JSB DigitalJames Brown.
I've been working in paid media since 2016, and running JSB Digital from Norwich since 2020. Every account I manage is managed by me — no handover after the pitch, no junior learning on your budget.
It's not a limitation I'm working around.
Most eCommerce brands who come to me have been through at least one agency, and they've usually left for the same reason: the results weren't good enough. Sometimes that's the work itself. Often it's attention — an account that's one of thirty doesn't get looked at often enough to catch what's changing.
So the arrangement here is simple. You hire me, I do the work, and you speak to me when you want to know what's happening. I keep the client list to two or three new clients a year — the alternative is hiring people to absorb the overflow, and then I'm running an agency instead of doing the work.
Three things I'm actually responsible for.
Where the budget earns most
Across channels, campaigns and products. Most weeks it's the highest-value decision I make, and the only one that compounds.
What the numbers mean
Platforms report what they can claim credit for. Working out what your business actually did — and what to optimise towards as a result — is a different job.
What to change, and when
Including the harder half: knowing when an account needs leaving alone rather than adjusting.
Underneath that sits the ordinary weekly work — search terms, feed audits, ad copy, creative reads. A fair amount of it is now automated, which means it happens more often, not less. The judgement stays mine, and that's the part you're paying for.
Why I ask about the business first.
I run a business myself, which is a smaller one than yours but has the same shape: I set my own prices, carry my own bad months, and know that revenue and profit are different words.
It means the questions I ask early on aren't really about the ad account. Which products actually make you money, rather than which ones sell. Whether customers come back or buy once. What you can realistically get hold of if a campaign works — there's no sense scaling spend into stock you can't restock. Whether a big month is something the business can absorb, or whether it just moves the problem.
None of that shows up in Ads Manager, and an account manager working across a dozen brands has no reason to ask. But it's usually what decides whether the advertising was worth doing.
The clients that work well.
- Enough volume that efficiency is real money. A percentage point of improvement should be worth something to you, or there's not much for me to do.
- Someone who wants to talk to the person spending their budget. If you'd rather receive a monthly deck and not think about it, we'll both find it frustrating.
- Years rather than months. Most of what makes advertising work well is context you can only accumulate by sticking around.
If you're spending a few hundred pounds a month and want it tripled by Friday, I'm the wrong call, and I'll say so early. If you're not at retainer scale yet but want someone to look properly at what you've got, there's a smaller way to work together.
Tell me what you're spending, and what it's returning.
A 30-minute call, no pitch deck. If I'm not the right fit I'll say so on the call and point you somewhere better.