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Talk to meFreelance online marketing · Remote · DACH · UK · USA
I'm Stefan Goertz. For more than twenty years I have worked in online marketing – websites and WordPress, SEO, Google Ads, conversion optimisation. For companies whose marketing department is half a position. Or nobody at all.
One person to talk to instead of an apparatus: whoever speaks to you does the work. No retainer for meetings you are not in.
Focus areas: SEO, Google Ads, WordPress, website relaunch, conversion optimisation, GA4 and tracking, AI visibility, AI consulting and training, social media, local SEO.
01 Track record
Manufacturing, healthcare, retail, public sector, professional services. Family businesses with eight people and subsidiaries of listed groups. The problems rhyme more often than the industries suggest.
A selection from more than twenty years. Some of these were freelance engagements, some ran through SAGS Online, the advertising agency I own. Brands are the property of their respective companies; listed as evidence of experience, not as an endorsement. Happy to talk through individual projects on a call.
02 Starting point
Four sentences I hear almost verbatim in first calls. If one of them fits, you are in the right place.
Marketing gets done on the side by an assistant, by the owner in the evening, or by the intern because they are young. Nothing that happens between other things turns into a strategy.
I take on the part you have no headcount for.
Four contacts, an account manager, rounds of alignment. For a large programme that is exactly right – for your three open items a month it is overhead.
Here you talk to the person doing the work.
It is new, it looks good, it cost money. It just doesn't get found – and the people who do find it don't get in touch.
Measure first, then touch. In that order.
Thousands went into the account over the years and nothing happened. The conclusion is obvious – it is rarely correct. Usually it is the account structure, the tracking, or the page the ad lands on.
Read the account before judging it.
I am not a substitute for a large agency.
I am the reason you may not need one.
03 Services
Eight areas. You rarely need all eight at once – but they feed into each other, which is exactly why it helps to have them in one pair of hands.
A new site or a relaunch on WordPress – built so your team can maintain it afterwards. Plus ongoing care: updates, backups, security, load times.
Getting found for what you actually sell – not for what sounds good in a deck. Technical foundation first, then content, then the rest.
Building accounts, cleaning up neglected ones, keeping an eye on running ones. Over the years I have been responsible for well over 20 million euros in media budget.
The cheapest traffic is the traffic you already have. Before buying more visitors, it is worth understanding why the current ones leave.
Without clean numbers every decision is gut feeling with an invoice attached. Tracking set up so it is accurate – and so it holds up legally.
A growing share of your customers no longer asks Google, they ask an AI. If you don't appear there, you don't exist for those people.
The uncomfortable question first: what in your business can sensibly be solved with AI – and what merely moves work around instead of saving it? I look at the workflows, tell you honestly where the effort pays off, and then train the people who will use it.
Not the channel that multiplies your revenue overnight. That works for very few products and services, and anyone promising it is selling you hope. What social media can do: hold a channel properly, look credible, and make you findable when someone goes looking for you. Whether more is worth it, I'll tell you up front – not after a year of budget.
04 Process
Thirty minutes, free, no deck. You talk, I ask. By the end you know whether this is worth doing – including when the answer is no.
Website, rankings, ad account, numbers. I look at what exists, what works, and what has been quietly costing money for years without doing anything.
Not a forty-page strategy. A list: what comes first, what follows, what can safely wait – with effort and expected impact next to each item.
I work through the list and come back monthly with numbers you can read without a marketing degree.
05 Working together
Monthly terms, no annual contract. What actually makes sense is something we settle on the first call – usually it is less than you expect.
For teams doing the work
You have someone in house who is missing experience, perspective or backing. I'm the one who reviews it.
Most chosen
For companies without a marketing team
A fixed monthly capacity that I work through. You say where it should go – or I propose it.
For the whole channel
I am your marketing department: strategy, execution, numbers – and the point of contact for everyone else trying to sell you something.
None of these fit? One-off projects work too – a relaunch, an ads audit, an SEO review.
06 About me
I have been doing online marketing since the days when meta keywords were taken seriously. More than twenty years, over ten of them focused on search and paid media – for trade businesses and for subsidiaries of listed groups alike.
What I learned along the way: most companies don't need a big campaign. They need someone who gets the fundamentals right, stays with it, and says plainly when an idea isn't worth the money.
I own an advertising agency, SAGS Online, and I have also worked freelance for many years – for companies that specifically don't need a team, a project manager in between, or a structure to co-finance. You decide which of the two fits you.
07 Common questions
That depends on what you need, and I would rather tell you honestly after a first call than put a flat number on a website. As a reference point: you will normally land well below the cost of an in-house marketing hire, and below what an agency charges for the same scope.
Because not every piece of work needs a team. SAGS Online is the right address when concept, design, development and campaign have to come together. If instead you need someone to look after three ongoing items, a team is too slow and too expensive for that. Then I work with you directly. Which one makes more sense, I'll tell you on the first call – even when it argues against me.
Google Ads produce numbers within days. SEO takes three to six months before anything reliable appears – anyone promising fast results there is selling you something else.
Yes, often. Sometimes my role is to evaluate and steer the agency's work from the client side. That is entirely fine and usually more comfortable for everyone involved.
Often not. A relaunch is the most expensive measure available and rarely the most effective. First I look at what the existing site can do. If a rebuild is necessary, I'll justify it with numbers.
Almost entirely by video call and email, in German or English. I am based in Germany (Central European Time) and have been working with clients in the UK and the US for years, so overlapping hours are a routine matter rather than an obstacle.
Then we stop. Monthly terms, no minimum duration, no notice periods you need a magnifying glass to find. All accounts and data are yours anyway.
First call
Free, no obligation, no sales pitch. You describe the situation, I tell you what I would do first in your position – including when that means you don't need me for it.
A phone call is the fastest route. If I don't pick up, leave a message and I will call you back – German or English.