Case Study
Senior Strategy
Without the Senior Hire
How Full Stack Media stepped in to lead marketing for one of the Gulf's most respected boutique wealth practices, delivering more value than a full-time hire and building the engine for the next phase of growth.
88%+
Lead growth following first wave of optimisations
Minutes
Average lead response time, not days
15 ★★★★★
Google reviews earned from none
The Engine Room
A modern marketing operation, built from the ground up.
From a tangled WordPress migration and a spreadsheet full of leads, we rebuilt the practice's marketing infrastructure end to end: local SEO foundations, automated lead capture, a real CRM, and paid campaigns aligned to the audiences that actually convert.
Local SEO
Google Business Profile built from scratch and optimised
CRM
Zoho CRM replacing a manually-updated spreadsheet
Lead Automation
Zapier connecting forms, Meta Ads and the call centre
Paid Social
Meta Ads rebuilt around segmented audiences and webinar funnels
Web Development
Broken forms fixed, contact page rebuilt, SEO foundations repaired
Strategic Leadership
Fractional Head of Marketing embedded with the in-house team
The Challenge
A boutique practice.
A marketing function that didn't match.
The Michele Carby Practice is a boutique wealth and asset management firm based in Dubai, looking after roughly $200m in client assets on behalf of expatriates across the GCC, South Africa, and the UK. Founded on a philosophy of generational relationships and complete transparency, the practice has built a reputation for the kind of cross-border specialist advice that generalists simply can't offer.
The marketing function had yet to match that calibre. When the previous Head of Marketing moved on, Michele began the search for a replacement. At £50,000+ for the kind of senior, strategic operator the practice needed, the financial commitment was significant and the risk of the wrong hire higher still. The local talent market made the search slower than expected.
Meanwhile, a recent WordPress migration had left the existing site with broken SEO foundations, broken forms, and stalled PPC campaigns that needed urgent attention. That's when the conversation with Full Stack Media began.
"Fix what's broken, then help us build something that actually works."
The brief, in essence.
About the client
Client
The Michele Carby Practice
Industry
International Financial Services
Location
Dubai, UAE — GCC, South Africa & UK expatriates
Live site
michelecarby.com
What We Did
Stabilise the foundations.
Then build the engine.
The original engagement was scoped narrowly: fix the SEO damage from the migration, get the PPC back on track, plug the most obvious leaks. But within the first weeks of work, something became clear to Michele and Payal. For a fraction of the cost of a full-time Head of Marketing, the partnership was delivering more value than the role it was meant to bridge.
The plan to recruit was shelved. The scope expanded.
What followed was a deliberate rebuild of the marketing operation. Local SEO foundations were laid with a properly optimised Google Business Profile, a presence the practice had never had before. The lead management process, previously a manually-updated spreadsheet, was rebuilt around Zoho CRM with Zapier integrations connecting website forms, Meta lead ads, and the call centre so that no enquiry went cold. Meta Ads were re-architected around tighter audience segments and webinar-led funnels, with the in-house marketing team coached on the principles rather than just handed the work.
"A senior strategic brain in the room, for a fraction of the cost, delivering far more output than we'd ever had from the role full-time."
The result, only a few months in, is a marketing function that hums quietly in the background. Exactly as it should for a practice whose own brand is built on quiet, generational care.
How we worked
Audit & quick wins
SEO best practices applied to the existing site, broken forms fixed, a proper contact page built, and the Google Business Profile created from scratch.
Systems & automation
Migration from a spreadsheet to Zoho CRM, with Zapier piping leads directly from website forms and Meta Ads into the pipeline and notifying the call centre in real time.
Paid social, re-aimed
Full audit of the Meta Ads account, audience targeting and segmentation rebuilt, and new lead-capture journeys created to promote the practice's webinar programme.
Strategic leadership
Embedded with the in-house team, leading on direction, coaching day to day, and giving the practice the senior marketing brain it had been trying to hire.
The Results
Numbers that speak for themselves.
88%+
Lead growth following first wave of optimisations
Minutes
Average lead response time, not days
Live & ranking
Local search presence, built from the ground up
The fastest gains came from removing friction. Leads that used to sit in a spreadsheet for days now reach the call centre within minutes of arriving, automatically routed through Zoho and Zapier from website forms, Meta Ads, and webinar funnels. Audiences that used to be served broadly are now segmented properly. A first wave of on-site SEO optimisations and paid social refinements drove an 88% uplift in lead volume in short order.
Local search has been transformed. The practice had no Google Business Profile, no local visibility, no reviews. Today the profile is live, ranking for the searches that matter, and has earned 15 five-star reviews from clients — a recurring source of new enquiries that simply didn't exist before. None of this is vanity. Every piece of it converts into more conversations with the right kind of client.
Looking Ahead
The foundations are in.
The next chapter is the website.
The new website is the most visible piece of what comes next: a full rebuild that the practice's previous redesign should have been, but wasn't. Early progress has been signed off enthusiastically, and the build is being engineered from the ground up to compete in both traditional search and the AI-driven results that are increasingly shaping how high-net-worth clients find their advisers.
Launching with the new site is the practice's first proper SEO-led content hub, a long-overdue editorial platform built around the questions and concerns of cross-border clients. In-depth SEO and AEO work is already underway in parallel, so the new site lands with momentum rather than from a standing start.
But the deeper work continues regardless of any single launch. A boutique practice with $200m under management and clients spanning three continents needs a marketing function that can think, lead, and execute at the same level as the advisory work itself. That's the partnership being built here.
What's next
A bespoke new website
A full rebuild designed to match the calibre of the practice itself, engineered for SEO and AEO performance the old site could never deliver.
MCP's first SEO content hub
An editorial platform built around the cross-border financial topics the practice's clients actually search for, launching alongside the new site.
A long-term strategic partnership
Fractional marketing leadership continues to lead direction, mentor the in-house team, and grow the practice's organic and paid channels.
"Thank you so much for the comprehensive update — we are so pleased with the progress being made."
Michele Carby
Founder — The Michele Carby Practice
I'm in!
Where do I start?
Let's map out your digital inventory, eliminate bottlenecks, and build a scalable ecosystem designed for long-term growth.
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