I run businesses. I wanted to know what worked.

I have run an events company in Dubai since 2013, and I also run a product business. Both live on enquiries. For years I paid agencies to bring those enquiries in.

Earlier this year I asked my agency a simple question. You give me clicks, cost per click and conversions. Can you show me which keyword and which page each real enquiry came from, and which ones were noise: suppliers, job seekers, spam? They said the technology did not exist. They could give me the top-line numbers, and I would have to connect the dots myself from my email and WhatsApp. I asked a few other agencies. I got the same answer.

A few months later I asked again, and the answer had not changed. The dashboard showed hundreds of conversions a month. Our own email, WhatsApp and CRM showed a few dozen real enquiries. For an events business, both could not be true. That was the moment I knew I could not tell which marketing brought which deal, or where the noise was coming from. And if I could not see that, I could not decide where the next dirham should go.

What I built.

So I built my own system. Tracking first, so every enquiry carries where it came from. A front desk on WhatsApp that answers at any hour and sorts the noise from the buyers. Then every channel judged on real enquiries, not clicks.

In one month, 79% of 790 enquiries turned out to be suppliers, job seekers or spam. By October, 34 of 34 Google Ads enquiries could be traced to their campaign, 31 of them to the keyword.

I got plenty wrong on the way. My first front desk sent almost everyone the same automated reply. It was quick, but it was not personal. My first tracking showed the page an enquiry came from, but not the keyword they typed, where they entered, how long they stayed or what they saw before they wrote to us. I filled those gaps one at a time, by trial and error, until the system showed me what no agency could.

Why I run it for others.

If you are about to hire your fourth agency, ask one question before you sign: can you show me how each enquiry reached me, and connect it to the real lead? If the answer is yes, that is the right agency, whether it is your fourth or your tenth. A good agency behaves like part of your business. It looks at the data and tells you where to move the budget, and why.

I run a service business and a product business. The day-to-day is different, but the fundamentals of marketing are the same: clear messaging on the website, sound SEO and technical basics, ads that speak to the right buyer, and knowing exactly who you sell to. In both, marketing has one job: to bring in revenue you can see.

I will not give you vanity numbers or a rosy picture. If we are not the right fit, I will tell you, and tell you what I would do instead.