The blog
What we would do if it were our money.
Plain writing about local marketing. What a lead actually costs, which channel suits which trade, and the things agencies usually leave out of the pitch. No listicles and nothing written for a search engine.
Thirty minutes, no pitch deck, and we will tell you honestly if we are not the right fit.
Nothing matches that.
Try a shorter word, or a topic like ads, leads, websites or pricing.
Your competitor's ads are not the benchmark you think
You can see what they run. You cannot see whether it works. What the Ad Library is useful for, and what it is not.
What to fix before the quarter gets expensive
Advertising costs climb from late October. Four things worth sorting in the weeks before they do.
Meta retired the page likes campaign, and what that means
Buying followers directly is no longer an option for new accounts. What local awareness looks like now, honestly.
When to stop paying for marketing
Four signals that the spend is not coming back, and how long to give it before you decide.
The numbers an agency should show you every month
Six figures that tell you whether the money worked, and the vanity metrics that fill the gap when it did not.
What a CRM is actually for
Not a database. A way of making sure nobody who contacted you gets forgotten. The minimum that works.
Planning the last quarter without panicking
Costs rise, attention gets expensive, and most businesses react too late. What to decide before November.
Why we publish our prices
Most agencies will not quote until you are on a call. Here is what that usually means, and why we do the opposite.
Hosting, domains, and who owns what
The questions to ask before anybody builds you a site, so you are not held hostage by it later.
The offer matters more than the ad
No amount of creative rescues an offer nobody wants. How to test whether yours is the problem.
Retargeting without being creepy
Following people around the internet has diminishing returns fast. Sensible frequency caps and windows for a local budget.
What we will not do for you
We create the opportunity. The call, the quote and the close stay with you. Why the line is drawn there.
The missed call is the whole business
Most local businesses miss more calls than they realize. The cheapest fix, and what it does not solve.
Google ads or Meta ads for a local business
One catches people already looking. The other finds people who are not. Which fits your category, and why.
Why cheap leads are usually expensive
A lower cost per lead is easy to buy and often the wrong goal. What to measure instead of the headline number.
How often should a local business post?
The honest answer is less than you have been told, and consistently rather than in bursts.
The forms that lose you customers
Nine fields, a captcha and no phone number. What to cut from a lead form and what to keep.
What conversion rate actually tells you
A percentage without a denominator is decoration. How to read yours, and the sample size below which it means nothing.
Summer is when you earn your winter
Spending only when the phone is already ringing is the most common planning mistake in seasonal trades.
A2P registration, explained without the jargon
Why texting a customer now needs paperwork, what it costs, and what happens if you skip it.
The real cost of doing it yourself
Running your own ads is free until you count the evenings. An honest comparison, including where doing it yourself wins.
Your website is a brochure, and that is fine
Most local sites are not going to rank or sell on their own. What they are genuinely for, and what to spend accordingly.
UGC is not a testimonial
The point is not praise, it is familiarity. What user generated video is for, and when it is a waste of money.
What your ad account is telling you, if you look
Four numbers worth checking weekly, four worth ignoring, and the one most dashboards hide.
The case against hiring us yet
Four situations where advertising is the wrong next spend, and what to do with the money instead.
What a good ad creative actually does
It is not winning a design award. It is earning the half second before a thumb moves. What that looks like in practice.
Spring is when trades overspend
Everyone turns their budget up in the same eight weeks. What that does to your costs, and when to actually spend.
The review problem nobody wants to fix
Reviews decide more calls than your ads do, and asking for them is free. Why most businesses still do not.
Why your homepage is the wrong place to send paid traffic
A homepage is built for everyone. A paid click is one person with one question. What a landing page does differently.
Negative keywords are where Google ads is won
Most of the work is subtraction. How to read a search terms report and what to cut first.
A quiet social page costs you the call
People check before they call. What an abandoned feed signals, and the minimum that stops it counting against you.
Stop boosting posts
Boosting is the easiest money Meta takes. What it actually buys, and the campaign you should be running instead.
What to ask an agency before you sign anything
Nine questions that separate an agency doing the work from one reselling a dashboard. Including the ones we would struggle with.
The lead you answer on Monday is gone
Most inquiries go to whoever replies first. What the delay actually costs, and the cheapest way to close it.
Your Google Business Profile is doing more than your website
For most local businesses the profile gets more views than the site. What to fix on it first, and what not to pay anyone for.
The five dollar a day question
Small budgets do not produce small results. They often produce none. How to tell whether yours is big enough to bother.
Why January is the worst month to judge your ads
Costs move, behavior moves, and a month of data proves very little. What to look at instead before you change anything.
What a lead should actually cost your business
Work backwards from what a customer is worth instead of guessing. The arithmetic, and the number most businesses have never done.
We create the opportunity. You close it.
Build a plan in about thirty seconds, or talk it through with us first. No contracts either way.
Done for you social media and lead generation for established local businesses across the US and Canada. Based in Phoenix, Arizona.
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