Mark Riley

Track Record

Mark has managed more than $70 million in digital advertising spend, including a book of approximately $6 million a year, along with millions of dollars in traditional media, including TV, billboard, and transit. Two of the largest clients he has worked with kept his work even when they had the resources to replace it.

For one of the nation’s largest PE-backed personal injury law firms, Mark built the entire paid search program. As the firm grew by acquiring other practices, it rolled his campaign structure out across every firm it purchased.

When another major law-firm client moved its SEO in-house, it didn’t rebuild the program. It took his entire SEO system with it.

Experience

Mark has worked in digital marketing for more than 15 years, with hands-on experience in Google Ads paid search, Google Local Services Ads, SEO, local SEO, content strategy and paid social media. Much of that work has been in legal marketing, one of the most expensive and competitive advertising verticals worldwide. That’s why he builds every program around the cost of acquiring a customer rather than the cost of a click, and why he ties results back to the calls, booked jobs, and sales they produce wherever a client’s systems allow.

Background

In 2012, Mark joined the leadership team of a North American-based legal-marketing agency created by John Morgan in 2007 and helped build it through its sale to private equity. He built the agency’s paid search and SEO strategy in its entirety, along with the framework that defines how its PPC, Local Services Ads, SEO, and content programs are planned, run, measured, and scaled. He also architected the agency’s enterprise website platform and its real-time analytics and attribution platform, built its research and analytics function, and has led digital and web teams of more than 15 people. He has advised the agency’s private-equity ownership and PE-backed law firms on digital growth strategy, website content, site builds, and expansion into new markets. As search shifted toward AI-generated answers, he led the agency’s move from ranking-focused SEO to answer engine optimization (AEO).

He has trained national sales teams to explain paid search, Local Services Ads, and SEO strategy to business owners in plain commercial terms, and has spoken at national legal-marketing conferences.

Earlier, he founded his own digital marketing consultancy in 2008, handling paid search, SEO, conversion rate optimization, and website development for small and mid-sized businesses. Before that, he worked in international logistics in Sydney and Miami, most recently running Florida operations for a PA-based NVOCC. He holds a BBA from the University of Western Sydney.

How Mark Works With Clients

At Riley Summers, Mark works with a deliberately small number of home-services businesses, typically owner-involved companies running multiple trucks that already invest in paid advertising. Budgets are set for the year and allocated by season, spend is paced to the work the business can actually take on, and results are measured in booked jobs and what it cost to win them. Depending on the services a client engages Riley Summers for, that work covers paid search, Local Services Ads, local SEO and paid social media advertising.

Resources by Mark

Mark writes the Riley Summers resource library: guides on how home-services businesses find, win, and keep customers through search and paid media.

Outside Work

Outside work, Mark’s interests are sailing, cricket, and guitar.