About · Roy Jenks

I spent years frustrated with marketing. Now I do it for a living.

Fifteen years in SEO and digital marketing. Former founder, in-house marketing lead, and operator inside two of the platforms that shaped how search-optimised content gets built today. I work with a small number of B2B and SaaS companies — at whatever depth the work needs.

Roy Jenks · Warsaw · 2026
01 The story

Before any of this, I ran an online training platform. I was the founder — which meant I was also the marketing director, the SEO lead, the content manager, the paid ads buyer, and about eleven other things depending on the week. I knew marketing mattered. I didn't have time to get good at it.

So I did what most founders do. I hired agencies.

The results were mediocre. Not disastrous — just consistently underwhelming. I'd get monthly reports full of metrics that didn't connect to revenue. Juniors on my account. Strategies that looked the same as every other client's strategy. When I asked hard questions, the answers got vague.

When I eventually sold that business, I made a decision: I wasn't going to be on the frustrated side of that table again. I was going to learn this work properly, from the inside.

That was fifteen years ago.

What I've done since.

I went deep into SEO and digital marketing. I worked in content production at Surfer SEO and MarketMuse — two of the platforms that defined how search-optimised content and topic authority get built at scale. That gave me the machinery: how rankings actually work, how content earns authority, what's signal and what's noise.

I've worked with Fortune 500 companies and with regional B2B businesses. Different scales, same fundamentals.

I spent time in-house, heading up marketing for a group of six companies. That's where I learned the part agencies don't teach you: how marketing actually functions inside a business. How to hire, how to report to a board, how to fight for budget, how to make strategy survive contact with sales and product and the CEO's new idea from a podcast.

And I've worked from the agency side too, as a strategist — which meant seeing the other end of the conversation I used to be on as a founder.

What I do now.

I take on a small number of clients. I offer four ways to work together — SEO Strategist, Content Engine, AI Agents for Marketing, and Fractional CMO — and the engagement shapes itself around what's actually missing.

Some clients want the whole marketing function run. Some have a good team and just need a strategist who's seen this before. Some want a content system that works without being a content mill. Some want AI agents integrated into their stack by someone who's built and shipped them, not just demoed them.

What's consistent across all of it: one client, one relationship. I'm not building an agency. I'm not hiring a team to put juniors on your account. If you work with me, you work with me.

I own the thinking. Execution runs through your team, a freelancer I'll help you find, or one of my productised systems. You get senior strategy without paying agency rates for junior execution.

What I'm not.

I'm not an agency and I don't want to be one. I'm not going to pitch you. I'm not going to send you a 40-slide deck. The first conversation is a conversation; by the end of it, we'll both know if there's a fit.

I'm also not the cheapest option. Experienced operators who take on a small number of clients rarely are.

And I'm not going to do the execution work myself. That's a feature, not a bug — it's what keeps the strategy sharp and the pricing honest. You pay for the thinking. The doing runs through the right person for the task, which is almost never me.

02 The resume, short version

Fifteen years, in five lines.

The things that matter, without the LinkedIn padding.

2009 — 2012
Founder, online training platform
Built and sold a training business. Did every marketing job myself. Got it wrong, learned why.
2012 — Present
SEO & digital marketing
Fifteen years in the discipline. Clients range from Fortune 500 to regional B2B.
Platform roles
Surfer SEO & MarketMuse
Worked inside the content-optimisation platforms that defined how topical authority gets built at scale.
In-house
Head of marketing, group of six companies
Ran the function across six businesses. Board reporting, hiring, budget ownership, the whole job.
Agency side
Senior strategist
Worked as a strategist inside agencies — saw the other side of the conversation I used to have as a founder.
03 What I believe

Four things I've stopped arguing about.

After fifteen years, some of this stops being opinion and starts being how I work. Non-negotiables, essentially.

— 01

Strategy is where the money is.

Execution is labor. Anyone can be trained to do it, and freelancers or junior hires do it well enough. What's rare — and worth paying for — is someone who decides what to execute, in what order, for which outcome.

— 02

Small lists, or nothing.

The moment I take on too many clients, the work gets worse. I've watched every agency I've worked with learn this lesson the hard way. I'd rather turn work away than dilute what I'm doing for the clients I already have.

— 03

Marketing is measured in revenue.

Not traffic, not rankings, not impressions. If I can't connect the work I'm doing to revenue or pipeline, I'm doing the wrong work — and I'll tell you so before you spend money on it.

— 04

AI is a tool, not a product.

Companies are being sold AI tools. What they need is AI operators — people who know which work is worth automating, which isn't, and how to make the two fit together. That's what I build.

04 If this sounds like what you need

Let's talk.

One conversation. No pitch deck. By the end of it, we'll both know whether this is worth building on — and if it isn't, I'll tell you what I think you need instead.

roy@royjenks.com — OR — Book a 30-min call