Find out what’s actually going wrong with your marketing.
Independent advice on the cause, and what to do next.
Free to use. Ask as much as you like.
Before I suggest anything — what would a good month look like, and what can you pay for a lead?
That’s workable. Here’s how:
- Understand your business, customers and objectivesWhat you sell, who buys, and where you want to get to
- Create your growth strategyWhere the £2.5k goes, and in what order
- Fix what’s holding you backThe changes you can make yourself
- Connect you with a partnerOnly if you need a specialist
AI built on real human expertise
askBizly applies the judgement of people who have grown businesses, led marketing teams and hired agencies — more than twenty years of it. Their criteria shape what it asks and how it answers.
A growth plan built for your business
Not a template. It asks what you sell, where you want to get to and what you have to spend, then sets out what to do, in what order, and what it should cost.
Partners aligned to your objectives
If you want help executing, askBizly briefs partners against the plan you just built — and says why each one fits. It is free to you; partners pay only when an introduction becomes work.
Start here
What’s holding your digital marketing back?
Pick the channel or the problem that sounds like yours. askBizly will pick up the conversation from there.
How to work out what your digital marketing needs
Most digital marketing decisions go wrong at the start rather than in the execution. A business decides it needs "more marketing", hires for a channel someone recommended, and finds out a year later that the channel was never the problem. Three questions, in this order, prevent most of it.
Start with how your customers actually buy
A business selling a considered purchase to other businesses lives or dies on search and reputation, because the buyer goes looking and then checks you out. A business selling something visual and impulsive belongs on paid social, where the buyer was not looking and can be persuaded in a few seconds.
A business whose sales already come mainly from referral often needs neither. Better follow-up, a decent email list and a site that closes the people already being recommended to you will beat advertising at a fraction of the cost.
Fix what you can measure before you spend more
If you cannot see which enquiries came from where, every channel looks equally plausible and you will keep funding whichever one is loudest in the meeting. Most businesses under a few million in turnover have some version of this problem, and almost none of them consider it urgent.
It is unglamorous work and it is usually the highest-return job available, because it changes every spending decision you make afterwards rather than just this month's.
Then decide who should do the work
Only at this point is the question agency, freelancer, hire or nobody. With the first two questions answered you can brief properly, judge the answers you get, and tell the difference between a supplier who understands your situation and one who is describing their standard package.
That is the order askBizly works in. You get the diagnosis first, free, and an introduction at the end of it only if the honest answer is that you need outside help.
How it works
Diagnose your digital marketing, then decide.
Describe the results you are seeing. askBizly works out the cause, what to do next, and whether you need a specialist — without anyone contacting you.
Understand your business and your digital marketing goals
Your goals for digital marketing, what you’re doing now and what you’ve got to work with — in your own words, one question at a time.
Work out what’s holding your digital marketing back
What you tell it — and any proposal, report or figures you share — is assessed against clear digital marketing criteria, with what’s known kept apart from what’s assumed.
Create your digital marketing strategy
An action plan, a budget, a review or a brief for digital marketing — with its evidence, assumptions and limits shown.
Help you execute
Do it yourself, go back to your supplier with better questions, or look at digital marketing partners — you decide.
Fix the problem
Four ways askBizly can help with digital marketing
Get a plan for what’s holding your marketing back, a realistic budget, an honest agency review, or a brief for the right specialist.
Diagnosis
The digital marketing problem you describe is rarely the one you have.
Expensive leads are usually a landing page problem. Flat SEO is often a tracking problem. askBizly works back from the symptom before anybody recommends a channel or a retainer.
- Works from the numbers you already have
- Says which channel to fix first, and which to ignore
- Free whether or not you ever want a partner
Budget
Know what digital marketing should cost before anyone quotes.
askBizly defines the work and breaks down retainers, ad spend, production and set-up — with where every figure comes from, and what your monthly budget can support.
- Fees and media spend kept apart
- Every figure labelled with its source
- Questions that make agency quotes comparable
Review
Check a digital marketing agency or proposal before you sign.
Share the retainer, scope or results. askBizly looks at what is promised, how it is measured and whether the fee matches the work — then gives you the questions to ask.
- What looks right, what is vague, what to push back on
- Retainers compared on the same criteria
- Specific questions to put to the agency
Partners
A clear brief, then only digital marketing partners who fit.
If the fix needs outside help, askBizly turns what you described into a brief and looks for specialists whose records fit it. Asking a question sends your details nowhere.
- You see the brief before anyone does
- Your details go only to partners you pick
- No obligation to hire anyone
Digital marketing questions people ask first
There is no single right figure, but UK small businesses growing deliberately tend to put between 5% and 10% of revenue into marketing, and more when entering a new market. What matters more than the percentage is whether you can measure what comes back. askBizly works through your margins and sales cycle and gives you a range that fits your business rather than an industry average.
If you have time and only one channel to learn, doing it yourself is often the better first move, because you understand your own numbers afterwards. Agencies earn their fee when the work needs specialist skill or more hours than you have — usually paid media, technical SEO, and anything that needs constant testing. askBizly will tell you which side of that line your situation falls on.
Look for three things: whether they can explain what changed and why, whether you have direct access to the accounts they work in, and whether the metrics they report connect to enquiries and sales rather than impressions and rankings alone. Describe what you are getting and askBizly will tell you whether it looks reasonable for the fee you are paying.
Most UK agencies work on a monthly retainer. For a small business, a single channel handled properly — SEO, or Google Ads, or paid social — typically runs £750 to £2,500 a month. A multi-channel retainer with strategy and reporting is usually £2,500 to £8,000. Paid media management is often charged as 10% to 20% of ad spend instead. Below about £500 a month there is rarely enough time in the budget for real work, whatever the proposal says.
Start by defining the problem rather than the service, because the brief decides the shortlist. Then look for agencies with direct experience of your situation — your sector, your scale, your channel — and ask each one what they would do first and how they would measure it. Two or three well-briefed conversations beat ten generic ones. askBizly does the briefing and the shortlisting for you, and puts forward only partners whose experience fits what you described.
A consultant advises and plans; an agency executes. A consultant is the better buy when you need to decide what to do, audit work you are already paying for, or set up measurement properly, and they typically charge a day rate. An agency is the better buy when the plan is settled and you need the work done month after month, usually on a retainer. Many businesses need a short piece of consultancy first and an agency second, which is the sequence askBizly is built around.
Whichever one reaches people who are already trying to solve the problem you solve. If customers search for what you sell, start with search — paid for speed, organic for durability. If they would not know to search but recognise the problem when shown it, start with paid social. If your sales already come mainly from referral and repeat business, the highest return is usually email and better follow-up rather than any advertising at all.
Yes. The advice is free for business owners and always will be. askBizly is paid by the partners it introduces, and only when you choose to be introduced. Nothing is sent to anyone and nobody contacts you until you say so.
Stop guessing. Start growing.
Describe what is going wrong, or pick the skill that fits. Free, with no one contacting you unless you ask.