Questions before you book

No account managers. No junior consultant doing the work while I am on the kickoff call.

I can say that specifically because I spent a year inside a 210-person performance marketing agency. I know how the model works: the senior person sells and someone cheaper delivers.

The structural differences are three. The accounts are in your name from day one. There is no lock-in: nothing switches off if you stop paying. And the handover is always available, whichever option you choose after the build.

Agencies and I can both run your ads for a monthly fee. The difference is who owns what, and how easily you can leave.

Some teams can.

When a first setup goes wrong, it goes wrong in the same places: a Google Ads account on the default settings, tracking that nobody has verified, no written definition of what sales will accept as a lead, and a marketer who has never been shown what good looks like because there has been nobody senior in the building to show them. The constraint is knowing which decisions matter, and in which order.

A first campaign set up without that experience can be misconfigured from the start. LinkedIn turns audience expansion on by default where it is available, and Google's default keyword match type is broad match. Those are documented defaults. Whether they cost you anything in a given account depends on the account.

The honest test is time. A marketer who has never built one of these will get there by trial and error, funded by ad spend. The question is what that path costs in budget and months compared to twelve weeks.

Because the scope is fixed, there is a clear rule for this.

Small requests get done. If a request would change what "engine live" or "handover complete" means, you pick one of three: swap it into the scope and take something of similar size out, at no change to price or end date; move it into your handover documentation as a specified next step for whoever runs the engine after the build; or make it a separate piece of work, scoped and quoted after this engagement ends.

Nothing is bolted on mid-engagement. That keeps the scope, the price and the end date meaning on the last day what they meant on the first.

And if the scope turns out to be wrong because I misjudged it, I absorb it. Carrying that risk is what fixed price means.

No, and it never passes through my invoice.

Campaigns run in your own Google and LinkedIn accounts, on your own payment method. You see every euro of media spend directly, and the accounts belong to you from day one rather than being transferred at the end.

Tools and licences work the same way. Anything the build requires is named before you sign, and it stays in your name.

Handover has no further fee. The two retainers are a flat monthly fee banded by the ad spend I manage. Never a percentage of spend, because a percentage would pay me to recommend spending more.

The ads retainer is month to month with no minimum term. The full retainer has a three-month initial term, then month to month.

I stay until they can, at no extra cost.

The last two weeks of the build exist for exactly this. Your marketer operates the engine alone while I stay reachable and stop touching it. The final invoice comes after that, not before, so if it turns out they are not ready, the incentive to fix it is mine.

I have been training junior marketers for a decade: three interns at expondo, PPC trainees at a 210-person agency, and a team of four growth specialists at simpleclub. This is the part of the work I have done most often.

I do not guarantee a lead count, a cost per lead, or pipeline, and I would be suspicious of anyone who does. I do not control your product, your pricing, your offer or your sales team, and a promise resting on all four is a promise about other people's work.

What I commit to instead: scope, price and end date, agreed before we start, and payments that follow the work. The first month is paid before it starts. Each later month is invoiced on the 15th and payable within 14 days.

The minimum engagement is three months. On the fast-track you stay for the full three months. On the standard track you can stop after month 3: give notice in any month and the engagement ends at the end of the following month, never before the end of month 3. You pay for the full last month and receive the full month of work.

There is no money-back clause. A refund would return your money; it would not leave you with a working engine, which is the thing you are buying.

Start with the Growth Diagnostic instead. €950, one week, and it ends in a written verdict on whether the engine is worth building here, including "not yet" when that is the answer.

You get your channels, tracking and funnel reviewed end to end, plus a prioritized 90-day plan that is yours to run with me or without me. The €950 is a separate fee and is not deducted from the engine.

It exists so that the decision costs €950 rather than €6,600.