What Does a Digital Marketing Consultant Actually Do?

This is one of the most Googled questions about digital marketing in Singapore, and most answers give you a vague list of services. Let me tell you what the job actually looks like when it is done properly.

The Diagnosis Phase

Before recommending anything, a digital marketing consultant should understand three things about your business: how you make money (your offer and revenue model), who your competitors are (what they rank for, what they spend on ads, where they leave gaps), and where your existing marketing is leaking budget. This means pulling up your Google Ads data, your Search Console reports, and your analytics. Not asking you what you think is working — looking at the actual numbers.

The Strategy Phase

Based on the diagnosis, a consultant builds a strategy. This is not a menu of services. It is a sequenced plan that tells you which channel to invest in first, which to ignore for now, and why. For some businesses, the answer is SEO because their competitors are weak and the search volume is there. For others, it is Google Ads because they need leads this month, not in six months. For a surprising number, the answer is neither — they need to fix their offer first.

The Execution Phase

This is where most people think the job starts, but by this point the hard decisions are already made. Execution means implementing the strategy: writing content, setting up campaigns, building landing pages, or whatever the diagnosis revealed. The key difference from agency execution: the person who built the strategy is the same person overseeing the implementation. No handoffs. No telephone games between sales, strategy, and production.

What a Consultant Is Not

A digital marketing consultant is not someone who manages your social media posts. That is a social media manager. They are not someone who runs your Google Ads with a standard template. That is PPC management. They are not someone who writes your blog posts. That is content writing. A consultant is the person who decides whether you should be doing any of those things in the first place, and in what order. You are paying for judgment and diagnosis, not labour.

How to Choose the Right One

Ask them what their process looks like before they make any recommendations. If they pitch you a package in the first meeting, they are selling, not consulting. A good consultant will want to look at your data first. They will ask about your business model, your margins, and your current customer acquisition cost. They will probably tell you something you did not expect about your own business.