Questions, answered plainly
Everything people usually ask before writing in. If yours isn't here, ask it directly and you'll get a straight answer within a business day.
What does the free ad audit include, and what's the catch?
You grant read-only access to your ad account. I read it personally: search terms, conversion tracking, location and network settings, match types, structure, and landing pages. You get a written document of findings and recommended changes, priced in your own numbers, whether or not we ever work together.
The catch is the honest kind: audits are how I earn management work. If the audit shows real leaks, some people hire me to fix them. If it shows a healthy account, it says so. Request one here.
Do you take a percentage of my ad spend?
No. Your ad budget stays on your card, paid directly to Google, Meta, or Amazon. My fee is separate and flat, so I have no incentive to tell you to spend more. Recommendations to raise budget only come with data showing the current budget is working.
What size of ad budget do you work with?
Roughly $1,000 to $15,000 a month in ad spend. Below that, management fees eat the math, though an audit can still tell you whether the account is worth keeping at all. Above that, you likely need a team rather than a person, and I'll say so.
Which ad platforms do you manage?
Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and Amazon. I'm channel-agnostic on purpose: Google captures existing demand, Meta creates it, Amazon wins the product shelf. The right one depends on where your buyer decides, not on which platform an agency prefers to sell.
How fast will I see results from paid ads?
Waste-cutting starts in week one, so efficiency improves early. But honest judgment of cost per lead needs clean tracking and a few weeks of clean data, which is why I treat month three as the point where scaling decisions get made. Anyone promising a flood of leads in thirty days is guessing or counting things that aren't leads.
Why does my company only rank near its office?
Because every location signal Google can read about you points at one city, so for searches with local intent, Google only shows you there. Companies that sell into many markets are invisible in most of them by default. This is the multi-market SEO problem, and you can see it happen to your own business with the free market check.
What is multi-market SEO?
SEO for one company that sells into many markets: building real, substantive market coverage so Google can confidently show you in each place you actually serve. It is not doorway pages with a city name swapped in; Google filters those. More here.
How long does SEO take?
Months, not weeks. Early rankings on lower-competition terms move within the first quarter; competitive terms and meaningful lead flow build after that, and the results compound. I set a measured baseline in week one and report progress against it honestly.
What is AI search visibility?
Getting your business named when ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews answer a buyer's question. The method is making your site the clearest, most citable source about what you do: entity clarity, structured data, question-shaped content, and an llms.txt file. Full explanation here.
Can you guarantee my business shows up in ChatGPT's answers?
No, and nobody honest can; the engines decide what to cite. What can be controlled is everything upstream: being the clearest, best-structured, most quotable source on your topic. That same work also improves ordinary search rankings, so none of it is wasted.
What does the market check tool do? Is it really free?
It runs real Google searches for your services in the markets you choose and shows where your business appears and where it doesn't. It is really free and runs in about a minute: try it.
Who actually does the work on my account?
Ethan Stueve, the founder and the only person here. The person you email is the person in your account. That is the point of the business, and the name: more human marketing.
How do you report results?
Monthly, in writing, in plain English: leads, cost per lead, what changed, why, and what happens next. Not clicks, impressions, or a dashboard login. If a month went badly, the report says so.
What does it cost?
The ad audit and the market check are free. Management pricing depends on scope, and you get the number in writing before any paid work starts. No percentage of ad spend, ever.
Where are you located?
The agency is remote and US-based, working with clients anywhere in the United States. Everything happens over email and calls, in your accounts, which stay yours.