Marketing you canput to work
Insights
Practical guides on SEO, AI automation, and growth marketing, written by the team that builds these systems for clients.
What does a marketing agency actually do?
A marketing agency runs five monthly jobs: strategy, channel work, creative, measurement, and a report you can hold it to. Companies send out about a third of their digital marketing work on average, so most agencies sit alongside an owner rather than replace one. This guide covers the first 90 days, real prices, and the promises no agency can keep.
August 2, 2026
Set up conversion tracking before you spend a dollar
At the end of this lesson your website carries the Google tag, a form-fill conversion action and a phone-call conversion action exist and are verifying, Google Analytics is linked without counting the same lead twice, and your account has still spent nothing. Part 2 of a four-part series.
August 1, 2026
Build your first Google Ads Search campaign
At the end of this lesson one Search campaign exists, built on purpose: the Display Network off, locations set to presence rather than interest, phrase and exact keywords with a starter negative list, one ad written, a call asset wired to Lesson 2, and a capped budget. It spends when you switch it on. Part 3 of four.
August 1, 2026
The first 90 days: read the numbers and make them better
The campaign is live, so the job changes from building to operating. This lesson sets the cadence: one weekly review that reliably returns money, a monthly judgment on cost per lead, and a clear list of the reports that hold no signal yet at a small advertiser’s volume. Part 4 of four.
August 1, 2026
How to set up a Google Ads account the right way
At the end of this lesson you have a Google Ads account that exists but does not spend: created without launching the campaign Google builds during signup, billing configured, currency and time zone set correctly the first time, and auto-apply recommendations switched off. Part 1 of a four-part series.
July 31, 2026
Real estate video marketing: what the evidence supports
Video is worth producing, but not for the reason the industry usually gives. The transaction research associates video and virtual tours with faster sales rather than higher prices, and the most-quoted number in the category, 403% more inquiries, traces back to no published study at all. Here is what the evidence supports.
July 21, 2026
Listing video vs. photography: where each one actually pays
Photography wins the listing page and video competes for the feed. Home buyers rate listing photos "very useful" at 83% and videos at 29%, per NAR's 2025 Generational Trends Report. This guide separates what the research actually measured from what the industry repeats, including the most-quoted video statistic in real estate, which has no traceable source.
July 21, 2026
Real estate photography that sells listings
Listing photos are the highest-rated feature on a listing page: 81% of buyers who searched online rated them "very useful" in NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, ahead of every other element. This guide separates the documented evidence on listing imagery from the folklore, and covers California's new disclosure law and the FAA rules that govern drone shots.
July 21, 2026
Paid ads for real estate agents: the rules and the math
Paid ads can work for real estate agents, but only inside rules most guides never mention: both Meta and Google restrict housing ads in the US, ZIP-code targeting is prohibited on each, and NAR survey data puts the share of buyers an ad budget can plausibly reach near 15%. The platform rules are published and checkable; the cost-per-lead benchmarks are not.
July 21, 2026
Local business paid ads that convert
Local paid ads work when the arithmetic works. Google charges Local Services Ads by the lead rather than the click, and your minimum viable budget is your trade’s cost per lead times the 30 conversions Google recommends for evaluating bidding. Medians run from $45.15 for pools to $228.15 for roofing. Everything else is call tracking and honest benchmarks.
July 21, 2026
Social media for local restaurants: what moves covers
Review platforms carry the only rigorous evidence that anything online moves restaurant covers. Yelp ratings and consumer photos have measured associations with revenue and survival, and Google documents its own ranking factors; Instagram and TikTok have reach but no published study linking them to tables. Here is what the research supports, what it does not, and what to measure.
July 21, 2026
The best social platforms for contractors
Google Business Profile, then Facebook. Google is where homeowners search when something breaks, and in Pew's 2025 survey 74% of U.S. adults aged 50 to 64 said they use Facebook against 30% for TikTok. This guide ranks every platform by documented reach, buyer intent, and the review rules that became federal in 2024.
July 21, 2026
Agency vs. in-house marketing on the Central Coast
A median Salinas marketing specialist earned $70,440 in May 2025 per BLS, and federal employer-cost data puts the loaded figure near $100,700. This guide runs that math for Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz counties, sets it against California's exempt-salary floor, and flags the cost claims nobody can source.
July 21, 2026
The owned audience: why email and SMS lists beat rented reach
An owned audience is the set of people who gave you direct, consented contact information — email addresses and phone numbers — stored in systems you control and portable between providers. Email returns an average of $36 per $1 spent (Litmus), and since 2024 both owned channels run under strict rules: authentication for email, written consent for SMS.
July 4, 2026
Long-form research
How to Build a World-Class GA4 Setup
Most Google Analytics 4 installations record data without measuring anything a business can act on. This dissertation documents the audit and reconstruction of one such property from first principles, and generalizes the work into a method any practitioner can follow.
Francisco Contreras · July 2026 · 66k words