Expert 1‑2‑1 Shopify marketing for brands that have outgrown the agency model.
Twenty years of CEO-level judgement applied directly to your account. Senior-led Google and Meta acquisition, measured on blended ROAS. No account managers, no agency theatre.
[ Client performance ]Google Ads & Meta · reported in-platform
Average revenue growth243%Year on year, existing clients
Average blended ROAS1,764%Google Ads & Meta
Experience20+Years, senior level
CoverageUK · US CA · AUMultiple markets
Average client performance · 243% year-on-year revenue growth across existing clients
Brands I've worked with — not an agency
[ Accreditations & partnerships ]
Officially partnered across every channel that matters to Shopify performance.
"
Most Shopify brands paying £2,000–£5,000 a month to an agency are getting a junior account manager and a templated playbook. I'm what they actually thought they were buying.
K. Atkinson — Founder, KA Consultancy20+ years · multi-award winning · UK
[ 02 — Why brands switch ]
Three things wrong with how most agencies handle serious Shopify accounts.
If you've worked with a Shopify performance agency in the last five years, at least one of these has probably happened to you.
i.
Senior fees, junior management.
You signed because of the founder's pitch. You're now being managed by someone two years out of university with a templated optimisation checklist. The senior operator who sold you the engagement isn't touching your account. Your campaigns reflect that.
ii.
Reports that lie about profit.
Platform ROAS at 6x. Real blended ROAS at 2.1x. The dashboard shows the numbers the agency wants you to see. The P&L tells a different story. Nobody on the agency side wants to have the honest conversation.
iii.
Your account is one of forty.
An account manager carrying thirty or forty brands cannot think deeply about any of them. Yours gets the same templated checklist as everyone else's, reviewed in the twenty minutes before your call. Not because they're careless — because the model doesn't allow anything else.
"
There's a different way to work with a senior performance marketer — direct, transparent, accountable to actual profit, not to dashboard theatre.
[ 03 — Selected work ]
Real numbers. Real Shopify brands. Across international markets.
Some recent results from active and historical client work. The focus is never on vanity metrics — it's on identifying what's actually constraining performance and improving commercial outcomes. These are the kind of results that follow.
[ Case 001 · Named client ]
Direct Line Group · UK vehicle checks
Vehicle checks · United Kingdom9 months · active
+155%
Peak monthly revenue growth · sustained scale across Google and Meta paid acquisition
Active engagement with Green Flag, the vehicle checks product line from Direct Line Group. Multi-channel paid acquisition rebuild delivered consistent month-over-month blended revenue scaling across a nine-month active engagement against one of the UK's most competitive automotive categories.
[ Case 002 · Named client ]
LIPTONS·AUDIO VIDEO
Ontario · Premium audio & connected home
Audio & AV · Ontario, CA3 years · active
1,502%
626% Google ROAS lifetime average · sustained multi-year engagement
Long-term active engagement with Liptons Audio Video, premium audio retailer and connected-home integration specialist in Ontario. Sustained exceptional ROAS across both Meta and Google at premium AOV on full-system audio & AV installations.
[ Case 003 · Confidential ]
40+ year heritage audio retailer
Premium audio & home theatre
Audio & AV · Canada4 years · active
2,692%
1,093% Google ROAS lifetime average · across 4 years of active engagement
Active engagement with a 40-year heritage high-end audio and home theatre retailer. Sustained extraordinary ROAS across both Meta and Google at premium AOV through one of the most competitive specialist retail categories. Named on request.
[ Case 004 · Named client ]
MICRO●DOTHELMET CO.
DOT-certified motorcycle helmets · United States
Motorcycle helmets · United StatesSince 2022 · active
880%
763.92% Google ROAS lifetime average · sustained scale since 2022 in a restricted ad category
Active engagement since 2022 with Microdot Helmet Company, the original beanie-style DOT-certified motorcycle helmet brand. Sustained strong ROAS across Meta and Google in a regulated, restricted-advertising category notorious for difficult acquisition economics.
"
The focus is never on vanity metrics or inflated reporting. It's on identifying what's actually holding performance back, improving the quality of decisions, and creating more efficient, commercially sound growth.
[ Selected previous engagements ]
A small selection of brands I've worked with over the years.
Confidential current engagements aside, here are some of the brands the work has touched over two decades in performance marketing.
[ 04 — The KA model ]
One senior operator. A handful of clients. No layer between us.
I work directly with a small number of established Shopify brands across the UK, US, Canada and Australia. Every campaign I run, I set up, manage, and optimise personally — start to finish. No account manager between you and me. No junior operator learning on your budget. No agency template applied to your account.
i.You work directly with me. Not an account manager, not a junior — a multi-award-winning digital marketer with twenty years at CEO level. WhatsApp, Slack, phone; same-day responses in business hours. No ticketing systems, no escalation chains.
ii.Blended ROAS reporting. Real profit visibility. Not platform-attribution theatre that falls apart the moment you look at your P&L.
iii.Three-month minimum, then quarterly. Reviewed against the numbers at every renewal. The commitment exists because acquisition needs time to compound — not to trap you.
iv.Deliberately small roster. A handful of clients at any time. Most have been with me three to five years. The continuity isn't an accident.
[ 05 — What you actually get ]
The eight things this engagement is built around.
Not a packaged service list. The eight things that actually move the needle on a serious Shopify account — delivered directly by the senior operator, not delegated.
01
Strategic clarity
Pinpointing what's actually constraining growth — acquisition, conversion, retention, reporting, offer structure, or commercial decision-making. Often the answer isn't where the agency told you it was.
02
Growth direction
Clear focus on where the business should lean in, what should change, what should be deprioritised, and what's most likely to drive profitable growth. Strategy that informs action, not strategy that sits in a deck.
03
Hands-on execution
Meaningful involvement where it counts — direct execution, tighter oversight, and faster action when performance matters. Not just high-level opinion delivered monthly in a status meeting.
04
Senior oversight
Helping founders and leadership teams get more from internal teams, agencies, and specialist partners — through clearer direction, higher standards, and more experienced judgement.
05
Performance uplift
Improving efficiency and effectiveness of digital growth activity. Tighter strategy, less waste, faster response times, higher execution quality. Compound effects over months, not stunts.
06
Conversion & journey
Identifying friction across the buying journey. Improving the moments that influence conversion rate, average order value, and the overall quality of demand reaching your store.
07
Reporting & decision quality
Making performance easier to interpret. Cutting through platform-attribution noise, improving the quality of insight, supporting faster and more commercially sound decisions.
08
Retention & lifetime value
Strengthening how you convert, retain, and grow existing customers. Lifecycle strategy, retention priorities, and revenue opportunities beyond first purchase.
[ 06 — Methodology ]
The blended ROAS difference.
Most agencies report platform ROAS because it's easier and looks better. Platform ROAS is what Meta or Google tell you they attributed. Blended ROAS is the only number that ties to your bank account.
The difference between the two is where agencies hide — and where brand owners lose money.
01
Platform ROAS lies through optimism
Every platform claims credit for conversions it didn't drive. Stack those claims and your total attributed revenue is 30–50% higher than your actual revenue. The dashboard looks healthy. Your P&L doesn't agree.
02
Blended ROAS ties to reality
Total revenue divided by total ad spend. Boring. Honest. The number you can actually make decisions from. Every campaign I run is optimised toward this metric — not toward the platform's preferred reporting.
03
Incrementality over attribution
The question that matters isn't "did this ad get clicked before the sale" — it's "would this sale have happened without this ad". Different question, different answer, different optimisation decisions.
The honest measurement gap
Platform ROAS6.1xWhat Meta and Google each claim to have driven
Blended ROAS4.2xWhat actually ties to revenue
The 1.9× gap is where agencies hide. Platform attribution overstates contribution because every platform wants to claim every sale. The blended number is the one decisions should be made from — and it's the one most agencies don't show.
[ 07 — Fit & qualification ]
Who this works for. And who it doesn't.
A deliberately small client roster means being honest about fit upfront. If most of the right column applies, this isn't the right partnership for you — and I'd rather say so before either of us invests time in a call.
Well suited to
Established Shopify brands
Trading three years or more, with proven product-market fit and a stable customer base. UK, US, Canada or Australia.
£500K+ annual revenue
Sufficient scale for paid acquisition to meaningfully move the business — typically £5K+ monthly ad spend already in play.
Profitable underlying economics
You make money on each order at current margins. Paid acquisition amplifies what's already working — it doesn't fix a broken P&L.
Tired of the agency model
You've been through one or two agencies. You want a senior operator, not another team of junior account managers and templated playbooks.
Not suited to
Pre-launch or just-launched
No baseline data, no proven product-market fit, insufficient budget for paid acquisition to be the right priority yet.
Looking for a full-service agency
If you need SEO, content, email, social, influencer programs all under one roof — that's an agency model, not a senior operator engagement.
Restricted product categories
CBD, supplements with health claims, regulated financial products, and similar. Platforms make these accounts difficult regardless of operator quality.
Wanting status meetings over results
If weekly status calls and elaborate slide decks are what you value, traditional agencies do that performance better than I do.
Minimum to apply — Established Shopify brand · £500K+ annual revenue · £5K+ monthly paid media spend · UK, US, CA or AU based · Profitable underlying unit economics
[ In their words ]
What clients say about working together.
Past and present engagements.
"
We had written off Facebook Ads years ago — we'd tried running them ourselves and hired two different agencies, and both times it felt like throwing money into a black hole. K didn't start with campaigns, he started with numbers: our AOV, our margins, our ideal CAC. Our ROAS more than doubled, but beyond the numbers we finally understood how paid social could fuel growth rather than burn budget.
D. HoldsworthFlightstore
"
We'd been stuck at around £1.5M in revenue for two years. K came in and asked the right questions — he reworked our funnel, improved our messaging hierarchy, and helped us rethink our ad creative strategy. Within 90 days we saw a major uplift in ROAS and retention, and today we're tracking toward £3M+ and are more confident than ever in our direction.
R. SkeochHyperion Tiles
"
We'd been paying a well-known ecommerce agency a five-figure monthly retainer, but the strategy was generic and our account manager kept changing. Within the first week with K the difference was clear — he understood our numbers, our margins and our audience better than anyone we'd worked with. We saw a 3.7x increase in ROAS, a 21% bump in repeat purchases and, most importantly, clarity.
Fashion brandName withheld under NDA
"
Over the years I worked with no less than seven agencies who all claimed they could boost our traffic and revenue. Every one of them failed. K was the first to show me the actual flaws holding the site back — and instead of promising traffic, he promised to fix them. Eight weeks later the site was rebuilt on Shopify, and our online sales in the past two months are almost equal to the entire year before.
I. KrivetskyHi-Fi Centre
"
We have just launched the next phase of our e-commerce business and KA has held our hand when needed and given us the confidence to look at projects we previously wouldn't consider for our brand.
J. AtkinsonDirector
"
In just 8 weeks we have seen a 22.6% increase in organic traffic and nearly a 30% increase in Google organic revenue — so far we're very happy with the results.
A. HallPink Boutique
"
At a time of many simultaneous developments on our site, KA Consultancy understood our requirements from the very first day, and some of the main challenges we had have been improved considerably. I'm happy with the active, hands-on approach.
J. CastellSkandium
"
We have worked with KA Consultancy since October, and since then our organic visibility and — more importantly — organic revenue have grown significantly. He also provides guidance and training to enhance our in-house SEO work, for a two-pronged and more productive approach to this vast topic.
S. CochranePsyche
"
Working with KA has already elevated our success across all channels within such a short period of time. We are confident the growth will only continue to excel, and are very happy to be trusting our business to such a professional and hands-on company.
Fashion boutiqueName withheld under NDA
[ 08 — Commercial structure ]
Transparent pricing. No surprises.
Direct. Transparent. Accountable.
Pricing is published in pounds sterling, excluding VAT. Not hidden behind a discovery call. Three-month initial commitment, then quarterly terms reviewed against the numbers. Long enough for the work to compound; short enough that I have to keep earning it.
All fees are quoted in pounds sterling and exclude VAT. If you're in the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, you'll be quoted in your own currency, converted at the prevailing exchange rate on the date of invoice.
Step one · no obligation
Free audit & strategy call
A 30-minute conversation about your account. We'll cover what's working, what isn't, and the strongest opportunities I can see. If senior 1‑2‑1 operation is the right answer for your business, we'll talk about working together. If it isn't, I'll tell you that directly. No pressure, no sales theatre.
Retainer · monthly
From £2,000–£3,000 per month + VAT
Priced based on account complexity and ad spend volume. Up to £15K monthly ad spend: from £2,000. £15K–£50K spend: from £3,000. Larger accounts negotiated. All fees exclude VAT. No activation fee. Three-month initial commitment, then quarterly terms reviewed against the numbers.
Design & build · separate service
£6,997 + VAT · custom theme design
A separate engagement. Custom theme design from £6,997 + VAT; fully bespoke design and development from £15,000 + VAT. Where a project lands above that depends on template count, integrations and whether you're moving to Plus — you get the exact figure, the scope and the date in writing before anything starts. See design & build →
K. Atkinson — Founder & senior operatorKA Consultancy · UK · multi-award winning
20+Years experience
MultiAward winning
4Active markets
3-5yrAvg client tenure
About
Twenty years of performance marketing. This is how I prefer to work.
KA Consultancy was built for businesses that no longer want their growth handled through layers of low-level account managers, fragmented specialists, and slow-moving agency process. I work directly with serious Shopify brand owners who want experienced CEO-level judgement, hands-on execution, and faster, more commercially sound decision-making.
With over twenty years in digital marketing — agency-side, client-side, and as an independent — I've watched the agency model evolve into something that mostly doesn't serve brand owners well. The senior practitioner who sold the engagement is rarely the one doing the work. Reporting has become theatre. Most accounts are managed against platform-attribution numbers that bear little resemblance to actual profit.
My role is not to add more noise. It's to identify what matters, fix what's holding growth back, and help move the business forward with greater clarity and control. The work itself is focused: Google and Meta paid acquisition, measured on blended ROAS — the only number that ties to the P&L.
Current active engagements include Green Flag (UK Direct Line Group) and a small roster of established Shopify brands across the UK, US, Canada and Australia. The roster is deliberately small. The roster is small by design — typically 8–12 active engagements at any time. Quality of attention is the product.
— K. AtkinsonFounder, KA Consultancy · UK
[ 09 — Frequently asked ]
Common questions.
Direct answers to the questions serious Shopify brand owners ask before requesting an introduction.
No. There's no activation fee, no setup fee, no onboarding charge. The monthly retainer starts day one and covers everything from the outset — including the full account audit, tracking and attribution setup, account structure work, and strategic planning in month one. You're paying for senior judgement applied to your account, not for the privilege of starting. Three-month initial commitment, then quarterly terms.
Google Ads management (Shopping, Performance Max, Search, Display), Meta Ads management (Facebook and Instagram), conversion tracking setup and audit, weekly blended ROAS reporting, monthly strategy review, creative direction and briefing, ad-hoc campaign launches for product drops and sales, and direct senior access via Slack, WhatsApp, and phone. One retainer, everything included, no tier hierarchy or upgrade ladder.
Three-month initial commitment because no honest paid acquisition operator can prove value in 30 days — creative needs to be tested, audiences refined, the platform learning phase needs to settle. After that we move to quarterly terms, each one reviewed against the numbers before it renews. I ask for the commitment because short contracts push agencies to chase quick wins that don't hold — and I'd rather be judged on a quarter than on a fortnight.
Most agencies report platform ROAS — what Meta and Google each claim to have driven. Those numbers are inflated by overlapping attribution, and they don't tie to actual P&L. I report blended ROAS — total revenue divided by total ad spend — which is the only number that connects to your bank account. The reporting is weekly, honest, and includes the gap between platform attribution and actual profit so you can see exactly where the difference lives.
Yes. I currently work with brands across the UK, US, Canada and Australia. Time-zone overlap is managed through async-first communication for non-urgent matters and scheduled calls for strategic work. UK working hours apply for synchronous availability. Most international clients operate effectively on this model — async reporting and scheduled strategy sessions, with same-day response on critical performance issues.
I handle creative direction — briefing, testing roadmap, performance feedback — but not creative production itself. Most established Shopify brands either have in-house creative or freelancers they work with. I direct their work toward what's actually performing. If you don't have any creative resource at all, I can recommend producers and oversee them, but the creative production cost stays separate from the retainer.
Established Shopify brands at £500K–£5M annual revenue, with £5K+ monthly paid media spend. The £500K floor exists because smaller accounts don't have enough budget for the paid channels to meaningfully move the business. The £5M ceiling isn't fixed — I work with Green Flag at a much larger scale — but most clients sit in the £500K–£5M range where senior, direct operation makes the biggest difference.
The three-month initial commitment exists specifically to answer this question. If the account hasn't moved meaningfully by month three — measured by genuine blended performance, not vanity metrics — the engagement doesn't continue. The activation work I've done remains yours: tracking, account structure, audit findings, strategic documentation. No further commitment from either side. I'd rather end a partnership cleanly at month three than drag both sides through twelve months of underperformance.
Capacity is limited but available. New engagements typically start within 2–4 weeks of the initial strategy call, depending on activation complexity and timing. The roster runs at 8–12 active engagements maximum — small enough that every account gets senior attention, not so small that I'm unreachable. If the current quarter is at capacity, there's a short waiting list. Book a strategy call to discuss your timing.
Need the store built, not just grown?
The other half of the practice is bespoke Shopify and Shopify Plus design and development — rebuilds, redesigns, integrations and technical work. Separate engagement, separate fee — same person.
Currently accepting new Shopify client engagements.
Book a 30-minute strategy call. Tell me your store URL, your current monthly ad spend, what's working, and what isn't. We'll cover the strongest opportunities I can see in your account and whether senior 1-2-1 operation is the right answer for your business. No fee, no obligation.
