPE]_[AUDIENCE]_[OBJECTIVE]_[DATE]

Sounds boring? This single standard made pan-European reporting possible. We could aggregate performance by market, by brand, by audience, by objective – instantly. No more manual reconciliation of different agency naming systems.

Year 1 Results: 4 markets live with programmatic in-house. 30% cost efficiency improvement. Zero campaign failures.

Phase 2: Paid Social Expansion (Markets 5-15)

After proving the model with programmatic, we expanded to social media buying:

• Meta (Facebook & Instagram) – launched first for brand awareness and lead generation
• Snapchat – critical for youth audiences in Western Europe
• TikTok – fastest-growing platform for beverage marketing
• Pinterest – underutilized platform that delivered surprising ROI for certain brands

The Technology Innovation: Power of One

Managing campaigns for 17 markets sounds impossibly complex. It would be – without the right tooling.

We built “Power of One” templates – standardized media plans and reporting dashboards that could be deployed to any market in days, not months.

A new product launch in Germany? Copy the template, adjust for local audience, launch in 3 days instead of 3 weeks. Every market benefited from every other market’s learning instantly.

By Year 2: 15 markets operational across all major digital channels. 500+ campaigns annually managed in-house.

By End of Project: 17 markets, 30% of total European digital budget managed directly, zero scalability problems.

What Made This Actually Work:

Dedicated Market Support Model:

We didn’t expect local brand managers to become media experts. Each market had a dedicated in-house specialist who understood their business, their language, their local competitive landscape.

Central team provided tools, templates, and training. Local specialists provided market context and brand strategy. This hybrid model scaled efficiently while maintaining local relevance.

Continuous Optimization Loops:

Every Friday, we ran cross-market performance reviews. Poland discovered that video completion rates improved 40% with different CTA timing? That insight was in the Playbook by Monday and deployed across all markets by Wednesday.

This turned 17 isolated markets into a learning network.

Pillar 3: Productivity & Evaluation – Proving Value Beyond Agency Claims

The problem: Every vendor claims they “saved money” and “improved performance.” But without rigorous measurement, it’s just marketing talk.

Building the Financial Accountability Framework:

We didn’t estimate savings – we proved them with financial rigor that would pass CFO scrutiny:

Direct Cost Savings:

• Eliminated agency management fees
• Negotiated direct platform deals instead of agency-marked-up rates
• Removed hidden agency trading margins through transparent buying

Efficiency Savings:

• Lower CPMs from better targeting using first-party data
• Reduced wasted impressions through brand safety and fraud prevention
• Improved conversion rates from faster optimization cycles

Every saved dollar was verified against previous agency performance using identical measurement methodology.

Year 1-2 Financial Impact: Multiple millions of dollars in verified annual savings. Not estimates. Actual dollars that either dropped to bottom line or reinvested in incremental campaigns.

The Dashboard Revolution:

Single Source of Truth:

We integrated campaign data with PepsiCo’s internal business intelligence systems. One dashboard showed:

• Media performance metrics (reach, frequency, engagement)
• Cost efficiency metrics (CPM, CPC, CPL)
• Business outcome metrics (sales lift, brand awareness, consideration)

For the first time, CMO could see real-time performance across all 17 markets in a single view. No more waiting for monthly agency reports. No more reconciling conflicting data sources.

Campaign Audit & Quality Control:

Before launching, every campaign went through automated verification:

• Budget pacing aligned with media plan?
• Targeting parameters matching campaign brief?
• Creative specifications meeting platform requirements?
• Tracking pixels implemented correctly?
• Brand safety parameters active?

This prevented expensive mistakes before they happened. In traditional agency models, you discover problems after spending thousands of euros. We caught them at setup.

Pillar 4: MarTech – The Technology Backbone

The problem: You can’t run pan-European in-house operations without enterprise-grade technology infrastructure.

Technology Stack Implementation:

Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs):

• Google Display & Video 360 – primary programmatic platform
• The Trade Desk – supplementary DSP for specific inventory
• Amazon DSP – retail media integration

Ad Servers & Tracking:

• Campaign Manager 360 – centralized ad serving and attribution
• Google Analytics 360 – web analytics and conversion tracking
• Custom tracking integrations with PepsiCo CRM systems

Social Media Management:

• Native platform tools (Meta Business Manager, TikTok Ads Manager)
• Custom APIs for bulk campaign management
• Automated reporting integrations

Third-Party Verification:

We implemented independent ad verification tools (IAS, DoubleVerify) that measured:

• Viewability rates (were ads actually seen?)
• Brand safety (did ads appear next to inappropriate content?)
• Invalid traffic detection (were we paying for bot impressions?)
• Geographic verification (did ads serve in correct locations?)

This level of quality control was impossible with agency-managed campaigns. We had direct access to verification data in real-time, not filtered through agency reporting.

The Playbook System:

We documented every successful campaign tactic, every platform optimization, every audience insight into comprehensive Playbooks.

These weren’t theoretical best practices. These were battle-tested strategies proven across multiple markets:

• What creative formats drove highest engagement by platform?
• What bidding strategies delivered lowest CPL by objective?
• What audience segments converted best by brand?
• What dayparting schedules maximized efficiency by market?

Even our agency partners used our Playbooks because they contained better insights than agencies’ own documentation. We’d effectively become the center of excellence for digital media in European beverage marketing.

The Universal Challenge: Standardizing 17 Different Operating Models

Here’s what nobody tells you about building pan-European in-house teams: The hardest part isn’t media buying. It’s process harmonization.

Every market had completely different:

Vendor Management Processes:

• Germany: 6-week vendor approval process with extensive documentation
• UK: 2-week streamlined digital approval
• Spain: Required local entity registration before any spending

Payment Terms:

• Some markets: 30-day standard payment terms
• Others: 60-90 days required by corporate policy
• Platforms: Wanted immediate payment or prepayment

Data Privacy Interpretation:

• GDPR requirements consistent across EU
• Implementation and legal interpretation: Wildly different by market
• First-party data usage: Required custom legal review per market

IT Security Requirements:

• Some markets: Open access to cloud platforms
• Others: Required VPN, specific device management, extensive security reviews

Our Solution: Universal Ways of Working

Instead of accepting that “every market is different,” I created standardized operating procedures that worked everywhere:

The Vendor Onboarding Template:

Single document with all requirements from every market. If vendor could complete this once, they were approved everywhere. This reduced onboarding from 3 months to 3 weeks average.

The Payment Terms Agreement:

Negotiated platform agreements that accommodated longest payment terms required by any market. If it worked for the most restrictive market, it worked everywhere.

The Data Privacy Framework:

Worked with legal teams to create pre-approved use cases for first-party data. Instead of case-by-case legal review, we had template agreements that covered 90% of campaign needs.

The IT Security Clearance:

Got blanket approval for core platforms (DV360, Meta, TikTok) that met most restrictive security requirements. New team members could access within days instead of months.

This wasn’t just efficiency – this was making the in-house model actually viable. Without process standardization, we would have drowned in administrative complexity.

The Results: Enterprise-Scale In-House Success

Operational Metrics

17 European markets served by centralized in-house team
500+ campaigns annually executed in-house
30% of total European digital budget under direct management
4-pillar operating model (Insights, Planning, Productivity, MarTech)
Universal naming convention enabling pan-European reporting
Power of One templates deployed across all markets
Single unified dashboard for CMO-level visibility

Financial Impact

Millions of dollars in verified annual savings (Years 1-2)
Reduction in agency fees across in-house portfolio
20-30% lower media costs through biddable platforms
30% efficiency improvement in cost-per-lead metrics
Savings reinvested in incremental campaigns and new market expansion

Strategic Advantages

Complete transparency into media buying and performance
Full data ownership and first-party data integration
Direct platform relationships enabling early access to beta features
Faster campaign optimization (days vs. weeks with agencies)
Standardized processes enabling rapid market expansion
Knowledge capture in Playbooks benefiting entire organization
Quality control through automated campaign verification
Real-time reporting integrated with business intelligence systems

We Built Processes, Not Just Teams.

Building pan-European in-house wasn’t just technical – it was organizational change management.

Resistance from Local Markets:

“Central teams don’t understand our market” – heard this dozens of times.

Solution: Hybrid model where central team provided tools and training, but local specialists maintained market control. We enabled, we didn’t dictate.

Agency Partner Concerns:

Agencies feared losing business. Some were resistant, others collaborative.

Solution: Transparency about what we’d manage (programmatic, social buying) vs. what stayed with agencies (TV planning, creative production, strategy). We complemented agencies, we didn’t replace them entirely.

Technology Vendor Negotiations:

Platforms wanted long-term commitments. We needed flexibility to test and optimize.

Solution: Structured pilots that converted to enterprise agreements only after proving value. We walked away from vendors who couldn’t prove ROI.

Team Skill Development:

Not everyone on the team started as digital media experts.

Solution: Intensive training programs, platform certifications, and mentorship. We invested heavily in capability building because skills were our competitive advantage.

Ready to Build Enterprise In-House Media Capability?

Building pan-European (or global) in-house media operations isn’t just about media buying. It’s about organizational transformation.

Most consultants will tell you to hire buyers and set up DSP accounts. That’s not enough.

You need someone who’s built the entire system:

• Technology infrastructure
• Process standardization across markets
• Team development and training
• Financial accountability frameworks
• Organizational change management

I’ve done it. At enterprise scale. Across 17 European markets. Managing 30% of digital budget. Delivering millions in verified savings.

Let’s Discuss Your In-House Media Strategy:

Whether you’re:

• Just starting to evaluate in-house media
• Struggling with existing in-house operations that aren’t delivering
• Expanding in-house from pilot to full-scale operations
• Managing multi-market or global digital transformation

I bring proven frameworks, battle-tested processes, and real experience from leading enterprise in-house builds.