If your marketing team is not well-versed in online activity, you may benefit from hiring an internet marketing consultant to manage your business’s online presence.

An internet marketing consultant handles companies’ web presence and online advertising to increase traffic, gain followers and promote conversions.

They have specific goals and objectives to attain and work with the marketing team or manager to set those goals. They use several marketing tactics, such as PPC, email, and SEO, to optimise and evaluate the analytics.

Many consultants specialise in just one marketing discipline. Others are multi-skilled but work under specific umbrellas, such as growing your traffic or helping you scale your business.

A marketing consultant or internet marketing consultant is not an employee of the company. They are independent contractors or organisations the company hires to conduct the work in their own space unless other arrangements have been agreed upon.

What Is an Internet Marketing Consultant?

An internet marketing consultant is a strategic advisor specialising in helping businesses grow their online presence and generate measurable results through digital channels. Unlike traditional marketing generalists, these professionals focus exclusively on internet-based marketing tactics and possess deep expertise in the technical and analytical aspects of digital marketing.

Modern internet marketing consultants serve as strategic partners rather than mere service providers. They analyse your business objectives, identify online opportunities, and develop comprehensive strategies that align digital activities with your commercial goals. Their expertise spans multiple disciplines, from search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising to content marketing and email campaigns.

The role has evolved significantly over the past decade. Early internet marketing consultants often focused on single tactics like search engine optimisation or website development. Today’s consultants take a holistic approach, understanding how different digital channels work together to create a cohesive customer journey from awareness to conversion. A consultant should know your business inside out. They need to understand who buys your product and why fully.

Consultant vs Agency vs DIY: Making the Right Choice

Choosing the right approach for your internet marketing depends on your budget, internal capabilities, and specific business objectives.

When an Internet Marketing Consultant Is the Right Choice

• Personalised Attention and Flexibility: Independent consultants typically work with fewer clients than large agencies, allowing for more personalised service and deeper understanding of your business. They can adapt quickly to your industry or business model changes without navigating complex agency hierarchies or approval processes.

• Specialised Expertise: Many consultants develop deep expertise in specific areas or industries. A specialist consultant may provide more relevant insights than a generalist agency team if your business has unique challenges or operates in a niche market.

• Cost-Effective for Focused Projects: Consultants often provide better value for businesses with specific objectives or limited budgets. You pay for expertise without agency overhead costs like office rent, account management layers, or profit margins on subcontracted work.

• Direct Communication: Working with a consultant means communicating directly with the person doing the work. This eliminates the frustration of ideas getting lost in translation between account managers and implementation teams.

When a Full-Service Digital Agency Might Be Better

• Integrated Service Delivery: Companies requiring strategic guidance and hands-on implementation often benefit from full-service digital agencies. Rather than coordinating between a consultant and separate providers for web development, video production, and content creation, agencies can deliver integrated solutions under one roof.

• Technical Implementation Capabilities: Many internet marketing strategies require technical implementation beyond basic consultancy. This includes custom web development, video production, AI integration, and advanced SEO implementations. Agencies with in-house technical teams can execute recommendations immediately rather than requiring additional vendor relationships.

• Comprehensive Training and Support: Growing businesses often need team training alongside strategy development. Full-service agencies can provide digital training workshops, AI implementation support, and ongoing education that builds internal capabilities while delivering external results.

ProfileTree combines the personalised attention of consultancy with comprehensive implementation capabilities across web design, video production, AI solutions, and digital training, eliminating the coordination challenges that often arise when working with multiple vendors.

How Can an Internet Marketing Consultant Help Your Business?

An internet marketing consultant can work with other marketing consultants you may have on board to develop a comprehensive cross-strategy that will tie all your marketing elements together.

Internet marketing is strategic and more intensive than a standard marketing plan.

Internet marketing requires a lot of analytic and qualitative information, which means there are many numbers, statistics, and interpretations of data based on specific demographics and other markers.

Consultants are typically experts in one field. Here are some of the most common disciplines in which companies engage outside help to work:

SEO

An experienced SEO consultant can optimise your site and online campaigns to perform well in search engines. This detailed process takes time and is much more complicated than most people realise.

SEO ensures that people who will benefit from your products or services can find your business. This requires a unique blend of creativity, strategic thought, and technical knowledge.

This task consists of analysing the competition and identifying the keywords and phrases that will help your ranking. An effective SEO consultant then uses this information to decide how to maximise your search engine visibility.

The ranking is a huge part of SEO. If done correctly, you could have the potential to end up on the first page of the search results, which is what you want.

However, before this stage, an SEO consultant will help you determine the kinds of search engine users most likely to buy your products. This includes users who know they’ll benefit from a purchase and those who don’t.

PPC Advertising

Pay-per-click ads help draw visitors to your site. These ads are shown to individuals while they are on search engines. A fee is involved every time someone clicks on those ads. Utilising this feature helps you stay on budget.

Depending on a few factors, you could spend very little money and still have a good return on investment. PPC campaigns can be time-consuming.

The right PPC advertisement can draw immediate attention to the site. It is important to see those ads whenever someone searches.

Any good PPC strategy comes in two stages. First, it’s essential to experiment with your ad set-up and landing pages to find the most cost-effective approach. Then, you can scale your efforts and maximise your inbound traffic.

Social Media

An internet consultant should be well-versed in your industry’s popular social media platforms. This knowledge would benefit a few marketing consultants or a larger team.

Social media is time-consuming and needs much attention to get new followers.

Or, someone may have joined your Facebook following when someone they know tags them in a post from the company. The more you grow your social media, the more you can expect growth with your business.

The key is to be creative to grow your customer base and keep them loyal. Posting links, using contests, or introducing new promotions work well. You can also conduct a poll or ask real-time questions to keep them engaged.

Email Marketing

When executed correctly, email remains one of the highest-ROI marketing channels. Consultants understand list building, segmentation, automation workflows, and performance optimisation. They can design campaigns that nurture leads, retain customers, and drive repeat purchases.

Content Marketing

Content is king. Writing different posts and engagement pieces makes a world of difference. The internet marketing consultant can write a copy for every asset you have – including videos, emails, social media postings, and more.

Are you considering a whitepaper or e-book? You will be surprised at the number of people downloading an asset because of a strong CTA. Your marketing consultant should be able to start a blog and keep it full of engaging content.

Link Building

Good links are key to getting customers to visit your site to help your ranking. Linking through other sites that may have some authority based on keywords or phrases should have a buy-in.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case. With so many improvements to search engines, it is essential to have high-quality links to make a difference. Link building is real and takes time, resources and dedication to the cause.

The right links indicate to the search engines that you can be trusted as an industry resource.

There are consultants out there who specialise in getting relevant, high-authority links for your site. These people tend to have keen content marketing skills and an extensive network of contacts to secure guest posts.

ROI and Business Impact: What to Expect

Understanding the financial returns and business transformation from professional internet marketing expertise helps set realistic expectations.

Understanding Return on Investment in Internet Marketing

Internet marketing ROI calculation extends beyond simple revenue attribution. Effective consultants help businesses understand multiple value sources: direct sales, lead generation, brand awareness, customer retention, and competitive positioning. The most successful partnerships focus on metrics directly correlating with business growth rather than vanity metrics like social media followers or website traffic alone.

• Direct Revenue Impact: Well-executed internet marketing strategies typically generate £3-5 in revenue for every £1 invested, though results vary significantly based on industry, competition, and execution quality. E-commerce businesses often see more immediate, trackable results, while B2B companies may experience longer sales cycles but higher transaction values.

• Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition: Consultants focus on generating qualified leads rather than direct sales for service-based businesses. Successful campaigns typically reduce customer acquisition costs while improving lead quality. Many UK businesses see 20-40% improvements in lead quality when moving from scattered digital tactics to strategic approaches.

• Long-term Value Creation: Strategic internet marketing builds valuable business assets like search engine rankings, email lists, and content libraries that generate value long after initial creation. These assets often appreciate over time, making early investments increasingly valuable.

When NOT to Hire an Internet Marketing Consultant

Of course, there are no silver bullets in business. Many business owners assume that bringing in a consultant will solve all their marketing woes. The truth is that consulting is a collaborative process.

This means that the better your marketing is, to begin with, the more value you’re likely to see by hiring a consultant. Once you’ve gained some knowledge, you’ll also have an easier time shaping the outcomes of your marketing plan.

You can do a lot on your own before spending money for a consultant to set up the basics. At a minimum, you should consider the following before engaging with a consultant:

• Making your website search engine friendly, for example, is one of the stepping stones of online marketing. Many free SEO tools and digital marketing tools are available online to help you familiarise yourself with the concept.
• Basic market research can be done through simple surveys on your social media page. This gives you an idea of the future direction you or a consultant can work on.
• A blog related to your business can be an effective way to increase your traffic. This step requires some commitment and time, but the payoff is worth it if done correctly. Here’s a good place to get started: How to Create a Blog, Promote It, and Things to Blog About
• Hiring interns is second-best if you decide online business consulting isn’t for you. They would have to be creative, hardworking, and have a background in SEO and, preferably, digital marketing.

How Consultants Drive Measurable Results

• Strategic Resource Allocation: Experienced consultants help businesses avoid common mistakes like spreading budgets too thin across multiple channels or investing heavily in tactics that don’t align with customer behaviour. They identify the most effective channels for your audience and allocate resources accordingly.

• Optimised Campaign Performance: Consultants bring testing methodologies and optimisation frameworks developed across multiple client relationships. They can identify winning strategies faster and avoid approaches they’ve seen fail elsewhere. This experience accelerates results and reduces wasted investment.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Professional consultants implement proper tracking and analytics, ensuring accurate campaign performance measurement. They establish baseline metrics, set realistic targets, and provide regular reporting that connects marketing activities to business outcomes.

• Continuous Improvement Processes: The best consultants don’t just launch campaigns and hope for results. They implement systematic testing and optimisation processes that continuously improve performance over time. This approach compounds results, with campaigns becoming more effective as they gather data and insights.

Realistic Timeline Expectations

• Short-term Results (1-3 months): Well-executed PPC campaigns and email marketing initiatives can generate results within weeks. Search engine optimisation and content marketing typically require longer timeframes but may show early indicators of success through improved rankings for less competitive terms.

• Medium-term Impact (3-6 months): Most comprehensive internet marketing strategies show measurable impact within this timeframe. Organic search traffic improvements, lead generation consistency, and customer acquisition cost optimisation are apparent during this period.

• Long-term Growth (6+ months): Sustainable internet marketing success builds over time. Search engine rankings continue improving, email lists grow, content libraries expand, and brand recognition increases. The most successful businesses view consultant relationships as long-term partnerships rather than short-term projects.

When an Internet Marketing Consultant Can Help You

Any ambitious business’s next step is to expand constantly; that is where online marketing consulting can impact it.

Once you are on the market and ready to go further with your brand, you can consider hiring a consultant or digital marketing agency. First, you’ll need to provide them with all your previous data on how you got this far.

Then, you must show them where you want to be, like expanding to a new market or increasing your traffic fivefold and setting a time frame for the consultant to stick to would be better.

The Value of Hiring a Marketing Consultant

Taking a DIY approach to digital marketing can be challenging and limit how fast your business can grow. A seasoned consultant provides expansive expertise and resources to accelerate results.

Benefits of working with a consultant include:

• Expertise: Internet marketing consultants have the knowledge and experience to help businesses develop and implement successful digital marketing campaigns.
• Time savings: Internet marketing consultants can save businesses time by handling all aspects of their digital marketing, from strategy development to campaign execution.
• Cost savings: Internet marketing consultants can help businesses save money by developing and implementing cost-effective digital marketing campaigns.
• Improved results: By developing and implementing effective digital marketing campaigns, Internet marketing consultants can help businesses increase their website traffic, leads, and sales.
• Objective outside perspective – See gaps and opportunities you may have missed
• Latest best practices – Stay on top of trends and the ever-changing digital landscape.
• Broader capabilities – Access to expanded skillsets like PPC, SEO, email, and analytics across a team

According to HubSpot research, SMBs experienced over 200% more lead growth after hiring a marketing consultant. The incremental revenue they drive usually far outweighs the consulting fees.

Finding the Right Internet Marketing Consultant

The success of your digital marketing partnership depends largely on selecting a consultant whose expertise aligns with your industry and objectives.

Defining Your Needs and Objectives

Before beginning your search, clearly articulate what you want to achieve through internet marketing. Vague objectives like “increase online presence” make evaluating consultant capabilities or measuring success difficult. Instead, focus on specific, measurable outcomes.

Revenue-Focused Goals

• Increase online sales by 30% within six months
• Generate 50 qualified leads monthly through digital channels
• Reduce customer acquisition costs by 25%
• Achieve £10,000 monthly recurring revenue from subscription products

Brand and Awareness Objectives

• Rank on page one for five industry-specific keywords
• Build an email list of 5,000 subscribers
• Increase brand search volume by 40%
• Establish thought leadership through content marketing

Operational Improvements

• Improve website conversion rates by 15%
• Reduce email unsubscribe rates below 2%
• Increase social media engagement rates
• Streamline lead qualification processes

Clear objectives help identify consultants with relevant experience and provide a framework for evaluating proposals. They also ensure alignment between your expectations and the consultant’s capabilities..

Why Choose ProfileTree’s Integrated Approach

ProfileTree eliminates the hassle of coordinating multiple vendors by providing strategy, implementation, video production, and training under one roof. Our Belfast-based team brings deep UK market knowledge and proven results across Northern Ireland, Ireland, and beyond.

FAQs

Ready to Transform Your Digital Marketing Results?

Stop wasting money on disconnected digital marketing tactics that fail to deliver measurable business growth. ProfileTree’s integrated approach combines strategic expertise with hands-on implementation across web design, video production, AI integration, and comprehensive digital training.

Get Your Digital Marketing Strategy Assessment

Our Belfast-based team will analyse your digital presence, identify missed opportunities, and show you exactly how our integrated services can drive more leads, sales, and sustainable growth for your business.

During your complimentary consultation, we’ll:

• Audit your website’s performance and conversion potential
• Review your current marketing activities and ROI
• Identify quick wins that could improve results within 30 days
• Develop a customised action plan aligned with your business objectives
• Explain how our video, AI, and training services can accelerate your success

Book your strategy session today:

• Call: 028 9568 0364
• Email: hello@profiletree.com
• Online: Visit our website to schedule your consultation

Don’t let another month pass watching competitors gain ground while your digital marketing underperforms. Join the hundreds of businesses across Northern Ireland, Ireland, and the UK who’ve transformed their online presence with ProfileTree’s proven approach.

Your digital transformation starts with a simple conversation. Contact us today.