We work out where your budget should go across search, paid, content, and lifecycle, using your own numbers rather than a framework from a slide deck. The output names what to stop, which is the part most strategy work avoids because it’s the uncomfortable half.
“We’re spending across five channels and can’t compare them.”
Unit economics per channel, on your numbers. That’s the sprint. See the sprint
“Every agency says their channel is the answer.”
We don’t sell media, so we have no channel to defend. See how it runs
“We need a plan the board will accept.”
The output is a decision document with the reasoning attached. See the plans
“We already know what to do, we need doing.”
Then buy execution, not strategy. We’ll point you at the right service. Read who this isn’t for
These figures cover every Gatilab service, not this one alone. We’d rather say that plainly than imply a per-service record we haven’t published.
Brands we’ve delivered work for
We don’t resell media or take channel commission, which is the only reason a channel recommendation from us is worth reading.
For teams choosing between channels, planning a year, or justifying budget to someone above them.
3 to 4 weeks
If your data can’t support a defensible recommendation, we’ll say that in week one.
For teams executing a plan who need it challenged and adjusted rather than filed and forgotten.
3-month minimum
If the plan is working and needs no changes, we’ll tell you to pause.
For companies without a senior marketing hire who need that judgement at planning and board level.
3-month minimum
The goal is your own senior hire. We’ll help you recruit out of this.
Strategy is the easiest service to deliver as an attractive document that changes nothing. Each stage here is designed against that.
Week 1
Revenue, margin, customer acquisition cost, and lifetime value per channel, from your own systems. This is the unglamorous week, and it’s where most strategy work quietly skips ahead to opinions.
You leave with: A single view of what each channel actually costs and returns.
Week 2
Search demand, competitive positioning, and where attention actually is in your market, as opposed to where your industry assumes it is.
You leave with: A demand and competitive picture with sources you can check.
Week 3
Recommendations get made with reasoning and expected outcomes attached, and the list of things to stop doing carries the same weight as the list of things to start.
You leave with: Named decisions, each with its reasoning and expected outcome.
Week 4
The plan gets broken into quarters with budgets, owners, and measurable milestones, so it survives contact with the people who have to run it.
You leave with: A 12-month plan with budgets, owners, and milestones.
Strategy work is worth nothing without the ability to act on it. Two of these are reasons we decline.
Something not covered? Ask directly and you’ll get a straight answer, not a calendar link.
We don’t resell media, take channel commission, or have a paid partnership that pays us more for recommending one platform. If the answer is that you should spend less on the thing we could bill you for, we have no financial reason to avoid saying it. Ask any strategy provider this question, and check how they’re compensated.
A decision document, and the difference matters. Decks get presented, admired, and archived. What you get is a written set of named decisions with reasoning and expected outcomes attached, plus a quarterly plan with owners. It’s less impressive to look at and considerably more useful six months later.
Then that’s the finding, and it’ll come with the numbers behind it so you can check the reasoning rather than take our word. Cutting is where most of the return in strategy work actually lives. Nobody enjoys it, and it’s the part that pays for the sprint.
Not well, and we’d rather decline than pretend. Recommending channel allocation without knowing your margin and customer lifetime value is guesswork. If sharing full financials isn’t possible, aggregate figures and ranges can work, but say so upfront so we can scope honestly.
Consulting is one channel, deep. Strategy is all channels, deciding where the money goes and what to abandon. If you already know search is your channel and want to be better at it, buy the consulting. If you don’t know where your next hundred thousand should go, buy this.
We can execute the parts that fall inside what we do, and we’ll say plainly which those are. But we don’t recommend hiring your strategist as your only executor, because it removes the outside check. Plenty of clients take the plan and run it entirely with their own team, which is a good outcome.
Send a rough breakdown of what you’re spending across channels and what you think is working. We’ll tell you whether a sprint would change your mind or just confirm what you already suspect.
Free to download, no email required. Strategy work should end in a ranked list of decisions. These are the worksheets we run to get there.
A seven-part scored audit that ends in three things to fix, not a deck of observations.
Works backwards from what you need to take home to what you have to bill.
A one-page system built on a weekly pattern, with a minimum viable month for when things get busy.
If you would rather have this done than do it yourself, tell us what you are working on. If not, the templates are still yours.
