Gillie & Marc
The year ahead.

We did not start from a theory. We started from a result.

The 50% Off Painting Sale was the first conversion-optimised campaign on your ad account in five years. In one three-week flight it built a net-new, AU and NZ only audience of art buyers at a sustainably low cost, and it sold paintings while it did so.

Top performer

The actual creative from your 50% Off Painting Sale: your own artwork, the ads that built the audience. We design and produce all of it for every event, included in the plan.

Full figures in the companion document: the 50% Off Painting Sale Final Report.

One always-on engine, plus up to five sale events a year

Both Google Ads and Meta Ads run continuously to keep sales coming in, and on top of that we build and run up to five sale events through the year, each with its own dedicated landing page, fired when it suits you. That is exactly the right model for a catalogue as broad as yours, and it is what we have built this proposal around.

The measurement foundation

On the painting sale, your form widget told Mailchimp about every signup but only passed 11 of 1,697 leads back to Meta, a 0.6% match rate. Meta was optimising on almost-blind data and still delivered 4.09x. Fixing this once, before the program starts, makes every campaign that follows cheaper and sharper.

• Wire the form to the Meta Conversions API and register a real enquiry conversion
• Connect Google Enhanced Conversions for Leads (already enabled on your account)
• Stand up per-campaign tracking and retargeting audiences once, reuse all year

Up to five sale events a year

These are the kinds of events we can run, examples to choose from rather than a fixed list. Each runs as a self-contained three to four week flight with its own landing page, audience and offer. Use all five, or pick the ones that suit your calendar. Recommended ad spend is the budget paid to the ad platforms, separate from our management fee, and tunable up or down.

Always-on brand awareness

Between the sale events, both Google Ads and Meta Ads run continuously to keep Gillie & Marc in front of your audience and drive sales of your core sellers: the small and medium bronzes (the A$1,000 to A$3,000 range), plus your smaller paintings and artworks. This is the engine that produces a steady flow of sales year-round, not just when there is a sale on, and it warms audiences so each event converts harder when it launches.

Organic and AI search: owning the traffic you currently rent

This is an optional phase-two layer, not part of the A$4,000 plan. We recommend adding it once the always-on paid engine is proving its return, so it builds on a proven base. Paid ads rent attention. The moment the spend stops, so does the traffic. Search engine optimisation does the opposite: it builds an asset that keeps bringing buyers in, month after month, at no cost per click. For Gillie & Marc it is an unusually strong fit, because you already have the two things organic visibility rewards most and cannot be faked: real authority and real demand. There is now a second organic front too: the AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini) that increasingly answer a buyer before they ever reach a page of search results. We cover both.

The year at a glance

An illustrative cadence only. You tell us when to fire each event, and the always-on engine runs underneath the whole year.

What it costs

Two numbers, always kept separate, exactly as you asked: our management fee (what you pay 121 Group to plan, build and run the work) and the ad spend (what is paid to Meta and Google, which you fund and fully control). Every campaign management fee includes its dedicated landing page. All figures are in AUD and exclude GST.

The always-on plan (recommended)

One flat monthly fee. The always-on engine across both channels keeps sales coming in between events, and up to five sale events a year are built for you underneath it at no extra management fee. Minimum three-month term so the audiences and tracking can compound, cancellable monthly thereafter.

Phase two, when you are ready: organic and AI search (SEO + AEO)

We recommend layering this in after a few months of always-on results, so it builds on a proven base. SEO and AEO compound over time, so a six-month minimum applies once you start.

Higher-value commissions and garden works

You have told us that broad Google search targeting for large commissions, garden and bespoke pieces has produced poor-quality enquiries in the past, and we agree it is rarely the best use of budget. Rather than chase cold searches, we surface these to the right people through warm retargeting and lookalikes of your existing collectors, with qualifying questions on the enquiry form so your team only follows up genuine prospects. This runs inside the always-on plan at no extra fee.

Standalone campaigns (only if you would rather not go always-on)

If you prefer to run sale events one at a time instead of the always-on plan, each is A$5,500 management (one-off), covering strategy and offer design, a dedicated landing page, creative, full build, daily optimisation and an end-of-campaign report. For a year of activity, the always-on plan above is far better value.

Your plan at a glance

One simple monthly fee for the whole engine. All figures exclude GST; ad spend is separate and fully client-funded.

Start on the always-on plan at A$4,000 a month: both channels every day, up to five sale events a year, creative and tracking all included. Layer SEO and AEO on whenever you are ready.

How we start

Prepared by Adam Ducquet · 121 Group · June 2026 · Companion document: 50% Off Painting Sale Final Report.