We cut cost per lead by 43% in the first 90 days
Halstead runs paid search, SEO and conversion work for 61 mid market B2B and ecommerce brands. You get three named people and a dashboard you can open at 6am without asking us for it.
CB
FI
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61 brands on retainer since 2016
Average tenure 26 months
Measured across 61 retained accounts, 2023 to 2025
43%
Cost per lead
Median fall in the first 90 days, measured across 61 retained accounts.
26
Months on retainer
Median time a client stays with us, counted on every account since 2016.
2.4x
Organic sessions
Median lift by month 12, against the month before we started work.
4 hrs
First reply
Median time to a first reply on the shared channel, working hours, last quarter.
Medians, not averages, so one outlier account cannot carry the number. Method note available on request.
Three reasons clients stay past 24 months
A 90 day plan you sign off before we spend a pound
Week one is an audit. Week two you get the plan: the channels, the budget split, the tests, and the number each one has to hit.
You approve it before anything goes live. If a channel misses its number twice in a row we move the budget and tell you why in the Tuesday note, rather than waiting for the quarterly review.
Onboarding
What the first ninety days actually look like
Nothing is billed as media spend until you have signed off the plan in week two.
Days 1 to 5
Audit
We take read access to your ad accounts, analytics and CRM. You get a written audit naming the three largest wasted spend lines.
Days 6 to 14
Plan
Channel mix, budget split, the tests we will run and the number each has to hit. You approve it before any spend moves.
Days 15 to 45
Rebuild
Account structure, tracking and landing pages. Two CRO tests go live in this window and stay live from then on.
Days 46 to 90
Compound
Weekly calls, the Tuesday note, and a 90 day review against the numbers you signed off. Renewal is a decision, not a default.
Six services, each with a number attached
Competitor and market audit
We pull every keyword, ad and landing page your five closest competitors run, then show you where their cost per click is lower than yours and why.
See how we run search
Search engine optimisation
Technical fixes first, then content built against real search demand. Clients average 2.4x organic sessions by month 12.
See our SEO method
Paid search and paid social
Google, Bing, Meta and LinkedIn managed against cost per acquisition, not clicks. We rebuild the account structure in week three.
See a paid media plan
Conversion rate optimisation
Two tests live at all times on your highest traffic template. Every test ships with a written hypothesis and a stop rule.
See a CRO test log
Analytics and attribution
GA4, server side tagging and a Looker Studio dashboard you own. Set up in week two, refreshed daily after that.
See a live dashboard
Lifecycle email and SMS
Abandoned basket, post purchase and win back flows in Klaviyo or Braze. Typically 11 to 18 percent of revenue by month six.
See a lifecycle flow
Retainers
Three ways to work with us, from £4,800 a month
Media spend is billed to your card by the platform. Our fee is separate and is the only number below.
Single channel
£4,800
per month, one channel
One channel run properly, usually paid search or SEO. Suits under 40,000 a month in media spend.
One channel lead and one analyst
Looker Studio dashboard, refreshed daily
Tuesday note and a monthly call
Three month initial term
See a single channel plan
Full funnel
£9,600
per month, three channels
Paid, organic and conversion work running together, which is where the 43% figure comes from.
Strategist, channel lead and analyst named on your account
Two CRO tests live at all times
Weekly call and a shared Slack channel
Quarterly plan reset against your targets
Book a 30 minute call
In house build
From £14,000
per month, six month term
We run the function and hand it to your team. Most clients bring it in house in month nine.
Everything in Full funnel
Documented playbooks in your Notion or Confluence
Two training sessions a month for your team
Named handover date written into the contract
Ask about an in house build
Prices exclude VAT. No setup fee and no percentage of media spend.
The same dashboard we look at, open to you
Spend, leads, cost per acquisition and revenue by channel, refreshed every morning at 7am. You own the Looker Studio file, so it survives the relationship.
Cost per acquisition by channel, updated daily
Every test logged with its hypothesis and result
Raw data export, yours to keep on day one
Cost per acquisition in pounds, 2020 to 2025
125
100
75
50
25
0
2020
2023
2025
Honestly compared
Halstead, one in house hire, or freelancers
We lose two of these six rows. They are still here.
Monthly cost
About £5,900 all in on a £55,000 salary
£2,000 to £6,000, variable
From £4,800, no employer costs
People on the account
One, and nothing moves when they are ill
One per channel, no shared view
Three named, plus cover when one is away
Knows your business on day one
Yes after onboarding, then permanently
No, and it resets with each hire
No. Takes about three weeks
Platform certifications
Depends on the individual
Rarely checked
Google, Meta, Klaviyo, current
Notice period
One to three months, plus recruitment
Usually none
30 days after the initial term
Cheapest possible option
No
Yes, at low volume
No
What three clients measured in their first year
“Cost per lead on paid search fell from £186 to £71 in five months, on the same £22,000 a month budget. The Tuesday note is the only agency report I actually read.”
PR
Priya Raghavan
Head of Growth, Carrow Bathrooms
“Organic sessions went from 9,400 to 31,200 a month over twelve months, and organic now brings 38 percent of our booked jobs. They fixed the technical debt before writing a single article.”
TB
Tom Beckwith
Managing Director, Fenland Interiors
“Six CRO tests took checkout conversion from 1.4 percent to 2.6 percent. On our volume that is about £410,000 a year, and they showed the losing tests as well as the winners.”
DA
Dominic Achebe
Ecommerce Director, Ostler Home
61 brands on retainer. Eight of them here.
Carrow Bathrooms
Fenland Interiors
Ostler Home
Kelmore
Thackray Supply
Pentle & Vane
Ashcombe Foods
Larkmead
Platforms
Certified in six, and we will work in whatever you already own
Google Ads
Meta
Shopify
HubSpot
GA4
Mailchimp
Certifications current as of January 2026. If your stack is not here, tell us on the call and we will say honestly whether we know it well enough to charge you for it. We also run retainers on Klaviyo, Braze, Amazon Ads and Attentive.
Your data
What we can see, and what happens when you leave
Access, never credentials
We ask to be added as a user on your accounts under our own logins. We never ask for your password and we will refuse it if offered.
Three people, named on the contract
Only the three people on your account have access. Removals happen the same working day someone leaves the team, and you are told.
Everything leaves with you
The Looker Studio file, the raw exports, the test log and the account structures are yours. We hand them over inside five working days of notice and delete our copies inside thirty.
Registered with the ICO, number ZA482716. Data processing agreement signed before any access is granted.
Before you book
The six things people ask on the call anyway
If yours is not here, ask it on the call. We answer pricing questions on the call, not after it.
What happens if the numbers do not move?
The 90 day review is against targets you signed off in week two. If we have missed them and the cause is our work rather than a change in your market, we run the following month at no fee while we fix it. That has happened four times since 2016 and we will talk you through two of them on the call.
We already have an agency. How messy is the switch?
Two to three weeks of overlap, which we recommend you pay for. We take read access first and rebuild in a parallel account rather than editing theirs, so nothing goes dark while notice runs. You keep your account history because we work inside your Google and Meta accounts, not ours.
How long before anything changes?
Tracking and reporting are live in week two. Account restructure lands between weeks three and six, and that is usually where the first cost movement shows. Organic work does not show before month four, and we will say so rather than let you expect otherwise.
Who actually does the work?
The three people named on your contract. Your strategist is on the weekly call and writes the Tuesday note. Nothing is offshored and nothing is handed to a junior without the channel lead reviewing it, which is part of why we are not the cheapest option in the table above.
Are we locked in?
Three months to start, because a shorter run cannot show whether the plan worked. After that it is 30 days notice in writing, no exit fee, and the handover set out in the data section applies from the day you give notice.
What do you not do?
Brand strategy, video production, PR and anything in gambling, crypto or supplements. We will name someone who does the first three properly if you ask.
Get a channel audit back in five working days
Send us read access to your ad accounts and analytics. You get a written audit with the three biggest wasted spend lines and what we would change first. No charge and no obligation to hire us.
Book a 30 minute call