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SERVICE 05 · STRATEGY

The plan before the spend.

Quarterly PPC strategy sprints for in-house teams and founders. Channel mix, budget allocation, measurement architecture, creative pipeline — the upstream decisions that decide whether the campaigns work. Embedded at director / CMO level, not in the day-to-day.

// Engagement Quarterly sprint
// Best for In-house teams · founders · CMOs
// Deliverables 90-day plan + measurement model
// You provide Stakeholder access + numbers

You can't optimise your way out of the wrong plan.

Most teams ship 80% of their effort at the operational layer — keywords, bids, creative tests — and 20% at the strategic layer. The math is backwards. The strategic decisions decide whether the operations matter at all.

Which channels deserve which share? What does “win” look like on each? What's the measurement model? Where does creative come from? What's the next 90 days going to feel like for the team, the CFO and the board?

This sprint answers those questions on paper, before another pound is spent. Embedded with your team for three weeks, presenting to the people who actually approve budget.

01 — What's included

The full measurement stack, end to end.

[ build + handover ]
// 01

Channel mix

Which channels, in what proportion, against which audiences. Backed by your funnel math, not last-touch attribution or pure vibes.

// 02

Budget allocation

90-day spend plan with month-by-month phasing, contingency, and named triggers for re-allocation. Defended in front of finance.

// 03

Measurement model

What gets counted as success, by channel and by stage. Northstar metrics, guardrail metrics, the line item the CFO actually cares about.

// 04

Creative pipeline

How many assets, what cadence, who briefs, who produces, who QAs. The single biggest reason most quarters underperform isn't bidding — it's a starved creative pipeline.

// 05

Team & org

What's in-house vs agency vs freelance. Where to hire, where to outsource, where to automate. The capability gaps that need filling before scale.

// 06

Roadmap & readouts

A 90-day calendar with milestones, decision gates and review cadence. Plus the deck that gets the plan signed off by leadership.

01b — The output

A signed-off 90-day plan.

[ excerpt · anonymised ]
// q3-2026-roadmap.svg Approved by CMO + CFO
// WORKSTREAM JUL AUG SEP REVIEW Channel mix shift LinkedIn ↑ · Bing ↓ REALLOCATE £12k/MO Tracking rebuild server-side GTM + CAPI BUILD · 4 WEEKS Creative pipeline 14-day refresh cadence ONGOING · 8 ASSETS / FORTNIGHT ICP refresh sales-led workshops 2 WEEKS New offer test audit-led lead magnet SCOPE · BUILD · LAUNCH Checkpoint half-day review DAY 45 DAY 90 growth bet foundation milestone
// Workstreams5 active · 1 review
// Budget reallocated£12k/mo
// Sign-offCMO + CFO + Sales
02 — Process

Four weeks. Predictable.

[ fixed scope ]
// 01 Week 1

Diagnose

Stakeholder interviews — CMO, sales, finance, current PPC team. Account data review. The unspoken constraints get surfaced early.

// 02 Week 2

Draft & pressure-test

Channel mix, budget, measurement model drafted. Pressure-tested against 2 stretch scenarios and 1 worst-case. Numbers double-checked against the Forecaster.

// 03 Week 3

Present & defend

Readout to leadership, board-grade deck, Q&A. Roadmap edited live based on the conversation, signed off before I leave.

// 04 Day 45

Mid-quarter check-in

Half-day session to QA execution against the plan, flag drift, adjust. Included in every sprint engagement.

// Format 3 wk Embedded sprint, board-ready output, signed-off plan. Re-run quarterly if it works.
// Stakeholders interviewed 8–12 Finance, sales, product, the agency, the contractor, whoever else owns a piece of the funnel.
// Deliverable length ~40 p Strategy deck plus a working budget model your finance team can drop into their planning sheet.
03 — Questions

What you're actually wondering.

[ click to expand ]
/ 01 Do you execute the strategy too? +
The sprint is the plan. Execution is your in-house team's job — or, if needed, scoped as a separate engagement (Lead Gen Campaigns, E-com Campaigns, Fractional PPC Lead). Keeps the incentives clean.
/ 02 Will my agency hate this? +
The good ones welcome it — a clear quarterly plan makes their job easier and gets their work credited properly. The ones who push back are usually relying on ambiguity to keep the retainer alive.
/ 03 What size company is this for? +
Best fit: £30k–£500k/month ad spend, in-house team of 1–6 people. Smaller, you don't need formal quarterly strategy. Larger, you usually need a Fractional PPC Lead engagement instead.
/ 04 How is this different from a PPC audit? +
An audit looks backwards at what's broken in the account. A strategy sprint looks forwards at where the next 90 days of budget should go. Best done in that order — audit first, then strategy.
/ 05 Can we re-run it every quarter? +
Yes — a rolling quarterly engagement is the most common shape after the first one. Discount for repeat sprints (£6,000/quarter) since the diagnostic load drops sharply once we know your business.

Plan the quarter,
not the campaign.

Book a discovery call Start with an audit → All services
04 — Related

Pairs well with.

[ other services ]
© 2026 Ankit Saxena
PPC strategy · Quarterly sprint
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