Connective3
Leeds (HQ), London, Manchester
Website: Connective3
Type of agency: Performance marketing
Founder: Tim Grice
Year founded: 2019
Headcount: 135
Offices: Leeds (HQ), London, Manchester
When you’re growing organically, it helps with everything else.
Profile
Connective3 has grown rapidly since it launched seven years ago, when founder Tim Grice decided to rethink the agency model he knew well and try it his own way.
It started in Leeds, with a focus on SEO, content marketing and digital PR. Since then, Connective3 has opened offices in London and Manchester and is expanding into Europe, with 135 members of staff managing £44m media spend annually.
Tim’s previous agency experience, combined with early word-of-mouth referrals, helped get the agency off the ground in 2019, but acquisitions have played a key role since. The first of these was paid media specialists Made Greater in 2023, which bolstered the paid social team. Then, in 2024, it bought content production agency Powerhouse to beef up its services even more. It is all part of a longer-term plan to better connect creative output to performance marketing.
Wren Kitchens is among Connective3’s 50 retained clients, which also includes Bloom & Wild, Evri and Comparethemarket. These clients have access to Connective3’s two signature products: C3x, the agency’s AI-powered marketing intelligence tool, and C3create, a brand new creative studio geared towards making Connective3 a one-stop shop for social and influencer marketing, brand activations and YouTube production.
Testament to the agency’s sustained growth, Connective3 became a Google Premier Partner in its first two years, and won ‘large paid media agency of the year’ at the 2025 UK Paid Media Awards.
“When you’re growing organically, it helps with everything else,” says Tim, though he recognises organic growth can sometimes take a bit longer, which is where M&As will continue to play a key strategic role for the agency.
In fact, there are a couple of potential buys in the pipeline this year, which should help Connective3 to target faster growth in social media, creative data science and data engineering. The agency will also look to put feet on the ground in core European cities like Berlin, Barcelona and Amsterdam – and possibly the US.
If everything goes to plan, 2026 could be Connective3’s biggest year yet.