Updated: 4 August 2026 · Consulting, Digital Marketing
"Digital marketing package" is one of those phrases that means nothing on its own. Two quotes with the same name and the same price can contain radically different things, and that ambiguity is exactly where bad providers operate.
So here's what one can actually include, what each piece does, and the questions worth asking before you sign anything.
The components, and what each one is for
Web design or redesign. The foundation. Without a fast site that explains what you do, everything else sends traffic somewhere that doesn't convert. One-off cost, with maintenance separate.
SEO. Ongoing work to appear in results nobody pays for. Takes months and compounds. Usually splits into an upfront intervention (technical and on-page) and a monthly fee for content and monitoring.
Paid advertising. Results from day one that stop the day you stop paying. Watch one distinction that confuses many people: the management fee and the ad budget are separate things. The second one you pay directly to Google or Meta.
Social media. This is where what's being sold varies most. It might be strategy, it might be posting on your behalf, it might be just designing templates. Get which of the three in writing.
Reputation and Google Business Profile. Optimised profile, a system for requesting reviews, and replies to the ones that arrive. For a local business it's usually the best return per euro spent.
Email marketing. Recovering people who already found you and didn't buy. The most profitable channel and the most neglected.
Consulting. Someone looks at your numbers and tells you where the leak is, without executing anything. Useful if you have an in-house team.
What's almost never included, and you should ask about
This is where invoice surprises come from:
- The advertising budget. Repeating it because it's the most expensive confusion.
- Hosting and domain. Usually separate, and they should be in your name, not the provider's.
- Photography and video. If it isn't stated, stock images will be used.
- The copy. Many web quotes assume you write it.
- Template or plugin licences.
- Ownership of the ad accounts. This one is critical and almost nobody asks.
Five questions to ask before signing
1. Who owns the accounts and the access? Your site, your domain, your Google Ads account, your pixel, your Google profile. If the provider creates them under their own name, the day you part ways you start from zero. It's the most common trap in this industry.
2. What happens if I leave? Contract term, notice period, and what you take with you. A vague answer is a bad sign.
3. What gets measured, and how often do I see it? A monthly report of clicks and impressions doesn't tell you whether you're making money. What matters is enquiries, their source, and cost per customer rather than cost per lead — covered in cost per lead vs cost per customer.
4. Who does the work? If an expert sells it and a junior executes it, you'll notice within three months.
5. What does this NOT include? The most useful question, and the least asked.
What it should cost
It depends on scope, but a useful principle: be sceptical of both the very cheap and the unjustifiably expensive. A €99/month package promising SEO, social and advertising can't devote more than a couple of hours a month to your business — the arithmetic doesn't work.
For real figures, see the 2026 SEO pricing guide and the services page.
What to buy first if you can't do everything
The order I recommend to almost any local business:
- Google Business Profile and reviews — cheap or free, and fastest to make the phone ring
- A simple, fast website with indicative pricing
- Small-budget advertising to validate the message
- SEO and content, which is what frees you from depending on ads
Buying step 3 without doing 1 and 2 is why people conclude "advertising doesn't work".
A quick sanity check before comparing quotes
Before lining up several proposals side by side, add up how many actual hours of work each one implies at a reasonable hourly rate, and compare that to the monthly price being quoted. It's a rough exercise, not an exact science, but a package claiming to cover SEO, social, advertising and email marketing for a price that works out to two or three hours a month is telling you something real about how thin the actual work will be, regardless of how the proposal is worded.
Frequently asked questions
Package or individual services? A package is cheaper if you genuinely need everything in it. If you don't, you're paying for pieces you won't use. I prefer starting with whatever fixes your bottleneck and expanding later.
What contract length is normal? It varies. For SEO a multi-month commitment makes sense because results take time. For advertising, a long lock-in shouldn't be necessary.
How do I know the work is being done? Ask for read access to your own accounts: Analytics, Search Console, Google Ads. If that's refused, you have your answer.
Freelance or agency? Depends on volume and who you want to be talking to. I compare both in freelance vs agency.
If you've got a quote on the table and want an opinion before signing, send it over and I'll tell you what's missing and what's padding. I do this often and you don't need to hire me for it. How I work is in consulting.
