Paid ads · Australian ecommerce
Google and Meta ads for Australian ecommerce brands.
One senior operator. No account managers between you and the work.
I’ve run half a million dollars of ad spend in a year for a single brand across Meta and Google. I’ve also run accounts at $1,000 a month. Most of what works at the top doesn’t survive the drop, and knowing which half to keep is the whole job.
- On your real account
- You keep the plan either way
- No lock-in contracts
$2.24M
attributed revenue, Google + Meta
$514k spend
4.36x return
9,389 orders
Brands I’ve worked on
A selection from 35+ Australian retail and ecommerce brands I’ve worked with, mostly during my years at Megantic.
Straight answers
Things I’ll tell you that most agencies won’t.
Good ROAS can hide bad growth.
A lot of reported return is ads shown to people who already follow you. Real growth comes from cold traffic, and cold traffic is harder. If your numbers look great but sales are flat, this is usually why.
Big-budget tactics break at small budgets.
I've run half a million dollars of ad spend in a year and I've run $1,000 a month. Most enterprise plays collapse on the way down. Plenty of agencies sell them anyway. Knowing which ones survive is most of what you're paying for.
The platforms mark their own homework.
Meta and Google both flatter their own numbers. I judge campaigns against your revenue, not the platform's attribution, and I'll show you the gap in your own account.
If that’s the kind of reporting you want, we’ll get along.
Selected work
Results I’ll put my name to.
What I run
The cadence
What a month actually looks like.
No mystery, no ticket queue.
Week 1
I go through the account properly, not a dashboard skim. You get the changes I’m making and why, in plain English.
Ongoing
Budgets, bids, audiences and creative rotation managed continuously. You get a message when something changes materially, not a monthly surprise.
Every month
A report that leads with what happened to your revenue, then what I changed, then what's next. Written to be read, not to justify the invoice.
Any time
You can call or message me directly. There’s no one else to route through.
The free 15-minute audit
Fifteen minutes on your real account. Here’s exactly what you get.
01
Book a time
Grab a slot and drop in your store URL and roughly what you spend. That's all I need to prepare.
02
We look at your account together
Zoom, screen shared, your live campaigns on screen. I'll show you what's working, what's wasting money, and why.
03
You leave with a plan
The one change I'd make first, and the order I'd make the rest. Run it yourself, hand it to your current agency, or ask me to do it. All three are fine.
If I think we should work together, I’ll say so. If I don’t, I’ll say that too.
“His insight and depth of knowledge was extremely helpful, and the session was very practical and actionable. Highly recommend if you want clarity and real direction rather than just generic advice.”
Since 2017.
I started at WME running 45+ paid campaigns across a 90+ client portfolio, then spent four years at Megantic working on 100+ Australian ecommerce brands.
Half a million dollars in a year.
At Step Digital I ran one Australian ecommerce brand's paid across Meta and Google: $514k of spend in twelve months, $2.24M in attributed revenue back.
Both ends of the budget scale.
National-brand budgets and $1,000 a month. I'll tell you which tactics apply at your size and which ones don't.
Specialist, not generalist.
Paid ads and SEO only. I don't try to do everything.
Month to month.
No lock-in. I earn it every month.
Your options
Me, an agency, or your own evenings.
Same three channels. Here’s what actually differs.
Me
Agency
DIY
Who runs the account
The person on the call
A junior, supervised
You, between everything
Who you talk to
Me, directly
An account manager
Yourself, at 11pm
Reporting
Your revenue
Platform numbers
The dashboard
Channels
Paid ads and SEO only
Every service
What you’ve had time for
Commitment
Month to month
6 to 12 month lock-in
Your evenings
After launch
Managed continuously
Left to coast
When you remember
Price
A number, on the call
Tiered packages
Your time
Client reviews
Reviews I can’t edit.
Pulled from my Google listing, where owners can’t change or remove a word.
“They didn’t just talk jargon - they explained the strategy clearly, kept us updated, and delivered results that mattered. Within a few months, we started ranking for keywords we’d struggled with for years, and our Google Ads ROAS has never been better.”
“The transparency, regular updates, and real business insights made it feel like I had a true partner, not just another agency. Since starting, I’ve seen real results.”
“We have a bricks and mortar business that needed to evolve into the complex world of ecommerce and Mark has been excellent in guiding us through that.”
The arithmetic
Do the arithmetic before you book.
Say you’re spending $10,000 a month and getting $3 back for every $1. That’s $30,000 in revenue. At a 60% gross margin, $8,000 of it is left once you’ve paid for the ads.
A $2,000 management fee comes out of that $8,000. So the ads have to move you from 3.0x to roughly 3.33x for the management to pay for itself.
Not double. A third of a point.
Most agencies run this on revenue and tell you 3.2x. That version quietly ignores your margin, which is the number that actually pays you. Bring your real spend and your real margin to the call and we’ll do it live.
Worked example · not a quote
up from 3.0x
Questions before you book.
Is this a sales call?+
It's a working session on your account. Most of the 15 minutes is me showing you things in your own campaigns. If I think there's a fit at the end, I'll say so in one sentence, and you can take it or leave it.
Do you need access to my ad account?+
No. You share your screen on the call and we look at it together. If you'd rather grant read-only access so I can look before we talk, that works too, and I'll send instructions when you book.
We already work with an agency.+
Then use this as a second opinion. You'll get an independent read on the account and the one thing I'd push your agency to do next. Some of the most useful audits I've done are for brands that stayed exactly where they were.
What does it cost if we work together?+
Month to month, no lock-in, priced on scope. Ask on the call and you'll get a straight number. The audit itself is free and stays free.
Do you do SEO as well?+
Yes. My roots are SEO, including national brands like Forty Winks and Musashi at Megantic. Paid ads leads; SEO comes in when it makes sense for your stage.
Why only 15 minutes?+
Because that's how long it takes to find the first meaningful fix on most accounts. Nobody needs an hour of introductions. If we need longer, that's what working together is for.
Get a straight answer on your ad account.
Fifteen minutes, your real campaigns, and the one thing I'd fix first.
Free, on your real account, no obligation.