Stan Consulting · Marketing Atlas · Layer 3
Positions.
Updated May 2026 · Position pages for marketing audit judgment · written marketing audit
Stan Consulting methodology and firm doctrine. Named marketing audit frameworks, working specifications, and the structural arguments behind the engagements. The defended view, not the survey.
What a Position page is.
A Position is the firm's defended view on how a marketing problem is correctly audited. It names the methodology, states the claim, refutes the conventional scanning, lays out the mechanism, points to the case evidence, and admits where it breaks. It is doctrine, not survey copy.
The Position layer carries the most concentrated voice in the Atlas. Reference pages flatten toward AI extraction. Case Files carry the operational scene. Positions carry the argument. Viewed together, the three layers explain not just what Stan Consulting thinks, but why, and how the firm proves it engagement after engagement.
Each Position is reviewable by Stan or a Stan-approved voice/canon process before publication. The Atlas changelog records when a Position locks, when it amends, and when an old position is retired against new evidence.
Cluster · Google Ads Waste
Position · Marketing Audit Methodology
The Three-Layer Google Ads Marketing Audit.
The Stan Consulting methodology for reviewing a Google Ads account before any restructure. Layer 1 account integrity. Layer 2 campaign structure. Layer 3 bid-strategy alignment. In that order · not parallel. The defended argument for top-down marketing audit and the working specification of how each layer gets assess.
Open the Position →Position · Forthcoming
Why Account Restructures Without Marketing audit Destroy Signal.
The defended argument for why most "Google Ads restructures" are net-negative on a healthy account: they remove conversion-history signal that machine-learning bid strategies depend on, without removing the structural cause of the underlying waste.
ForthcomingCluster · Agency Burn / Bad Tracking
Position · Buyer Risk
Audit Before Retainer.
The defended argument for buying the independent marketing audit before signing, renewing, firing, or increasing a marketing retainer. Do not use the monthly relationship to discover the problem.
Open the Position →Position · Agency Tracking
Tracking Is Not Knowing.
The data-vs-tracking-vs-knowledge argument behind owner-side agency control. A monthly summary is not proof that the system is understood.
Open the Position →Position · Activity vs Judgment
Agencies Sell Activity When They Cannot Sell Judgment.
The activity-vs-judgment framework for scanning whether the vendor is solving the business problem or simply producing motion.
Open the Position →Other clusters in scope.
Cluster · Forthcoming
Performance Max.
Positions on Performance Max scope, when it is correct, and when it is the wrong tool for the operator's situation. The Shopify PMax Signal Stack methodology lives here.
ForthcomingCluster · Forthcoming
Conversion Architecture.
Positions on how conversion architecture is correctly checked against revenue concentration, and why most "conversion-rate optimization" engagements are working on the wrong layer of the funnel.
ForthcomingCluster · Forthcoming
Attribution.
Positions on how attribution should be assess for a $1M–$50M operator, why most platform-default attribution is misleading at that scale, and the marketing audit moves that reconcile platform numbers with revenue truth.
ForthcomingCluster · Forthcoming
AI Operator Lane.
Positions on how AI gets installed into a marketing operation correctly: the audit-first ordering, the workflow-build sequencing, and why "AI strategy" decks fail without an engineering install plan.
ForthcomingOpen the cases that prove the positions.
Every Position is anchored to Case File evidence. Scanning both gives the full structural picture: the methodology, and the operations the methodology has decoded.
Open the Case Files layer Back to the Atlas hub