A performance-channel hire can put a meaningful share of your growth budget in one person’s hands. The right specialist should understand the platform, the economics behind the campaign, and the work required after a click. A broad digital marketing title tells you little about whether that person can diagnose the problem you actually have.
That distinction matters when comparing Onward Search alternatives. Some buyers want a company with a broad talent proposition. Others need a practitioner for a defined channel, such as paid search, paid social, programmatic, SEO, or conversion rate optimization. This guide focuses on the second situation and profiles seven experts available through GrowTal.
What Onward Search is now
Onward Search has moved. Its own positioning changed before anyone’s search did. Its homepage title is now “Onward Search: AI Solutions and Talent,” leading with AI solutions as well as talent. For a marketing buyer, that broader positioning is a practical reason to examine alternatives when the immediate requirement is a specific performance channel.
This is not a judgment on Onward Search’s talent or process. Its published homepage title simply describes a wider proposition than a channel-specific marketing brief. Start the comparison by defining the outcome and channel ownership you need, then assess each option against that scope.
Why a performance-channel hire is different
Paid search, paid social, SEO, native advertising, lifecycle work, and CRO influence different parts of the customer journey. They also demand different operating skills. Someone hired to rebuild a Google Ads account should be able to connect query intent, bidding, landing pages, and unit economics. A paid social specialist needs a firm grasp of audience strategy, creative testing, funnel structure, and platform constraints.
Define the problem first. The hiring route follows from it, not the other way round. Is acquisition cost rising? Is retention weakening after a strong first purchase? Is paid traffic reaching a landing page that does not convert? Each diagnosis points to a different specialist and a different working brief.
The engagement model matters too. A founder may need tactical ownership for a single channel, while a CMO may need someone who can connect campaign decisions to positioning, retention, and revenue. Before approving a full-time seat, compare the cost factors behind a full-time marketing hire with the scope and duration of the work.
Seven paid and organic channel specialists
Ben Bono
Paid search strategy tied to acquisition economics and customer retention
Ben is a growth-focused marketing leader whose expertise covers strategy, paid search, paid social, email, and lifecycle marketing. His background spans finance, technology, and e-commerce, giving him context for both customer acquisition and the work required to keep customers engaged and converting.
He runs and scales campaigns across Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, and other major channels. Ben can shape positioning and testing roadmaps at the strategic level. Then he works in the campaign data himself, against acquisition cost, revenue and repeat-purchase growth. That combination suits companies that need paid search decisions aligned with business goals and unit economics, not managed in isolation.
Charis Solomon
Paid social scaling, funnel design, and practical brand guidance
Charis has directly overseen $22 million in paid social spend across 14 months. During that period, she scaled campaigns while lowering CPA by 17% year over year. Her core platform experience is concentrated on major social networks, with some familiarity across Reddit and LinkedIn.
Her work spans B2B and B2C brands in technology, e-commerce, and subscription models. Charis helps clients structure and optimize funnels across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, including situations where the budget cannot support extensive A/B testing. She also contributes to market research and creates practical brand-voice documentation.
Casey Burke
SEO content built through research, editing, and clear organization
Casey is a content writer and editor with experience in an SEM agency environment. He has produced SEO-optimized blog posts, feature articles, social media micro-content, email, business SOPs, and creative work.
As a director of content for a social networking app for musicians, Casey plans, writes, edits, and optimizes blog content. His strengths include research, organization, adaptability, and translating complex or unfamiliar subjects into useful material for readers and search performance. He fits an organic growth brief where editorial quality and SEO execution need to reinforce each other.
Jon Carmen
Large-scale native advertising with structured performance testing
Jon specializes in native advertising across Taboola, Outbrain, Yahoo Gemini, and similar networks. He manages more than $2 million in monthly native advertising spend for direct-to-consumer clients, with a focus on maintaining positive ROI at scale.
His experience includes financial services, direct-to-consumer brands, e-commerce, lead generation, mobile applications, consumer and B2B technology, events, media, and subscriptions. Jon is particularly relevant to brands already running native advertising that want sharper testing, stronger performance, or another expert perspective on an established program.
Becca Freeman
E-commerce storytelling, lifecycle strategy, and subscription retention
Becca is a strategic marketing leader with deep experience in e-commerce and subscription businesses. She develops brand and growth strategies that combine storytelling, email marketing, and upper-funnel channels such as linear television.
Her work as a podcaster and content creator informs her approach to audience insight, narrative, and community building. Becca translates those strengths into campaigns grounded in performance. She is especially strong in lifecycle and retention programs designed to turn casual shoppers into loyal, long-term customers.
Giselle Cervantes
Analytical growth strategy supported by Meta Ads and paid acquisition
Giselle is a senior growth marketing consultant who helps businesses scale through comprehensive growth strategies. Her work includes paid acquisition channels such as Meta Ads, with decisions informed by campaign data.
She focuses on implementation as well as strategy, using analysis to optimize campaigns and support sustainable, long-term growth. Her client work and case studies document her track record. Giselle fits teams pursuing aggressive growth targets that need channel activity connected to a broader growth plan.
Brooke Bourlet
Paid-traffic journeys, landing-page testing, and e-commerce conversion
Brooke has hands-on experience across several e-commerce categories and understands how different business models perform in search. She adapts messaging and strategy for paid traffic, monitors campaign data for improvement opportunities, and uses structured tests to validate new tactics.
Her conversion work extends beyond the ad account. Brooke collaborates with product teams, research groups, and UX specialists to build user journeys and shape how customers move between ads and landing pages. She is a practical fit when paid traffic is present but the path to purchase needs systematic conversion work.
Questions to ask any talent partner
A polished candidate profile is only the start. Ask questions that expose how the partner defines fit and what will happen once work begins.
- How is channel fit established? Ask for the evidence used to distinguish a paid-search operator from a broad acquisition marketer.
- Who will own execution? Clarify whether the person you interview will work directly in the account, advise your team, or do both.
- How will success be measured? Set the primary business metric, supporting channel metrics, reporting cadence, and decision rights before kickoff.
- What does the engagement require? Confirm hourly expectations, contract structure, fees, deposits, and the process for ending or changing the engagement.
- What happens when the fit is wrong? Get the timing, conditions, and next steps in writing. A replacement policy is useful only when everyone understands how it works.
- Can the scope change? Determine whether a tactical brief can expand into strategy or whether a new hire would be required.
Also decide whether freelance support fits the operating problem. The guide to why companies hire marketing freelancers can help frame that internal discussion. If you are comparing marketplaces as well as talent firms, this review of MarketerHire alternatives provides another useful lens.
Where each option fits
The firms in this comparison present themselves differently. Onward Search titles its homepage “Onward Search: AI Solutions and Talent.” Aquent uses “Aquent | Creative Staffing for What’s Next.” MarketerHire leads with “Hire the World’s Best Expert Marketers,” while Mayple calls itself “The NEW Way to Hire Top Marketing Talent.” Those statements tell you which sites are worth a closer look. They are not diligence. The role, the engagement structure and the commercial terms still have to be checked firm by firm.
GrowTal is built for companies seeking vetted freelance and fractional marketing experts. The argument that matters here is narrower. A bench organized by channel discipline means a paid-search gap is filled by a paid-search practitioner, not a digital generalist. Channel coverage runs wider than paid media alone: SEO, SEM, paid and organic social, content, lifecycle, CRO, Amazon and programmatic, plus Interim CMO cover.
The matching process begins when you fill out the form and meet the GrowTal team. You then review hand-picked expert recommendations, speak with the experts, and start working together. GrowTal says companies can start as quickly as 48 hours, which is a best-case possibility rather than a guaranteed timeline.
You buy hours, not a contract term, and there is no hourly minimum to clear. Matching itself is free. The FAQ describes a 30-minute introductory call and a fully refundable $500 deposit, and the homepage lists a $300 Advanced Matching Service fee to initiate. Confirm which charges apply to your engagement before proceeding. The first five days are the real test. If the channel work is not landing, you can end it and be matched again, the FAQ sets that out.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a talent partner’s own positioning matter if I only need one channel filled?
It can, for the reason set out above: what a firm leads with tells you where its attention sits. That is a prompt to check scope fit, not a criticism of anyone’s capability. Ask whether your channel brief fits the partner’s current proposition, how channel-specific experience gets assessed, and who confirms that the person presented can own the work you are actually buying.
What should I ask to test channel experience rather than channel exposure?
Use a real account scenario. Ask the candidate to diagnose a performance change, identify the data they would inspect first, and explain which action they would take and why. Then probe for tradeoffs: what would make them reverse that decision, what can the platform data not tell them, and how would they report uncertainty? Specific reasoning reveals operating experience more clearly than a list of platforms.
Is a paid search specialist interchangeable with a paid social specialist?
No. Paid search captures and shapes existing intent through queries, match types, bids, feeds, and landing pages. Paid social creates demand through audiences, creative, placements, and rapid message testing. Both specialists manage budgets and conversion data, but their daily judgment differs. A strong operator may understand both channels, yet experience in one does not automatically prove hands-on competence in the other.
What happens if the discipline I need is not covered?
GrowTal publishes coverage for SEO, SEM, paid social, content, email and lifecycle, organic social, CRO, Amazon, programmatic, creative, UX/UI, copywriting, and Strategy / Interim CMO. If your requirement falls outside those disciplines, ask GrowTal directly whether it can support the exact scope. Published coverage should guide the first conversation, but it should not be stretched into a promise about an unlisted specialty.
Choose the option whose published proposition and working terms match the problem you have defined. For a search account that needs direct specialist attention, explore vetted search engine marketing expertise through GrowTal.
