Digital Marketing FAQs: Straight Answers From a San Diego Agency

Formula was founded by Sara Spark and is a woman-owned agency. Sara still sets the standard for the work and stays close to client strategy. You can read more on our About page and meet the rest of the people who would work on your account on the team page.

Mostly established small and mid-sized businesses that already have a product people want and need more of the right customers. Our deepest experience is in hospitality (hotels, restaurants, venues, destinations), plus law firms and professional services, B2B technology and construction. Our case studies show the work by industry.

No. Most clients are in San Diego County, from Oceanside to Chula Vista, and in southwest Riverside County, but we run campaigns across Southern California and nationally. Local search work is San Diego-specific; strategy, content, ads and web work are not tied to geography. See the neighborhoods and cities we cover on our service areas page.

Three things. We connect channels into one integrated plan so SEO, ads, social and email share the same data and message. We are honest about what will not work for you, even when it costs us a project. And you work with senior people, not a rotating junior account team. Our results page shows how we report.

A free, no-obligation conversation about your goals, what you have tried, your budget and your timeline. We will usually tell you on the call which one or two channels we would start with and why. Book a call or send a note through the contact page.

Yes, and it is the person who pitched the work. We are deliberately small, so the strategist who audits your marketing is the same one who presents your monthly report and answers when you call. There is no account-coordinator layer between you and the people doing the work.

Yes, and many of our clients have one. We typically take on the specialist work an internal team cannot staff economically, such as technical SEO, paid media management or production, and plug into your existing tools and approval process. See how that fits on our work with us page.

Most custom WordPress website builds land between $8,000 and $30,000. A focused site for a single-location business sits at the low end; multi-location, ecommerce or booking-driven sites sit at the high end. We quote a fixed price after discovery so there are no surprise change orders.

No. Retainers are rolling monthly agreements with 30 days' notice. Some channels, SEO especially, need several months to show their full effect, and we will tell you honestly when it is too early to judge. But we would rather earn the renewal than lock you in.

For ongoing marketing, most engagements start around $1,500 to $2,500 a month depending on the channel. For paid ads, we recommend at least $2,500 to $5,000 a month in media spend for most local businesses; below that the data comes in too slowly to optimise. If your budget is smaller, we will tell you which single channel will do the most with it.

Paid ads produce data within two weeks and a reliable read in six to eight. Local listing and technical fixes can move in two to eight weeks. SEO and content usually show meaningful movement between months four and six and compound from there. Anyone promising page one in 30 days is picking a keyword nobody searches.

You get a monthly report that ties activity to business outcomes: leads, calls, bookings and revenue where we can track it, alongside rankings, traffic and ad performance. We connect Google Analytics, Search Console, your ad accounts and your forms so the numbers reconcile. You can see the kind of results we report on our results page.

You do. Your website, domain and hosting are in your name and we hand over every credential at launch. Ad campaigns run inside your own Google and Meta accounts, and you own the creative and footage we produce. If we part ways, you keep everything.

Local SEO is how you show up for searches with local intent, such as 'near me' searches and the Google Maps pack. If customers come to you or you serve a defined area, it is usually the highest-return part of SEO: Google Business Profile, reviews, local citations and location pages. Our service area pages are an example of the approach.

Generative engine optimization makes your business easier for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews to find, understand and recommend. It relies on clean schema, a consistent business entity across the web, and content that answers questions directly. Learn more on our AI search optimization page.

Yes, but the target has moved. AI tools pull their answers from pages that already rank and are well structured, so classic SEO is the foundation for AI visibility. What has changed is that ranking alone is not enough; your content has to be quotable, and your business has to be clearly described across the web. We now plan both together.

No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody controls Google's rankings. What we can commit to is a clear plan, the work being done well and on schedule, and transparent reporting on rankings, traffic and leads so you can judge the return yourself.

Yes. Our content marketing team plans articles around the searches your customers actually make, writes them in your voice, and optimises them for both Google and AI answers. Every piece is linked into your service pages so it passes authority to the pages that convert. See our own blog for examples.

It can if the migration is handled carelessly: lost URLs, missing redirects and stripped content are the usual causes. When we rebuild a site we map every old URL to its new home with 301 redirects, carry over page titles and structured data, and monitor Search Console after launch to catch problems early.

Yes, including sites another agency built. Common fixes include slow page speed, crawl and indexing errors, duplicate pages competing for the same keyword, missing schema and broken internal links. On WordPress, our WordPress development team handles the code-level fixes directly.

We look at search volume, how hard each keyword is to rank for, and above all intent: whether the person searching is likely to become a customer. We would rather rank you for a 200-search keyword that converts than a 5,000-search keyword that never sends a lead. We also check which keywords you already rank for on page two, which are usually the fastest wins.

Google Ads captures people already searching for what you sell, so it usually converts faster for service businesses. Meta and TikTok create demand among people who were not looking yet, which suits restaurants, hospitality, events and visual products. Many businesses need both. We will recommend a split on the first call; see paid ads for how we structure it.

Yes. Our social media management covers strategy, content calendars, photography and short-form video, posting, community management and reporting. Content production is the part that moves results, so most plans include regular shoot days rather than stock images.

The ones your customers actually use, done well, rather than all of them done badly. Restaurants and hospitality brands usually focus on Instagram and TikTok; B2B and professional services on LinkedIn; home services on Facebook and Nextdoor. Our social media team will tell you where to focus first.

Yes. We source and vet creators, negotiate usage rights up front, manage briefs and deliverables, and report on results. Local nano-creators often work for a comped experience, while mid-tier creators typically charge $300 to $2,500 per deliverable. See influencer and UGC marketing.

Klaviyo, Mailchimp, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign and similar platforms, usually inside your existing account. We are not a reseller for any of them, and platform fees are billed to you directly with no markup. Our email marketing service covers strategy, design, copy, list growth and deliverability.

Automatically sending the right message at the right time: welcome sequences, abandoned-booking reminders, lead follow-up, review requests and routing new leads to the right person. It connects your website, CRM and email so leads stop falling through the cracks. See marketing automation for examples.

Usually a missing or broken authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), sending to old or purchased lists, or a sudden spike in volume. Gmail and Yahoo tightened their sender rules in 2024, and many small businesses were caught out. Our email marketing team can audit and fix deliverability.

Yes. Our in-house team writes the copy and produces static, carousel and short-form video creative, so we can test new ads quickly instead of waiting on an outside designer. For bigger productions we bring in our video production crew.

Eight to fourteen weeks for most projects: two to three weeks of discovery and structure, three to four of design, four to six of build, and about one of launch prep. The biggest cause of delay is waiting on content and photography, so we offer both. See the full process on web design and development.

Yes. Every build includes clean heading structure, schema markup, fast page speed, mobile-first layouts, redirects from any old URLs, and Google Analytics and Search Console set up at launch. Ongoing ranking work is a separate SEO engagement, but you start from a solid technical foundation.

Yes. We design mobile-first, because most local traffic now arrives on a phone, and check tap targets, forms, text size and page speed at phone and tablet sizes before launch, not just on a desktop screen.

Often, yes. If the platform is sound and the problem is design, speed or conversion, a redesign on the existing build can be faster and cheaper. If the site is on a closed builder or the code is holding it back, we will say so. We also take over and improve sites built by other agencies.

Yes. Our care plans cover WordPress core and plugin updates, daily backups, security monitoring, uptime checks and a monthly block of edit time. Hosting can run on our managed servers or your own account, and either way you keep the keys. Ask about it when you request a proposal.

WCAG 2.1 AA is the standard most accessibility complaints are measured against: readable colour contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text, labelled forms and a clear heading order. No website can be certified 'ADA compliant', but designing to WCAG reduces legal risk and improves usability for everyone. We can audit and fix an existing site too; see web development.

Yes. We regularly integrate booking engines, reservation systems, WooCommerce and Shopify, and CRMs like HubSpot, with lead routing handled by marketing automation. Custom plugin and integration work typically lands between $4,000 and $20,000 depending on complexity.

Four to six weeks for strategy and messaging, and eight to sixteen for a full identity; longer if naming and trademark clearance are involved. The biggest variable is usually how quickly decisions can be made on your side. More on branding.

Yes. We plan, shoot and edit brand films, social video, testimonial and product content, plus food, hospitality and product photography. A single-day shoot producing a hero film and a short-form set typically runs $6,000 to $18,000. See video production.

Yes. Our PR team handles media relations, story development, press releases, launches and crisis support, with a specialist hospitality PR practice. Formula was named one of the best PR agencies in San Diego by the San Diego Business Journal in 2026.

Yes. Event marketing covers pre-launch buzz, press, creator seeding, paid promotion and ticketing. For openings, start six to eight weeks ahead; press and creator outreach need that runway, and coming to us the week of opening costs more and works less well.

Yes: menus, brochures, signage, packaging, direct mail and trade-show materials. Design typically runs $500 to $3,500 per item, with production quoted separately and passed through without a hidden margin. See print and collateral.

Running every channel from one plan and one message, so your ads, social, email, PR and website reinforce each other instead of competing for budget. It is how we prefer to work. Learn more about integrated marketing campaigns.

You do. Final deliverables are yours outright. Raw footage is available on request, and licensed music or talent comes with its own usage terms, which we spell out before the shoot rather than after. Details on video production.

By defending your brand search terms, fixing rate parity, managing metasearch and improving the booking path on your own site, then building email and loyalty so guests book direct next time. Our hotel engagements typically run $4,000 to $12,000 a month plus media. See hotel marketing consulting.

Google Business Profile and local SEO, social content and short-form video, creator partnerships, email and SMS, PR and events, and your own online ordering and reservations so you depend less on third-party apps. Engagements usually run $2,500 to $8,000 a month plus media. See restaurant marketing consulting.

Yes. We run hospitality group marketing with a shared strategy and reporting across venues while keeping each concept's own identity. Per venue, it usually costs well below what the venues were paying separately.

Yes. Our destination marketing work understands public or partner funding, board approval cycles and stakeholder reporting, and builds campaigns and reports that hold up in a public meeting.

Yes. Legal is one of the most competitive categories in search, with some of the highest ad costs. We combine local SEO, practice-area content, Google Ads and intake tracking so you can see cost per signed case, not just cost per click. See law firm marketing.

Yes, including managed IT providers and B2B software. We focus on pipeline rather than vanity metrics: account-based content, LinkedIn, search and marketing automation tied into your CRM. See B2B technology marketing.

Yes. Construction is under-marketed online, which makes it an opportunity: many firms have no SEO strategy and sites that do not work on mobile. We build project portfolios, local SEO and lead generation for commercial and residential builders. See construction marketing.