SelfMade × Gutter Goat — Growth Operator Proposal

We hear you

You've been screwed over. We get it.

In our intro call, you told us you've been through it with digital marketers. Locked into contracts. Promised leads that never showed. No transparency on what was actually working. By the time you wanted out, you'd lost months and real money.

Our position

We don't ask you to sign a contract. We ask you to trust the work for 30 days, see the dashboard, see the leads, and decide month by month if we're earning the fee.

If we're not, you walk. No clawbacks, no penalty, no awkward email chain. That's the only fair way to start a relationship with someone who's been burned.

For context: across the brands we work with, our average is a 46% drop in what it costs to get a new customer, and a 152% lift in revenue earned per ad dollar spent, within the first 90 days. We don't expect you to take that on faith. We expect you to watch it happen in your dashboard, month by month.

Who we work with

The same engine that runs national brands, applied to your business.

You won't recognize all these names, and that's fine. The point is that the systems behind your ads, the tracking, the creative pipeline, the dashboard reporting, are the same ones we run for brands spending six and seven figures a month on Meta. You're getting that infrastructure pointed at gutters.

Closest analog in our book

Ravek. Brother-owned, hands-on. From $0 to $1M in year one.

Ravek makes UTV upgrades, lighting kits, storage systems, comfort upgrades that customers install on their own machines. Brothers run it, just like you. When they came to us, they had a great product, loyal riders, and no real paid ads program.

We mapped their funnel, set up tracking from scratch, and built a creative engine around the two things that actually moved the needle: founder videos and real installation videos. Not stock product shots, not lifestyle slop, just the brothers explaining what they made and footage of the parts going on actual UTVs in the dirt.

That creative carried the account. We took them from $0 to $1M in their first year on direct-to-consumer paid ads. This year, they're growing at an average of 700% year over year.

That's the closest thing in our book to what we'd do for Gutter Goat. Founder videos. Install videos. Real footage of real work. Different product, same playbook.

A few of the ads we've shipped recently, including two from Ravek:

Ravek

Go Brewing

Easy Man

Berkeley Life

Delta

And the broader book:

Ravek Delta Magic Cactus Easy Man Go Brewing Berkeley Life

Yours won't look like Go Brewing or Berkeley Life. They'll look like Gutter Goat. Real photos of your trucks, your crews, your install jobs, your customers. Same playbook, different visual language.

The strategy

Most agencies sell you ads. We're selling you a system.

A digital marketer makes ads. A growth operator looks at your whole business and asks where the leak is, then plugs it.

What you've had

Digital marketer

Runs ads. Reports clicks and impressions. Doesn't know what your average job is worth, or which service makes you the most money. Hands you a contract and a monthly retainer.

What we do

Growth operator

Maps your sales funnel first. Tests which service pulls the most qualified inquiries. Tracks cost per inquiry by service, not just total leads. Reports on revenue per ad dollar, not clicks and impressions. Month-to-month, not locked in.

We start with the tracking, then build the ads on top of it.

The approach

Mapping the full sales funnel.

Before we run a single ad, we map every step a customer takes from "saw the ad" to "wrote the check." Then we put a number on each step. That's the only way to know what's actually broken.

Ad impression → click

Someone sees your ad in their feed. Do they stop scrolling? Do they tap?

What we measure Click-through rate, cost per click, hook rate (how many people watch the first 3 seconds). Tells us if the creative is working.

Click → landing page

They land on your site. Is the page about gutters? Or is it the homepage with eight things on it?

What we measure Landing page conversion rate. Tells us if the page is doing its job.

Landing page → form / call

They request a quote, fill the form, or hit the call button. This is the inquiry.

What we measure Cost per inquiry, broken out by service (cleaning vs install vs guards). Quality flag, not just count.

Inquiry → booked estimate

You or your team reach out. They either book an estimate or they don't.

What we measure Inquiry-to-estimate conversion rate. Tells us if the lead quality is real or if intake is leaking.

Estimate → closed job

You quote the work. They sign or they ghost.

What we measure Close rate by service, average ticket. Tells us which services to push harder in ads.

Closed job → revenue per ad dollar

Total revenue divided by total ad spend. The only number that actually matters.

What we measure If we put $1 into ads, how many dollars came back as actual revenue? This is what gets reported monthly. Industry calls it MER (marketing efficiency ratio); we just call it the only number that matters.

You don't have a pixel on your website. That means before we even start, the first job is laying the tracking foundation: Meta pixel, Google tag, call tracking, form tracking. So every dollar from here on out is a learning, not a guess.

Channel mix

Meta for volume. Google for intent. Both for the math to work.

Most agencies pick one and call it a strategy. Local home services needs both, because they catch different customers at different moments.

Meta · Facebook + Instagram

The volume play.

What it does: reaches homeowners while they're scrolling through their feed and not actively shopping for gutters. Plants the brand. Builds awareness. Catches the customer six months before they actually search.

Why it matters for you: homeowners don't think about gutters until they have to. Meta is how we get Gutter Goat top-of-mind before the leak shows up, so when it does, you're the first call.

Google · Search + Performance Max

The intent play.

What it does: shows up the moment someone types "gutter installation Charlotte" or "gutter cleaning near me." These are people ready to call this week, not next quarter.

Why it matters for you: high-intent searches close fast. Google fills the bottom of the funnel with people who've already decided they need gutters. Lower volume than Meta, but higher conversion rate.

Most of your spend will go to Meta because that's where the volume lives. But the Google budget is what makes the math work in the first 30 days. Search captures customers who are already shopping, and that gives us early wins to prove the funnel is working while Meta builds momentum.

Service-level testing

Different gutter jobs aren't the same business.

A $300 cleaning isn't the same lead as a $4,000 install. Most agencies treat them like one thing. We test creative and audiences against each of your three core service lines separately, and find out where the cost per quality inquiry is lowest.

Service 01

Gutter replacements

High ticket, longer sales cycle, homeowner in research mode. Different creative, different landing page.

Service 02

Gutter guards

Often an upgrade or add-on. A "we've been meaning to" purchase. Different angle, different proof points.

Service 03

Cleanings & repairs

Seasonal, lower ticket, higher volume. Different creative cadence, geo-tuned to fall and spring.

After 30 days we'll know which of your three services has the lowest cost per qualified inquiry, the highest close rate, and the best return per dollar spent. That's the one we lean into. The others get scaled back or rebuilt.

Competitor scan

Who you're up against in the Charlotte metro.

We pulled the local landscape so the strategy isn't built in a vacuum. Here's what each of the names you mentioned is actually doing, and where the open lanes are.

Brothers That Just Do Gutters National franchise · South Charlotte location

National brand, big SEO footprint, polished site, recognizable name in home services. Likely running paid Google + heavy Thumbtack / lead-gen platform spend.

Franchise-feel, not local-feel. Generic creative, no founder story, no Lake Norman specificity. A genuinely local-voiced ad cuts straight through them in this market.

Concord Gutter Service Local · strong reviews

Strong word-of-mouth and Google reviews, full service offering (replacement, repair, cleaning, guards). Content is review-driven and referral-driven, not paid-driven.

Almost no paid social presence. No pixel, minimal retargeting, no creative volume. They are winning on reputation alone, which means a smarter paid strategy can grab share without going head-to-head on reviews.

GutterPro Multi-location, "service area" pages

SEO-heavy strategy. A landing page per city ("Gutter Services in Huntersville, NC"). Generic content, contact-form-first.

Very generic copy and visuals. No personality, no local proof. Their funnel relies entirely on someone Googling "gutters near me". Which means they're invisible to demand-gen on Meta.

Gutter Goat (you) Local · strong reviews · clear brand

Memorable name. Real Google reviews from local customers (Tonya and Mike named in reviews). Charlotte metro + Tri-Cities footprint. A brand with personality in a category full of generic logos.

No pixel, no tracking, no creative pipeline, no paid social presence to speak of. The brand is the asset. It's just been left on the shelf. Our job is to put it to work.

The opening: none of your direct competitors are running a real paid play with a tracked funnel. The local market is being won on Google reviews and word of mouth alone. We capture both lanes: Meta for the homeowner scrolling Facebook while thinking about projects (awareness and demand-gen volume), and Google for the homeowner actively typing "gutter installation Charlotte" right now (high-intent capture).

The package

Built for a local business. Not a venture-backed DTC brand.

Our standard creative package is $4K/month at much higher volume, built for DTC brands burning through Meta budgets. You don't need that volume. You need quality, tested, locally-voiced creative on a steady bi-weekly drip. So we built this tier specifically for businesses like yours.

Creative

Local creative pipeline

$3,000 / mo

Bi-weekly delivery cadence

2 videos per delivery (4 / month). Founder-led talking-head and real install-on-the-roof footage, in the Ravek style
3 statics per delivery (6 / month). Tested across personas and angles
Service-line testing built in. Creative tagged by service type so we can see which lane wins
Real photos and footage from your trucks, crews, and jobsites. No stock, no agency slop
9x16 and 1x1 formats. Covers feed, Stories, Reels
1 dedicated landing page included. Service-specific, conversion-focused, built for the funnel

Media buying

Full-funnel ad management

$3,000 / mo

Flat fee up to $42K/mo ad spend · 7% above

Pixel install, conversion tracking, call tracking, form tracking. Month-one foundation work
Meta ads across feed, Stories, Reels for awareness and volume
Google ads (Search + Performance Max) to capture high-intent searches like "gutter installation Huntersville"
Service-by-service campaign structure (replacements, guards, cleanings & repairs as separate test cells)
Geo targeting tuned to Lake Norman, Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, Mooresville + Tri-Cities zones
Weekly optimization, monthly funnel review, revenue-per-ad-dollar reporting
Shared dashboard. You see what we see, in real time

All-in monthly

Flat. Performance fee only applies above $42K/mo ad spend.

$6,000 / mo

About that 7%

In plain English: you'll almost certainly never pay it.

Most agencies charge a percentage of ad spend from dollar one. So the more they get you to spend, the more they make, whether it's working or not. We don't think that's the right incentive.

Our base fee covers all media buying work up to $42,000 per month in combined Meta and Google ad spend. For context, that's a serious monthly budget for a local business. Most home services brands at your stage operate well below that ceiling. Above $42K, the workload genuinely scales (more campaigns, more audiences, more daily monitoring), and the 7% only applies to the portion above the threshold.

What that means for you: at the spend level we'd recommend starting at, your fee is exactly $6,000/month, flat. No surprise add-ons. If we ever get to a point where 7% would kick in, it's because the campaigns are working hard enough to justify scaling up, and we'd talk about it together before getting there.

Agreement, not contract

An agreement is a handshake on paper. A contract is a leash.

You told us you won't sign a contract, and we get why. So we don't ask for one. What you'll sign is an agreement, and the difference matters:

A contract locks you in for a fixed term (usually 6 or 12 months). If you want out before the term ends, you owe the remaining months. That's how the last guys held you hostage.

An agreement is a working document that lays out scope, deliverables, fees, and how either of us can end it. Ours is month-to-month with 30 days' notice on either side. If we're not earning the fee, you walk. No lock-in, no buyout, no penalty. We sign it because both of us need clarity on what's in scope, not because either of us is trying to trap the other.

If anything in our agreement feels like a contract in disguise, flag it and we'll rewrite it. The whole point of working with us is that you stay free to leave.

Kickoff

From signed to first ad live in 14 days.

Day 0

Agreement signed, access shared

Meta Business Manager access, website edit access, ability to install pixel and tags. Shared Slack channel spun up for day-to-day.

Day 1–5

Tracking foundation

Meta pixel installed and tested, Google tag installed, conversion events configured, call tracking number set up, form submissions wired to events. The thing nobody bothered to do for you before.

Day 5–10

Funnel + creative kickoff

Half-day on-site or remote shoot to capture founder content, work-in-progress footage, before/after material. Service-by-service messaging mapped. Landing pages reviewed (and rebuilt if needed, flagged separately).

Day 10–14

First creative delivered, ads go live

First video + statics in your Slack. Ads launched across the three service lines. Dashboard goes live for you and Mike to watch in real time.

Day 30

First funnel review

Sit-down (Zoom or in-person, your call) to walk through the dashboard. Cost per inquiry by service. Conversion at every step. What's working, what's getting cut, what we're testing next.

Who you're working with

You're hiring people, not a logo.

At the end of the day we are real people. Three of us, real names, you'll know who's doing what.

Will Sartorius

Founder & Head of SelfMade

Runs SelfMade and leads our AI-driven creative track. Won't be on every call, but sets the bar for how we use AI to scale creative, the persona work, and the iteration loops behind it.

Janet Hoang

Chief of Growth & Strategy · Lead

Your day-to-day point person. Owns strategy, creative direction, and the dashboard. We'll work together to map your sales funnel from the ground up: defining each step, putting the tracking in place, and adjusting the plan based on what we see.

Ines de Sequera

Operations & Project Lead

Keeps everything moving on time. Manages creative delivery, tracks the production pipeline, and is the one in your Slack channel making sure nothing slips.

A growth partner, not another digital marketer.