How I Added Consulting to My Google Ads Agency

I run a Google Ads agency, primarily for e-commerce brands. When I spoke with Daniel, the agency was steady at around $50,000 a month. Launching a consulting offer had helped me reach my first six-figure month across the business; that did not mean the agency service alone was doing that amount.

The change was offering training and consulting to in-house brand teams while keeping selected done-for-you clients. It gave me a different way to use my expertise, alongside delegating delivery and spending more time thinking about the business.

I changed the offer when brands wanted to work in-house

Daniel and I discussed the problem of clients wanting to bring Google Ads in-house. His suggestion was to sell the support that could help them do that: consulting and training for the person they were hiring, instead of treating every in-house move as the end of the relationship.

He had encouraged me to launch the offer around March 2022. I did not act on it until about August. By the interview, I described repositioning more toward training and consulting for in-house brands, rather than simply adding more managed-service clients.

Client Ascension related reading: the asymmetric offer article looks at offer design from a different angle. It is an editorial comparison, not a claim that my consulting offer used every term described there.

I still had a delivery role, but it took less of the day

At the interview, I put my own functional service delivery at around three to four hours a day. That varied: bringing on a new client increased the work, while letting my employee handle more reduced it. I was spending more time thinking about the business and setting up consulting systems.

That was a description of service-delivery time, not a claim that my whole working day had become that short. I was still building and managing a business. The interview did not provide a time log or a measured profit-margin comparison.

I said I paid my employee $5,000 a month. I saw value in the time that gave me to think about new offers and improve existing client work. The larger amounts discussed as possible returns from that thinking were my expectations, not an audited return on that hire.

Client Ascension related reading: Steven's content agency case study gives another operator's experience of delegation. His staffing and results are separate from my Google Ads business.

My best clients helped me understand where I fit

I began looking back at the clients who had stayed with me for a year or two: what were they doing, and how could I repeat those results for future clients? That was more useful than treating every e-commerce brand as equally suited to my service.

Before the repositioning, I had wanted many more clients but felt stuck with the team I had. Moving toward consulting meant relearning what I was doing and becoming confident in that model. I still wanted to keep the higher-value done-for-you work, rather than removing it entirely.

Getting attention still required a working sales process

The foundational work included a CRM, the offer and how I positioned myself on Twitter and YouTube. I had not done all of that before joining. My view was that putting those pieces in place and actually doing the work to get and keep clients had to go together.

I kept attending the weekly call and taking ideas back into the business. My advice in the interview was to shorten the gap between thinking and action, because I had spent too long delaying changes I wanted to make.

Client Ascension related reading: the acquisition guide connects marketing with the sales process. It expands on the broader topic without turning my experience into a guaranteed traffic or close-rate formula.

Consulting was a direction, not a completed forecast

I wanted consulting to become the larger part of the business, with done-for-you work reserved for brands and challenges I wanted to work on. The annual revenue target I discussed for the following year was a goal, not revenue I had already earned.

The result I could discuss was a first six-figure month after launching the offer, alongside an agency business around $50,000 a month. I did not establish the profit, the share of that month attributable to consulting or an ongoing six-figure recurring run rate.

Client Ascension related reading: the AI Assisted Agency program page describes the current offer. This historical interview does not establish current program terms or promise that another business will reach my outcome.

Adapted by Client Ascension with AI assistance from Collin Schmelebeck's interview. The first-person narrative follows the source speaker’s account. Watch the original video