Top Tier Marketing

Marketing operating systems for trades. First product: Leak Shield OS — stop Google Ads waste from DIY, job-seeker and out-of-area clicks.

Edinburgh, GB

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Brandontw

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Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

The LSA job types you leave on are now a permanent cost

Google Local Services Ads used to let you claw back two kinds of junk lead: job type not serviced, and geo not serviced.

Those credits are gone.

If you are in the UK or EMEA, credits were never available in the first place.

So the plumber who still has drain cleaning on from the setup wizard is not waiting on a refund. He is paying every time that call hits.

The HVAC shop with duct cleaning enabled because the wizard suggested it is in the same spot.

The electrician with EV charger toggled who does not fit chargers is in the same spot.

Google's own help now says: if you are getting unwanted leads, revisit service areas, job types and categories.

That is the whole job.

Not ranking tricks. Not a dispute script for a button that is no longer there.

Open Profile and budget. Turn off anything you would not drive for this month. Exclude the towns you always decline. Then keep answering the phone, because response time still feeds ranking.

Deselecting every job type does not stop category leads. Pause the ad if you need zero.

Verify live on support.google.com/localservices before you treat any of this as current.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

The Merchant Center review button is not the fix

Most suspended Shopping accounts I see did not fail because the owner refused to appeal.

They failed because Request Review was clicked the same morning the footer was edited.

Google’s own suspension help — including the Shopify Google & YouTube article — says to examine the website and the account first: identity, policies, product data, contact. Misrepresentation is treated as egregious. It can arrive with no warning.

Three checks that catch most premature reviews:

Needs attention still asking for identity verification. The review button can stay unavailable until that is approved.
Product data source empty because every SKU was deleted “to be safe.” Google says add at least one product or you may not be eligible to request a review.
Returns page exists but does not state the window, who pays postage, or when the refund lands. “We accept returns” is not a policy.

A fourth, quieter one: the live URL still shows the old page. Saving in Shopify is not a recrawl.

If you are about to file, open the store in incognito on your phone. If you would not buy from it, neither will a reviewer.

Not affiliated with Google or Shopify. Not a reinstatement promise.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

The Google Ads leak most trades never look at

If you run Google Ads for a plumbing, HVAC, electrical or roofing company, open search terms this week.

Sort by cost.

You will usually find three piles sitting on the invoice: people looking for a job, people trying to DIY it, and people who are not even in the service area.

None of those book.

The fix is not a bigger budget. It is Presence targeting, negatives that respect Google’s actual match rules (they do not expand to plurals), and a 20-minute weekly ritual so new junk does not come back.

Do not paste a 400-word “master list” that also blocks “free estimate”.

That is the whole product.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

The rent email you sent in March did not raise the rent

Since 1 May 2026, private landlords in England have one lawful way to put the rent up on an assured tenancy: Section 13 on prescribed Form 4A, with at least two months’ notice, once a year, on the first day of a rental period.

An email “we agreed £50 more from May” does not take effect. A rent-review clause in the old AST does not take effect. The tenant keeps paying the old rent, and you cannot treat the difference as arrears.

That is the pattern I keep seeing on landlord forums. Same class of mistake as serving a Section 21 in June, or listing a house as “offers over £1,200”.

The other two that keep costing people:

Selling on 8 weeks’ notice. Ground 1A needs 4 months, and the notice cannot expire in the first 12 months of the current tenancy.
Unprotected deposit. The court will not make a possession order. The ground does not matter.

None of this is a solicitor’s letter. Download Form 4A and Form 3A from GOV.UK assured tenancy forms, and read the grounds page before you send anything. If you want a pre-send check that returns SERVE / TIGHT / STOP on the action in front of you, that is what Notice Gate OS is for.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

Buyers skip your listing in 8 seconds. Here is why.

Most digital product pages are a feature dump. Buyers are trying to make a yes/no in one scroll.

If they cannot answer these three questions, they bounce:

Is this for me, specifically — or for “anyone who wants to make money online”?
What decision does this help me make before I waste time or cash?
What do I open the minute I pay?

A headline that names the outcome beats a headline that names the file type. “Know if the campaign pays before you edit” beats “Complete Creator Spreadsheet Pack”.

Price is not the first problem. Confusion is. People will pay £15 for a tool that kills a bad campaign. They will not pay £9.99 for a page they do not understand.

Write the listing like an operator, not a brochure. Then send it to one person with the problem. Marketplace review will not do that job for you.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

If the brief says “make it viral”, you do not have a brief

Most UGC does not fail in the edit. It fails at the brief.

“Make it viral.” “Just be authentic.” “Show the product.” That is not direction. That is how you burn three hours and still miss the brand’s actual ask.

Before you record, force the brief into this:

Who is this for in one sentence
What they believe now
What they need to believe after 15 seconds
The one proof the video has to show (result, demo, objection kill)
The CTA the campaign actually pays on

Then pick one angle. One hook. One script structure. Write the shot list. Record. Run a checklist before you submit.

Faceless or on-camera does not matter. Guessing does.

If you cannot decode the brief, do not shoot. You will just make a pretty video that gets rejected or ignored.

I use a brief → angle → hook → script → shot list loop so I am not staring at the campaign wondering what to make. Steal the process. The kit is there if you want the templates.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

Pinned post

A $40 CPM campaign can still pay you £4/hour

High CPM is not a good campaign. It is a headline.

I keep seeing clippers treat the campaign card as the job. They join, grind 40 clips, get half rejected, and then wonder why the week paid nothing.

Run the number before you edit.

Expected payout = views you can realistically hit × CPM, after the actual approval rate you have on that campaign, not the one on the card.
Hours = research + edit + revisions + re-uploads after a flag. If you skip this, your £/hour is fake.
Kill it if the first 7 days do not clear your hourly floor. A campaign that “might pop” is just unpaid overtime.

Preventable rejections are the silent killer: wrong account, skipped pre-approval, missed duration, wrong caption, reused hook. That is not bad luck. That is a process hole.

If you cannot tell me your £/hour on a campaign in 30 seconds, you are guessing.

I built a Command Center for this exact loop — KEEP / TEST / DROP, expected payout, rejection tracking. Code FIRST20 if you want it. Use it or ignore it. Just stop working campaigns you cannot measure.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 7

A £8,000 brand deal can still pay you £22/hour

A YouTuber I know got an inbound for £8,000.

8k. One video. "Easy yes."

What was not in the email:

Manager takes 20%
18 hours once you count brief, revisions, usage-rights back-and-forth
90-day exclusivity that kills a better offer next month
Tax set-aside they never booked

Effective rate after that stack: £22/hour. They trained the brand that their inventory is ads-CPM, not sponsor-CPM.

The fee is not the deal. The fee after cut, hours, usage, exclusivity and tax is the deal.

Run the number before you reply. If it does not clear your hourly floor, it is a SKIP — even if it "feels like a lot."

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 6

The $11,500 Camry that was never an $11,500 car

A 2019 Camry hammers $11,500 at Manheim. Looks like a deal against $15,900 asking.

Then the invoice shows up.

Buyer fee ~$450–$700 (account-specific, not published). Transport $400 if it is not your local yard. Recon on an auction unit is not an oil change — $1,200 is a normal retail-quality number in 2026, and $2,000 is not rare. Title/docs. Then 45 days of floorplan at 6% while it sits.

All-in lands around $13,700–$14,400. If your lot actually transacts at $15,200 after the usual haggle, you made under $1,000 front-end for the privilege of owning a Camry. Wholesale it to another dealer and you are negative.

That is the whole used-car problem: people bid hammer. Profit lives in the stack after hammer.

Copart is the same movie with a different costume. A $900 runner can carry ~$390 in platform fees before it moves. Fees as a percent of hammer explode on cheap cars. Flood, fire, airbags, no body-shop quote — you did not buy a car. You bought a job.

I built a pre-bid gate for this. Sale first, then title, then source, then hammer. It returns all-in, max bid, and TAKE / TIGHT / PASS. If recon is a photo guess, the honest call is TIGHT at best.

Not a dealer-license course. A number before you raise your hand.

Brandontw

@mrwood·Sep 6

The $24.99 FBA listing that pays you 21%

A private-label cable. $24.99 on the listing. $6 landed. Spreadsheet says 88% ROI.

Run the rest of the stack — 15% referral, large-standard fulfillment, the 2026 fuel add-on, 12% TACOS, 6% returns — and contribution margin is about 21%.

That is not a bad product. It is also not a BUY if your floor is 25%. Max buy to hit 25% is about $5. You are paying $6.

This is how FBA inventory dies: ROI looks fat, ads were left at 0, Q4 storage was “later”, and the unit sits.

Three checks before a PO:

Net after referral, FBA, fuel, storage, inbound, prep, ads, returns.
Margin and ROI against a written floor — both, not one.
Max buy versus the quote in front of you.

$9.99 is a different fee product than $10.01. $50.01 is different again. Price-band edges are a decision, not a rounding error.

Fees move. Confirm the live card in Seller Central. A calculator that cannot lose a deal is a toy.