Ad campaigns, run by the person who built the site
Meta, Google, TikTok and Snapchat, managed month by month. The fee is a percentage of the spend I manage, agreed in writing before anything starts, and the budget is either kept on your own card or pre-funded to me — your choice, written into the agreement. You get a report each month that says what went out and what came back.
The problem nobody warns you about
Most small businesses do not start advertising. They start boosting — a post does well, the app offers to show it to more people for twenty euros, and that becomes the strategy. Money leaves every week and nobody can say what it brought back, because nothing was ever set up to measure it.
The second version of the same problem is worse: an agency sets up real campaigns, then disappears behind a dashboard. The account keeps running, the invoice keeps coming, and the monthly report is a wall of numbers that answers every question except the one you actually asked — did this make money, and what should we do differently next month?
What the plan covers
| What | How often |
|---|---|
| Account, pixel and conversion tracking set up properly | Once, at the start |
| Campaign builds — audiences, targeting, placements | Included |
| Ad creatives from your photos and brand files | Refreshed as they tire |
| Budget watched and moved to what is working | Weekly |
| Landing pages on a site I can actually edit | As needed |
| Plain-English report: spent, returned, changed | Monthly |
| Reply to your email | Within one working day |
The part most agencies cannot offer is the fifth line. When a campaign underperforms, the problem is very often the page it sends people to, not the ad. I built the page, so I can fix it the same afternoon instead of filing a request with whoever did.
Your budget stays yours either way. Whether the ad account sits on your own card or the budget is pre-funded to me, it is spent on your accounts, against the objectives you set, and the platforms' own billing statements are there to prove it. A pre-funded budget is invoiced separately from my fee and any unspent balance is returned. You can open the platform at any hour and see exactly what has been spent.
The four platforms, and when each one is worth it
- Google Ads — captures demand that already exists. Somebody is typing what you sell into a search box today. Usually the first channel worth testing for a trade, a clinic or a local service.
- Meta — Facebook and Instagram — creates demand rather than capturing it. Strongest for products people recognise on sight, and for businesses with a stock of decent photographs.
- TikTok Ads — the cheapest attention of the four, and the least forgiving. It rewards something genuinely worth watching and punishes a repurposed banner.
- Snapchat Ads — a younger audience and lower competition in several markets. Worth testing when your customers are under thirty and the product is visual.
You do not need all four, and you almost certainly should not start with all four. One channel run properly beats four run thinly, and which one it should be is the first thing we settle on the free audit call.
What this is not
- Not a guarantee of sales. Nobody can promise a return on advertising, and a promise like that is the clearest sign you are talking to the wrong person. What is promised here is the work, the watching and the truth about what happened.
- Not SEO. Ads stop the day you stop paying. Search rankings are a different, slower job — see the guides rather than buying one as the other.
- Not a blank cheque. The budget, the fee percentage and the channels are agreed in writing before anything starts. Changing any of them is a conversation, never a surprise at the bottom of an invoice.
- Not a fix for a site that does not convert. Sending paid traffic to a site that loses people is buying the same problem at a higher price. If the audit says that is where you are, we fix the site first — see website design.
- Not an unlimited roster. There is one of me, so I take a limited number of accounts at a time and say so plainly when I am full. Budgets in the tens of thousands a month are normal here; what I will not do is take on more accounts than I can watch properly.
Questions people actually ask
Who pays for the ads themselves?
Either arrangement works, and it is settled in writing before anything starts. Some clients keep the ad account on their own card: the platform bills them directly, I am added as a user and never touch the money. Others pre-fund the budget to me by bank transfer and I pay the platforms on their behalf — usually because they run several accounts, or because a card limit will not carry the monthly spend. In that case the budget is invoiced separately from my fee, it is spent in full on your own accounts, the platforms' billing statements are your proof, and anything unspent comes back to you.
Do you take a percentage of my ad spend?
Yes — a percentage of the spend I manage, agreed in writing before we start. It is the standard arrangement in media buying, because the work scales with the account: more budget means more campaigns, more creatives to refresh and more to watch every week. The obvious objection deserves a straight answer rather than a denial: a percentage does pay me more when you spend more. Two things keep it honest. The monthly report states what came back, not only what went out, so spend is judged on return. And when a channel is not earning its budget, the recommendation to cut it is written down — you have it in black and white and you can hold me to it.
Can you guarantee results?
No, and anybody who does is selling you something. What I can promise is that the money goes where you decided, that the campaigns are watched rather than left running, and that you get a monthly report in plain English saying what was spent, what came back and what I changed. If a channel is not working after a fair test, I will tell you to stop it rather than quietly keep billing you.
What is the minimum budget worth starting with?
Below roughly 1,500 to 2,000 a month in ad spend, two things go wrong at once: the platforms never gather enough data to leave the learning phase, and a percentage fee on a budget that small does not pay for the attention the account actually needs. If you are under that, my honest advice is usually to put the money into the site and into Google Business Profile first — both keep working when you stop paying.
Which platform should I actually be on?
It depends on whether people are already looking for what you sell. If they are, Google captures demand that exists. If they are not, Meta, TikTok and Snapchat create it — but they need something worth stopping for. Most small businesses are better off doing one channel properly than four badly, and we decide which one on the audit call.
Do I keep the account if I leave?
Yes. The ad account, the pixel, the audiences and the creatives are yours because they are in your name, whoever was paying the platform. I am removed as a user and everything keeps running. If you had pre-funded a budget, whatever is left of it is returned with the final invoice. No contract, no notice period, cancel at the end of a paid month.
Do you make the images and videos too?
Simple ad creatives built from your existing photos and brand files are part of the plan. A full shoot, a scripted video or a set of original illustrations is a project of its own, quoted separately, because it takes days rather than hours.