These are the questions that come up before most engagements, answered the way I would answer them on a call. If yours is not here, ask it directly and it will probably end up on this page.
FAQ
Questions people ask before working with me.
Working together
Who will actually do the work?
I will. There is no account manager, no junior executive learning on your budget, and no team you have never met. That is the entire point of hiring a specialist rather than an agency.
How is a specialist different from an agency?
Lower overheads, undiluted accountability, and no incentive to sell you channels you do not need. The trade-off is honest: an agency has more hands, so genuinely large multi-channel programmes with heavy production needs may be better served there. I will say so if that is your situation.
Do you work with businesses outside the UK?
Yes. Current and past clients span the UK, US, Australia and Nepal, and everything is set up for remote collaboration across time zones.
Can you work alongside our in-house team or existing agency?
Frequently, and it works well with clear scope boundaries. Common arrangements are specialist delivery on one channel, or an independent audit of what an existing supplier is producing.
What do you need from us to be effective?
Access to the accounts, a point of contact who can make decisions, and roughly an hour a month of your expertise. Where clients get less value than they should, it is almost always a decision bottleneck rather than a marketing one.
Pricing and contracts
How much does this cost?
Audits and strategy start from around £950 as one-off engagements. Monthly retainers start from around £1,250. Projects such as websites and tracking implementations are quoted fixed-price against a written scope.
Do you charge a percentage of ad spend?
No. Flat monthly fees scoped to the work, because percentage pricing rewards spending more, which is precisely the wrong incentive to build into a relationship.
Is there a minimum contract?
The first quarter, then rolling monthly. Three months is the shortest period in which meaningful work can be judged; beyond that, results should retain you rather than a contract.
What happens if we want to stop?
One month's notice after the initial quarter. You keep every account, asset and document, including the strategy work, with a handover call if it helps.
Is ad spend included in the fee?
No, it is paid directly by you to the platforms, on your own payment method. That keeps ownership and visibility entirely with you.
Results and timelines
How long until we see results?
Paid media produces traffic immediately and efficient results in two to four weeks. SEO shows early movement in eight to twelve weeks and meaningful results over two to four quarters. Anyone promising faster organic results is describing an uncompetitive keyword or a method with an expiry date.
Do you guarantee rankings or leads?
No, and nobody honestly can, because search engines and auction platforms are not ours to control. What is guaranteed is the method, full transparency in your own accounts, and an early conversation if something is not working.
What if it is not working?
You hear it from me before you notice it yourself, with a diagnosis and a plan. Marketing that hides bad numbers until renewal is the failure mode this whole approach exists to avoid.
Can you share results from similar businesses?
Yes, twenty-three case studies with real dashboard figures are published on this site, spanning banking, healthcare, e-commerce, travel, technology and home services.
Access, reporting and ownership
Who owns the accounts and the work?
You do, always. Analytics, ad accounts, search profiles and every document produced. I am added as a manager on your accounts rather than creating accounts in my own name, which is a practice worth checking with any supplier.
What does reporting look like?
A monthly report leading with leads, revenue and cost per result, with next month's priorities stated in advance. Every figure is verifiable by you in your own accounts, and a live dashboard is available where it is useful.
How often will we speak?
Monthly as standard, weekly during active builds or campaign launches. Between calls, email or WhatsApp, and I answer within a working day.
What access do you need?
Search Console, GA4, ad accounts and, for implementation work, the CMS. Read access is enough for audits; nothing is changed without agreement.
Scope and specifics
Can you help if we only need one thing?
Yes. Plenty of engagements are a single audit, one tracking implementation or one landing page. Not everything needs to become a retainer, and I will not pretend otherwise.
Do you build websites as well as market them?
Yes, custom WordPress builds with structure and search planned before design, and tracking verified before launch.
Do you use AI to produce work?
As a research and drafting aid where it genuinely helps, never as the finished product. Every published piece is shaped, checked and finished by me, because unedited AI content is exactly what search engines are getting better at ignoring.
What if we are not sure what we need?
That is the most common starting point and precisely what the free audit answers, using your data rather than a questionnaire.
No questions match that search. Ask it directly and it will probably end up on this page.
Want to know what this would look like for your business?
The free audit answers that with your own data, not a pitch. One Search Console invite is all it takes.