For marketing agencies

Agencies don’t call me because they’re short-staffed.
They call me when the project gets complicated.

Complex SEO audits. Websites that have to do something unusual. CRM, tracking and API work that stalled. AI and automation nobody on the team has built before. I’ve spent twenty years on both sides of the agency table — ten of them running my own — and agencies still bring me in when a project outgrows the team they have.

Bring me into a project See what I take on
1000+
Websites built
15+
Developers and strategists hired and led
20+ yrs
In digital marketing and agency work
3→50
Cases a month, one PI campaign

Client work is covered by NDA. The two agencies quoted below are named with permission.

In their words

The people who hire specialists for a living.

Carlos has been a huge asset to our team at Ten Golden Rules. He combines sharp strategic thinking with deep AI expertise, and he's always the first to jump in, solve problems, and help wherever we need extra capacity. Reliable, proactive, and genuinely great to work with, I recommend him without hesitation.
Bill B. Director of Search and Strategy, Ten Golden Rules
We hired Carlos as a CTO for our Agency and he has been amazing with setting up processes for our agency. He helped hire the right talent and setup processes to help streamline website development, SEO processes for our clients.
Marc G. Founder, Netwide Media Group

Why it happens

When a good agency brings in outside help.

Bringing in a specialist isn’t a sign an agency is struggling. It’s how the good ones protect a client relationship they’ve spent years building. Nobody staffs full-time for the problem that shows up twice a year.

  1. The project got technically complex

    And the estimate keeps growing every time someone looks at it.

  2. The internal team is stuck

    Not for lack of talent. It's outside what they've built before.

  3. An audit needs to go deeper than a checklist

    The kind where the answer is in the log files, not the dashboard.

  4. A high-value client needs senior attention

    The account you cannot afford to hand to a junior strategist.

  5. CRM, tracking, APIs and reporting are involved

    The point where marketing quietly turns into software.

  6. A build has unusual requirements

    The site has to do something no template does.

  7. AI and automation are on the table

    You've sold it, or you're about to, and someone has to actually build it.

  8. Strategy is needed without another executive hire

    Senior judgment on a project, not a salary line.

  9. You need to hire senior technical people

    And nobody in the building can tell the good candidates from the confident ones.

  10. A build was inherited and nobody wants to touch it

    Someone has to go in, work out what's actually there, and take it over.

What I take on

Two kinds of work, and one of them is rare.

Delivery

The work agencies already run through me.

  • SEO & technical SEO

    Audits, migrations, site architecture, local search, recovery work.

  • Websites & landing pages

    Design and build, conversion work, performance.

  • Digital marketing

    Campaign strategy, competitive research, positioning.

  • Branding

    Identity, messaging, and the design system that keeps it consistent.

The hard stuff

Where most agencies run out of bench.

  • AI & automation builds

    Agentic systems, content pipelines, internal tooling — the thing your team quoted six weeks for.

  • CRM, integrations & tracking

    HubSpot, GHL, custom APIs, attribution that survives an audit.

  • Technical marketing engineering

    Analytics, data plumbing, reporting a client can actually read.

  • Fractional CTO

    Building and leading the team, not just doing the work: hiring, evaluating technical candidates, delivery process, stack. Two agencies have hired me for exactly this.

How we work together

Under your brand or mine — your call.

I can join your Slack, email from your domain and sit in client calls as part of your team, or stay entirely behind the scenes and hand the work to you. I don’t have a preference and I don’t need the credit.

  • You keep the client relationship

    Always. I'm not building a roster out of your accounts.

  • One person, start to finish

    No account manager, no handoff, no junior picking it up on Tuesday.

  • Scoped by project or retainer

    Whichever matches how you bill it.

  • NDAs and white-label terms are normal here

    Send yours, or use mine.

Carlos Arias

Bring me in

Got a project that's turning into a problem?

Tell me what's stuck. I'll tell you straight whether I'm the right person for it — and if I'm not, I usually know who is.