--- title: "LADbible's next competitor is your agency" url: "https://www.kitsuneai.co/blog/ladbible-agency-business" description: "LBG Media is replacing platform income with brand work and has bought a 120-person social agency. The audience still opens the door. The new question is how" datePublished: "2026-11-09" dateModified: "2026-11-09" author: "Ali Imran Memon" --- [Home](https://www.kitsuneai.co/)[Blog](https://www.kitsuneai.co/blog)LADbible's next competitor is your agency POV · Publishers, creator businesses and branded content # LADbible's next competitor is your agency LBG Media is replacing platform income with brand work and has bought a 120-person social agency. The audience still opens the door. The new question is how much of the campaign budget it can keep after paying to deliver the work. ![Ali Imran Memon](https://www.kitsuneai.co/assets/founder-headshot.webp) **Ali Imran Memon**Founder & CEO, Kitsune AI Nov 9, 20268 min read ![Editorial illustration of a busy LADbible street-interview production in London.](https://www.kitsuneai.co/assets/blog/cover-ladbible-agency-business.webp) *Illustration: Kitsune AI* **TL;DR** - LBG expects FY26 revenue of about [£106 million](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/271026.asp), with Direct revenue up 69% and Indirect revenue down 50%. - Direct sells brands content and access to LBG audiences. The company says this business has [lower margins than Indirect](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/090626.asp). - LBG paid [£26.8 million for 75% of Uncovered](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/190626.asp), a social-first agency with 120 employees and multiyear client contracts. - Repeat client revenue reached [89% in Direct UK](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/090626.asp), while the offer now carries the cost of creative, production, sales and account work. A brand can buy a campaign from LADbible that reaches young adults through content made for social platforms. LBG Media already sold that combination through its own titles and creative team. In June it bought 75% of Uncovered, [a 120-person social agency](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/190626.asp). The move gives LBG a way to sell work a marketing director might otherwise put in an agency brief. The change is happening while the money around the audience is moving. LBG's [October 27 trading update](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/271026.asp) expects FY26 revenue of about £106 million, up 16% at constant currency. Direct revenue grew 69%. Indirect revenue, from social platform sharing and owned websites, fell 50%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to fall 35% to about £16.5 million, with an organic decline of 40%. That is more than a change in where the ads appear. LBG is moving toward the customer who funds the campaign and the work that builds it. The move puts part of an agency budget within reach, while leaving LBG responsible for the people and production that budget requires. Direct changes who signs the commercial brief and what LBG can sell. Campaign distribution still travels through feeds owned by others. Joyride work still travels across LADbible social channels, while the [October update](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/271026.asp) says Indirect revenue fell 50% as Facebook video and web revenues declined. LBG can win a closer client relationship and keep more of the campaign budget while platforms still determine how much audience that budget reaches. ## LBG is selling a campaign as well as access to its audience LBG describes Direct revenue as content marketing services for brands and media agencies that want to reach its young audience. The company says the offer combines audience insight, social reach, original content, data-led strategy and distribution across several platforms. A brand can buy more than a sponsored post on a LADbible page. It can ask for the campaign idea, production and the distribution around it through a single relationship. [LBG's half-year report](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/090626.asp) calls this a service for blue-chip clients and says the business builds relationships with marketing teams up to executive level. That distinction matters because agencies already compete to own the client brief. A publisher that can give the brand a youth audience, the creative work and a distribution plan can take a portion of that brief itself. LBG can also sell through media agencies, so every Direct pound does not represent a brand firing its agency. The competition is for the parts of a campaign where LBG's owned audience and social production make it a credible supplier. LBG has been building the commercial side for years. It sells bespoke brand work through Joyride, its [in-house creative team](https://www.ladbiblegroup.com/work-with-us/branded-content/), including talent-led video and branded campaigns distributed across its social channels. In June, its [Uncovered acquisition announcement](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/190626.asp) set out the next step: a full-service agency for social strategy, paid and organic media, creator channels and production. The company said the combined team could service larger briefs and longer partnerships. Max Willens documented the [publisher push into agency work](https://digiday.com/media/publishers-content-studios-agency-work/) at Digiday in 2018. Publishers were already receiving requests to make white-label content for a brand's own site, outside the publisher's own distribution. Some embraced agency divisions. Others worried that losing the media buy also meant losing the margin that made the content work worthwhile. Uncovered turns that old tension into a direct acquisition strategy for LBG. ## Uncovered gives LBG people who can take a brief beyond LADbible LBG paid an initial £26.8 million for 75% of Uncovered and agreed to a possible £7 million earnout tied to performance in 2026 and 2027. Uncovered had 120 people, generated £10.2 million in revenue and £2.7 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2025, a margin of about 26%. It had multiyear contracts with blue-chip clients. Those are figures from [LBG's acquisition announcement](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/190626.asp), which also says the agency would operate as a separate brand inside the group. LBG is buying capabilities and existing relationships, then looking for a bigger account across both sides. Its June announcement says the US presence and client relationships at Betches could help Uncovered grow its recently launched US operation. The October update says Betches continued to contribute strongly to Direct revenue. That shows the group has more than one audience to bring into a client conversation. It does not show that cross-selling has already become a durable source of profit. Uncovered's first three months in the group brought about £6.1 million in revenue and £1.5 million in adjusted EBITDA, according to the [October update](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/271026.asp). It was trading ahead of the board's expectations. A profitable agency acquisition is a stronger starting point than a publisher building a service arm from scratch. The next test is whether the agency's existing business and LBG's audience brands create larger, repeatable client work without requiring LBG to add delivery costs at the same pace. ## Repeat clients make the shift more credible, but they do not erase delivery cost The customer case is real. LBG's [June half-year report](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/090626.asp) says 89% of Direct UK revenue in the first half came from repeat clients, up from 78% a year earlier. In FY25, repeat client revenue was 82% in the Direct UK market, according to the [full-year results](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/docs/ladbiblelibraries/archive/results/fy25-results.pdf). Those percentages describe the UK Direct business in different reporting periods. They are not group-wide figures or proof that every campaign sits on a multiyear retainer. Repeat buyers matter because they give the publisher a chance to sell the next brief without starting the relationship from zero. LBG reports 16 UK clients generating campaign spend above $1 million in 1H26, up from 12 in 1H25. In the US, 61% of Direct revenue in the first half came from repeat clients. Those figures are also from the [half-year report](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/news/archive/2026/090626.asp). The UK base is stronger on the reported repeat measure, while the US is the growth market and a reason to connect Betches with Uncovered. A repeat campaign is still work to make. LBG said Direct revenue had lower margins than Indirect. During the first half, two large US client deals were priced below the usual margin to encourage higher spend and build those relationships. Content costs rose 121% to £16.8 million as Direct revenue grew and the company invested in campaign talent and production relationships. The same report says payroll costs rose 11% to £19.1 million as LBG expanded its sales and leadership teams. Those figures explain why the revenue mix can move sharply while profit moves the other way. The margin gap is the part a publisher cannot solve with more reach. LBG's FY25 outlook put Direct margins before central costs in the mid-20% range and Indirect margins above 50%. It expects operational leverage and better monetisation of its own intellectual property to improve the balance over time, according to its [full-year results](https://lbgmedia.co.uk/docs/ladbiblelibraries/archive/results/fy25-results.pdf). During the first half of FY26, sponsorship around shows such as Snack Wars and Agree To Disagree rose sevenfold, from about £0.5 million to £3.5 million. LBG says repeat use of its owned formats can carry higher margins than bespoke work. That is the route by which the audience might subsidise the agency effort. ## Brands will choose between a media partner and a campaign supplier There is a good reason for a brand to go to an audience-owning publisher. If the campaign needs a format that young adults already watch, the publisher can bring cultural context and distribution into the same proposal. LBG's brand work promises exactly that. If the buyer needs a broader plan across audiences, channels and performance measures, a separate agency can still provide the comparison and coordination that one publisher cannot. That leaves agencies with a new negotiating problem. They may still buy LBG inventory or bring its team into a campaign. They also have to explain what they contribute when the publisher can sell an idea, produce it and place it in front of the audience itself. The question becomes who owns the relationship after a campaign works and who can sell the next one. LBG has already shown that audiences can produce brand revenue. Uncovered gives it a larger team for work that reaches beyond those audiences. Its repeat business figures show brands come back, while the lower Direct margin and FY26 profit decline show how expensive that promise can be to fulfill. LADbible's next competitor is your agency because the publisher can now bid for more of the campaign. Its profit depends on what remains after it delivers it. LADbiblePublishingAgenciesAdvertisingSocial mediaPublishers, creator businesses and branded contentLBGLBG MediaEBITDADirect UKUK DirectSnack WarsLBG people ![Ali Imran Memon](https://www.kitsuneai.co/assets/founder-headshot.webp) Ali Imran Memon Founder & CEO, Kitsune AI Operator and builder across media, the creator economy and agentic AI. Founder of Kitsune AI, the Agentic AI Foundry. [Talk to the team →](https://www.kitsuneai.co/contact) [All articles](https://www.kitsuneai.co/blog)