Get a straight answer on your marketing spend before you sign the next cheque

The problem we solve: you can't judge what you can't see

Marketing is one of the few large expenses an owner approves without being able to inspect the work. You can see a new roof or a repaired van; you can't easily see whether an agency built your ad campaigns properly, whether the "SEO hours" happened, or whether the leads in the report ever became customers.

That information gap is where money leaks. Common versions we see:

• A monthly retainer that has quietly shrunk to a reporting email and little else
• Google Ads accounts owned by the agency, so you lose your history if you leave
• Reports full of impressions and clicks but no count of calls, quotes or sales
• Two vendors paid to do overlapping work, each blaming the other when results dip
• A budget set by "what the agency suggested" rather than by what a customer is worth to you

None of this needs bad intent. It usually happens because nobody on the buyer's side has the time or background to ask the right questions. That is the job we do. Start with our services overview to see how the work is split.

Three questions every marketing budget should answer

Before you hire anyone, you should be able to answer three questions with numbers. If you can't, a vendor will answer them for you, in their favour.

1. What is a new customer worth? Take the average gross profit from a first sale, then add the profit from repeat work you can reasonably expect in the first two years.
2. How many new customers can you serve? Spare capacity limits marketing. Paying for 40 leads a month when your crew can handle 15 jobs wastes the other 25.
3. What can you afford to pay to win one? That figure, multiplied by the customers you can handle, is the ceiling on sensible spend.

A worked example: suppose your average first job brings $1,800 of gross profit and a typical customer returns once in two years for another $900. Each new customer is worth about $2,700 in gross profit. If you decide to spend no more than a quarter of that to win one, your acquisition cost ceiling is $675. With room for 20 new customers a month, total marketing spend (agency fees plus ad spend) should stay under $13,500 a month, and less while results are unproven. Our budget guide walks through the same maths with your own figures.

What we do, in five pieces

Each engagement is built from one or more of these pieces:

• Agency search and selection: a brief, a shortlist, structured interviews and a scorecard
• Proposal and scope review: what a proposal buys, what it leaves out, and what to ask before signing
• Marketing budget planning: a spend level and channel split tied to your numbers
• Agency and vendor audits: an evidence-based look at accounts, deliverables and results
• Ongoing agency oversight: a buyer-side advisor reading the reports with you each month

We give business and marketing advice only. We don't provide legal, accounting or tax advice; when a contract question needs a lawyer, we'll say so and help you prepare the questions for them.

Who is behind the advice

MarketingAdvisor.ca is part of the Sedighi.ca and SAZ.ca group, a Canadian group headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Ali Sedighi, MBA (Technology Management), leads it. He opened his first full-service digital agency, ONE.ir, in 2007, which puts his experience at 17+ years; 150+ HVAC websites he built are live today, and his clients are spread across Canada, the USA and Dubai.

That background matters for one reason: we have sat on the agency side of the desk for a long time. We know how retainers are scoped, where hours go, and which report metrics hide weak results. Read more on the About page.

Proof from our HVAC work

Our case studies come from the home-heating sector, so we present them as results from our HVAC work rather than claims about your industry. They show what clear goals, honest tracking and steady execution can produce:

• HVACDeal.ca generated 500+ leads at a 12:1 ROI.
• CombiBoiler.ca reached 300% ROI and 300+ monthly leads.
• BCWide.ca tripled its leads in 90 days.

The lesson that transfers to any business is the measurement discipline behind those numbers. See the full write-ups on our results page.

Where we work and how to start

We advise owners across Canada, from Victoria to St. John's and north to Iqaluit, in person or by video call, phone and screen share. Provincial rules on privacy, language and consumer protection shape some marketing decisions, and the areas we serve pages cover them region by region.

Pricing follows the Sedighi.ca consulting model: consulting from $175 per hour, projects from $3,500 and retainers from $2,500 per month, with a free first conversation. Details are on the pricing page. When you're ready, call, text or email with the proposal or report you want a second opinion on.