Every app team considering an external agency faces the same question: how does this work alongside what we already have? The answer, in most cases, depends entirely on what “what we already have” looks like. That, of course, varies more than most people expect.
Some teams have a full growth function with ASO, UA, CRM, and creative all covered internally. In other cases, some have a marketing lead who handles everything, whereas some have a strong CRM team but no ASO expertise, or a paid acquisition team but no one thinking about the store page. We believe each of these setups calls for a different kind of partnership, and the agencies that try to force the same model onto every client tend to underdeliver.
In this article, we’ll walk through the most common team structures we see at Phiture, how the agency relationship works differently in each one, and what tends to make these partnerships succeed or fail. The goal is to show what a good partnership looks like, so you can figure out whether and how it would work for yours.
When you have no dedicated ASO or growth team
Not having a dedicated ASO or growth team is actually more common than you might think, especially among apps that have grown primarily through paid acquisition or product virality. The app is doing well, but nobody is specifically responsible for store page optimization, organic visibility, or lifecycle messaging. Marketing exists, but it’s usually one or two people managing paid campaigns, social media, and whatever else comes up.
In this scenario, the agency essentially operates as the growth team you don’t have yet. They bring the frameworks, tools, and specialist knowledge that would take months to build internally. The work usually starts with an audit: where does the app stand today in terms of visibility, conversion, and retention, and where are the biggest opportunities?
When SoloLearn worked with Phiture, localisation was a key opportunity that the team hadn’t had the bandwidth to explore. Phiture’s localisation work helped identify new markets and reduced cost per trial by 40%. The team didn’t need to hire an ASO specialist to capture that value so much as someone who could do the work, deliver results, and share the learnings.
The important thing in this setup is knowledge transfer. A good agency doesn’t just do the work and send a monthly report; rather, they build documentation, share the reasoning behind their decisions, and create processes the team can eventually run themselves if they choose to bring the function in-house.
When you have some growth capabilities but gaps in specific areas
This is the most common setup we see. The team has a marketing function, maybe even someone doing ASO or managing a CRM tool, but there are specific areas where they lack depth. They might have a CRM team that’s running basic push notifications but hasn’t explored advanced personalisation, or an ASO person who handles metadata updates but doesn’t have time for creative testing or localisation across 15 markets.
Here, the agency fills specific gaps rather than replacing the whole function. The internal team keeps doing what they’re good at, and the agency brings specialist capability where it’s needed most.
This was the case with Fishbrain. When Fisbrain came to Phiture, they had a product they believed in but needed help kickstarting their CRM strategy. Phiture’s retention team ran an audit, built the initial engagement framework, and delivered results (50.6% uplift in Week 6 retention, 14.9% increase in paid conversions within a day). The engagement was designed to get Fishbrain’s own team up and running, not to create a permanent dependency.
This model works best when the boundaries are clear from the start. Which pieces does the internal team own? Which pieces does the agency own? How do they share data and decisions? Partnerships that struggle are usually the ones where nobody has defined who’s responsible for what.
When you have a full growth team and need an extension
Larger app companies with established ASO, UA, CRM, and creative teams often ask more of an agency, mostly through additional capacity, specialised tools, or an outside perspective that’s hard to get when everyone on the team is deep in the same product every day.
In this setup, the agency works as an extension of the existing team rather than a replacement for any part of it. They plug into the team’s workflows, attend the same standups, use the same tools, and contribute to the same roadmap. The distinction between “internal” and “external” blurs, which is exactly the point.
Headspace is a good example. When they worked with Phiture, the partnership was described as “a complementary extension of Headspace’s growth team.” Phiture’s ASO specialists were given access to internal tools and data, key metrics were shared week on week, and the work produced tangible results (40% increase in visibility, 18% increase in installs via search, 40% more installs in non-English markets). Crucially, Phiture also compiled an experimentation backlog filled with learnings and takeaways that empowered the Headspace team to continue testing and growing after the engagement ended.
In this situation, rather than the agency sitting above or below the internal team, it wraps around the existing structure, connecting pieces that might not otherwise talk to each other: linking ASO insights to paid strategy, feeding CRM data back into store page decisions, and bringing cross-client perspective that an internal team, no matter how good, can’t generate on its own because they only see one app.
When you need a specific tool or capability, not a team
Sometimes the gap a specific capability that would take too long to build internally, for instance, automated creative testing at scale across dozens of store page variants, or advanced Braze implementation with Connected Content and API integrations. That also includes Apple Search Ads optimisation that connects bid strategy to organic keyword performance.
In these cases, the partnership is tool-driven. The agency brings a capability (often built on proprietary technology) that solves a specific problem, and the internal team uses the output to inform their broader strategy.
Wildlife Studios is a case in point. When they needed to test store page creative across a portfolio of 60+ gaming titles, the challenge was scale. PressPlay deployed 168 experiments and tested 322 variants in under two months, delivering results (up to 24.1% conversion rate improvement, 12 million projected additional installs) that no manual process could have matched. The tool did the heavy lifting; Wildlife’s team used the learnings to inform their broader growth decisions.
Similarly, when HBO Max EMEA needed to automate personalised push notifications across 11 markets, the internal CRM team knew what they wanted but didn’t have the Braze expertise to build it. Phiture designed the automation (Connected Content pulling personalised recommendations via API), and the result was 40% higher open rates, 20% more content watched, and 35+ hours saved per month.
What makes these partnerships work (and what makes them fail)
Across all four setups, a few things consistently separate partnerships that deliver from ones that don’t. We break them down here:
Clear ownership from day one. Who owns what? Who makes the final call on metadata? Who approves creative tests? Who’s responsible for reporting? When these questions go unanswered, both sides either duplicate work or assume the other is handling it.
Shared data, not separate dashboards. The agency needs to see what the internal team sees, and vice versa. Partnerships that run on monthly PDF reports with a two-week delay don’t learn fast enough. The best setups share access to analytics, experiment results, and performance data in real time.
A defined path to independence. The strongest agency engagements are designed to make the internal team more capable over time, not more dependent. That means documenting processes, explaining the reasoning behind decisions, and building experimentation backlogs the team can continue running on their own.
Regular, honest communication. Not just status updates, but genuine exchange about what’s working, what isn’t, and what should change. The agency brings outside perspective. The internal team brings product context. Neither is complete without the other.
What’s next
The right partnership model depends on where your team is today and where you want to be in a year. Some teams start with a full-service engagement and gradually bring capabilities in-house as they learn. Others start with a specific project and expand the relationship as they see results. The best partnerships are the ones that adapt as the team evolves.
At Phiture, we’ve structured our services to work across all of these models. Whether you need a full ASO programme, a CRM strategy kickstart, automated creative testing through PressPlay, or Apple Ads optimisation through Catchbase, we adapt to how your team works rather than asking your team to adapt to us. You can see how we’ve done it across different setups in our case studies, or get in touch to talk through what would work for yours.
FAQ
Do I need an ASO agency if I already have a marketing team?
It depends on what your marketing team covers. Many marketing teams handle paid acquisition and social media but don’t have specialist ASO, CRM, or creative testing expertise. An agency can fill those specific gaps without replacing what your team already does well.
How does an agency work alongside an internal growth team?
The best setups treat the agency as an extension of the internal team rather than a separate function. That means shared access to data and tools, joint planning sessions, clear ownership of responsibilities, and regular communication about what each side is seeing and learning.
Should we hire in-house or work with an agency?
Many teams do both. A common path is to start with an agency to build the initial frameworks, processes, and learnings, then bring capabilities in-house over time. Some teams maintain a hybrid model permanently, with the internal team handling day-to-day operations and the agency providing specialist depth and outside perspective.
How do we know when to expand the agency relationship?
When you can see that learnings from one channel (like ASO) would improve another channel (like paid or CRM), but nobody has the bandwidth or cross-functional visibility to connect them. That’s usually the signal that the partnership should expand beyond a single service.
What makes an agency partnership fail?
Unclear ownership, separate data silos, no path to knowledge transfer, and communication that stays at the status-update level rather than becoming genuine strategic exchange. The partnerships that underperform are usually the ones where neither side defined how the working relationship would actually function.
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