What’s included
“We’ll run some ads” isn’t a plan. Every paid media client gets the same set of work, in the same order: we audit what you have, fix the tracking so results can be proven, then build and improve from there every month.
Focus areas · Full-funnel marketing
Audit of current campaigns
We read your account before we change anything: how it’s structured, whether the tracking is telling the truth, and where money is being wasted. You get the findings either way, even if you don’t hire us.
Conversion & goal tracking
We rebuild your tracking once, correctly, so the sales your store or CRM records match what Google Analytics and the ad platforms report. Nothing else on this page works without this step.
Competitive & market research
Who you’re really bidding against, what they bid on, and where they’ve left openings. Google will show you head-to-head auction data for free. Most agencies never pull it. We do.
Campaign builds, strategy & execution
A clean account built to learn fast. Search ads, Shopping ads, Google’s automated Performance Max campaigns, Meta and Amazon: we use whichever mix fits the goal, and we don’t launch campaigns just to look busy.
Keyword & audience development
Keywords that bring buyers, not just traffic, and audiences built from your own customer data: past buyers, people who haven’t bought in a while, and new people who look like your best customers.
Ad copy & creative buildout
We write the ads and design the creative in-house, test several versions at a time, and drop the losers. When you have a sale or a seasonal offer, the ads change on your calendar.
Landing pages that match the ad
The click is only half the job. We build and improve the pages your ads send people to, and measure what changes. Because we build websites too, a landing page fix doesn’t wait on another vendor.
Plain-English reporting
A monthly scorecard that says what we changed, why, and what’s next, written by the people running your account. Weekly while we’re ramping up. See a sample scorecard →
What a month on your account looks like
The complaint we hear most about ad agencies: “The report is a dashboard export and I can’t tell what they actually did.” Here’s a typical month with us. Every item below shows up in your scorecard by name. See a sample monthly scorecard →
We read the actual searches that triggered your ads and block the ones that waste money (a plumber’s ad showing for “plumbing jobs,” for example). It’s the clearest sign an account is being worked.
We check spend against the month’s plan and your season. If something is running hot or cold, you hear about it that day, not on the invoice.
Losing ads come out, winners get more budget, and tests get written up. The platforms’ automation does the around-the-clock math. A person decides what it means.
What changed, why, and what’s next, written by the people running the account. Weekly during ramp-up, then monthly.
The platforms we run
What you’re actually buying
If you’ve never bought search ads, this is the product: an ad at the top of the page when someone searches for what you sell. The parts we write, test and win are labeled.
Sets up in 10 minutes, fits in a hatchback. Free shipping over $99 and a 30-day paddle-it-first guarantee.
Independent hands-on reviews of this year’s folding kayaks, ranked by…
- Top-of-page placement. Every search is a live auction for this spot. TuckTec held it 93% of the time against the category leader. The case study is below.
- Headlines and descriptions. Written in-house, tested against each other, replaced when something beats them. That’s the ad work listed in the month above.
- Sitelinks and extensions. Free extra lines under the ad that most self-managed accounts leave empty. More of the page for the same price.
- The regular results underneath. Ads rent this page. SEO & Content is how you own it. They work best together.
How we compare
We read the top-ranking agency pages selling this same service. Every line on the left is a pattern we found there.
The typical ad agency
- “Request a proposal” to hear a fee
- Silence on who owns the ad account
- A dashboard export as the monthly report
- “AI-powered” as a buzzword, never shown
- Six-month minimums, or “no contracts” in the headline and a minimum in the fine print
- Google first; Microsoft and Amazon someone else’s job
Southern Tide Media
- 18% of spend with a $450 minimum, printed right here
- Your accounts, your data, your history, with admin access from day one
- An itemized work log and a sample scorecard you can read right now
- AI works the account around the clock; people own the strategy
- Plain-English scope, with any setup work disclosed up front
- Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon run as one program
Where it starts
18% of ad spendManagement feeWith a $450 per month minimum per channel, billed separately from your ad budget. You always see our fee and your media as two lines.
How pricing worksHow pricing works
One simple structure, no tiers to decode, and your ad budget is never part of our fee. For context: agencies typically charge 10 to 20% of ad spend to manage it, and about half the top-ranking firms won’t tell you a number without a call. Ours is right here.
With a $450 per month minimum per channel, billed separately from your ad budget. You always see our fee and your media as two lines.
Paid directly to Google, Meta, Microsoft or Amazon on your own accounts. We never mark it up. The accounts, the data and the history stay yours.
Landing pages, product feeds or integrations beyond the engagement are scoped in writing and approved before we start. Bundles cost less: see plans.
Bundling is cheaper than buying the pieces.
See plans & pricingHow long it takes
What to expect
Ads get better with time and data. Anyone promising month-three numbers in week one is guessing. Here’s what the first year usually looks like.
Tracking fixed, account structured, first campaigns live. Expect some noise early: the platforms are learning, and so are we.
Bids, ads and audiences change weekly. Costs settle, losers get cut, and it becomes clear where the profit is.
Proven winners get the budget. We plan around your season the way we plan kayak summers and resort seasons: spend goes up when demand does.
Who we help
Full-service for everyone, specialists where it counts. These aren’t a menu. They’re the industries on our client roster today.
Hospitality & Resort
Heads in beds, direct bookings, and budgets that follow the season.
Explore →E-commerce & DTC
Shopping ads, Performance Max and Amazon, measured by return on ad spend.
Explore →Medical & Med Spa
Campaigns that book consultations and stay inside the ad rules.
Explore →Outdoor & Recreation
Product brands with a short season and a bigger competitor to beat.
Home Services & B2B
Bigger purchases, longer research, and sales that run through distributors.
Legal & Professional
High-value leads where one client pays for the year.
Chambers & Nonprofits
Community organizations that need every dollar accounted for.
Restricted categories
Dentures, medical devices and other categories most agencies quietly avoid.
When you win, we win
Real clients, real numbers. Ratios and rankings, sourced, with each client’s sign-off.
Outbidding the category leader — at a 5.9× return
2023 – 2026
A 599% return in a category Google restricts
2023 – present
Thirteen years of showing up with the numbers
2013 – present
Don’t take our word for it
“The Southern Tide Media team has smartly positioned itself as partners, versus “vendors.” Each step along the strategic path, I feel as if they are “all in” and have our best interests at heart.”
“Southern Tide Media increased our conversion rates on our SEO campaigns by 60% in short time… Brandon takes the worry out of all the technical jargon and translates that into workable applications you can understand as a business owner.”
“In every dealing I have ever had with Brandon Evans, he has been knowledgeable, fair, and has responded quickly. I would highly recommend using him for any of your business’s marketing or advertising needs!”
Questions, answered
Do I own my ad accounts?
Always. We build on your accounts and you keep full ownership and admin access. If we ever part ways, nothing is held hostage.
Should I just use Performance Max and let Google’s AI run it?
Google’s automation is good at bidding, and it optimizes toward whatever you feed it. Feed it a broken conversion signal and it gets very efficient at buying the wrong thing. Our job is the guardrails: real revenue data, budget discipline, the searches we block, and the judgment calls the software can’t make. Automation with supervision beats either one alone.
What does the AI actually do?
The around-the-clock work a person can’t: adjusting bids and budgets against your cost targets, rotating ads, and flagging anything unusual. Strategy stays with a person.
Can you work with a restricted category?
Yes, it’s a specialty. We run accounts in categories Google restricts (dentures, for one) and have come through several policy crackdowns without losing an account.
How do I know if my current agency is doing a good job?
Ask three questions. Is my conversion tracking actually recording revenue? What specific changes were made last month? Do I have admin access to my own account? If any answer is fuzzy, get a second opinion. Our audit reads your account as it stands, and you keep the findings either way.
What happens if we stop?
You keep everything: accounts, data, history, landing pages. Our agreements are plain English. Scope, price and any setup work are disclosed up front, and after any initial term, every engagement runs month to month with 30 days’ notice. We’d rather earn next month than lock you in.
Can you watch who bids on our brand name?
Yes. That’s our Brand Protection Monitoring service: daily checks of Google, Bing, Amazon and Walmart for advertisers bidding on your brand name, with the evidence attached to every alert. Included in Full Stack plans.