In this episode of Growing Your Agency, host Ryan Shank interviews Christian Stewart, co‑founder of Spigot, an internet advertising agency that specializes in pay‑per‑click (PPC) and traffic monetization for content publishers. Stewart explains how Spigot acquires clients through outbound outreach that highlights traffic‑optimization opportunities, and how the agency’s pricing is primarily a percentage of ad spend with client‑specific retainers. The conversation covers the agency’s service mix—SEO, social, content creation—and the tools they rely on, notably Ahrefs’ content‑gap feature for competitive keyword research. Content production is handled largely in‑house by Stewart, but scales via freelance platforms such as Fiverr, Textbroker, and Upwork. Stewart shares Spigot’s rapid hiring surge, adding roughly 100 employees in a year to support hyper‑growth. Reporting cadence is flexible, ranging from daily to monthly, based on client preference. The interview wraps with personal touches about Stewart’s morning routine, news sources, Reddit activity, and coffee preferences, and provides contact details for Spigot.
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What's up guys, welcome back to another episode of Growing Your Agency. Today here with Christian Stewart from Spigot. Christian, thank you so much for joining.
Yeah, thanks, this is exciting.
Yeah man, so tell us a little bit about Spigot. Tell us about, you know, the agency, why you got started, how you got started, give us a little, give us a backstory.
Yeah, Spigot is an internet advertising agency. Pay-per-click ads is our business and yeah, I got started with them a couple years ago and it's grown super quickly and it's been really exciting.
Awesome. So tell me, I guess, how long have you been there? A couple years, you said? Okay, awesome. How do you guys acquire clients today?
I mean, we have a team of salespeople that's just really reaching out to people, scouring the internet, trying to find out where people are and then figuring out who's behind the sites and how we can get them more traffic, just constantly looking for opportunities.
So when you go, I guess, outreach to them, outbound, whatever it is, you find their site, you see them, what's, I guess, like the hook or what's the angle? Are you saying, hey, can you take more clients? Hey, I noticed something because I get a bunch of people that reach out to us and a lot of times some of them, hey, I have a tip for for you. So just curious on kind of like the tactic that's used when you're kind of going outbound.
Yeah, I mean, we focus on sites that, you know, they may already be doing some advertising or something and, you know, we have a big enough team that we kind of have worked with, you know, enough people and kind of seen what works and what doesn't that we just like, you know, we see optimizations that could be made and we just go, hey, you know, do you want to be doing, you know, 20% more, you need more traffic, whatever, like, we can deliver that. So it's just seeing what's out there already and then, you know, letting them know how they could improve and that's what we help them with.
Awesome, awesome. So then, alright, so you got the clients coming in, you see the improvements, what do you guys offer for them? So it looks like you do like, you know, SEO, it looks like you do some social media, paid ads, what's What's kind of, I guess, your bread and butter? And then, you know, when you report to them, are you reporting on like a number of leads, cost per lead, you know, kind of how does that relationship look like?
Yeah, so I mean, we would function as like an affiliate basically. So for whatever traffic we send them, they would pay us, you know, based on how much traffic they're getting and then per user we get, We get paid like on a per thousand basis or whatever it is.
So, okay. So you are charging them essentially for ad spend or not? Or just, so not a managed, so it's basically a percentage of ad spend.
Exactly.
Got it. And then you also have like a retainer or management fee on top of that, or is it simply a function of just percentage of ad spend?
That just honestly depends completely on the client and what they're trying to do.
Okay. Got it. Got it. And then what kind of tools are you guys using? Like, so when you go in and you get a new client, let's say, you know, what are some types of clients, by the way, that you guys are working working with?
It's honestly just kind of across the board. Anybody who's running content sites even, that's one of our main focuses is just publishers, really. It's just anybody putting content out there that wants to monetize that.
Got it, got it. And so are you working with any service businesses or dentist companies, things like that, that are driving actual lead forms or is it people that are just trying to monetize traffic?
Yeah, it's just monetizing traffic. That's pretty much.
Okay, cool. And then what kind of tools are you guys using when you want to, like, if you get a new client and you want to like see areas, like, are you using, you know, SpyFu, SEMrush, anything like that?
Or a tool that I use a lot. So I'm focused more on the social media and SEO side. I use Ahrefs like constantly.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's definitely one of my favorite tools. That's super helpful if you're looking for organic opportunities.
What do you look for the most in there? Do you look for backlinks or do you look for high-performing content from competitor sites? What kind of views are you looking at inside of Ahrefs?
Yeah, so I use the content gap tool a lot. So what I do with that is I just look at my competitors' sites and see what keywords they're ranking for.
And then organic, right? And then what pages they're going to.
Exactly. And then, um, I will make content to, you know, hopefully get my client's sites ranking for those exact keywords.
Got it. And then, so in terms of like the actual agency, so you said you're, you're kind of focused on like the social and like organic side of the house. You create, you said you make the content. Yeah. Do you have like an in-house, you know, in-house copywriters and designers? Do you, do you guys, uh, you know, outsource that? Like, who creates the actual content?
Um, so a lot of that is me. Um, but you know, if I, if I need to scale that, then it's like, you know, I'll use tools like Fiverr or Textbroker or Upwork to get, to get that content. But a lot of that is done in-house.
Got it. It's so funny, almost every single person that I've talked to is using Upwork in some, you know, part of their, their agency or another. I think it's a a good— we actually had a conversation the other day about Upwork versus Fiverr. I'm actually curious, what are your thoughts? Which one do you like better when trying to source talent or certain service?
So honestly, I haven't worked much with Upwork. I've used Fiverr a lot more. So like, that's the one I have experience with. I have noticed that a lot of the work on Fiverr is, I mean, kind of low quality. So you have to be, you know, kind of careful with what you with who you go with and give super specific direction to them or else you're not going to get a very good product. But yeah, it's definitely super helpful.
It's interesting. I've been using just recently like 99designs, but not the contest. I used it in the past where you post the contest or whatever. I've been using it recently to just hire directly, almost like you would do on a Fiverr or Upwork. I should probably compare compare the two to see which one's better. Yeah. Cool. So, so in terms of like clients, like how many clients are you guys able to take on? Like what's, what's the goal right now, I guess, of the agency? Is it more like retaining and kind of growing into, into those clients or is it like, hey, let's just acquire more? What is, what is, I guess, the mindset and the approach? Cause you know, some people want just more of like this kind of like intimate, you know, agency where they're like, working with a few clients. What's your take on that?
Yeah, I mean, we've definitely been in like hyper growth mode, so it's constantly bringing on new people. I mean, honestly, it's kind of funny 'cause we've like, since I've been here, we've hired like probably 100 people, just like growing like crazy. Yeah, it's been huge, but—
That's crazy.
So we've definitely, yeah, gone after more clients. The ones we have, obviously, You know, want to get them going as fast as possible and kind of, you know, scale up what they're doing. But for the most part, yeah, it's just bringing on more clients, working with more people.
More people. Awesome. Cool. And when you're talking with clients right now and you guys are doing like, I guess, the reporting back to them, what are some of the metrics that I guess like you're measured on and like what is the cadence of the reporting that when you're talking to a client? Is it, you say it's weekly, monthly?
So as far as reporting goes, it honestly depends on what the client wants. Some are like, hey, you know, let's check in once a week. Some it's like, just let us know at the end of the month, you know, how much we spent and, you know, what returns we can expect on that. It's kind of so like my role, I'm not very client-facing. It's just kind of in addition on the back end, I guess. So I'm not really dealing with clients, but you know, the people that are, it could be every day or it could be once a month.
Yep. Um, awesome. And then, uh, when you're— when you guys are looking to, you know, bring on a new client, like, what is the— like, what is the proposal process that you go through? It's like, you know, someone sources it, someone on the sales team, I'm assuming, then they come on board, like what does it look like? And again, maybe this is kind of out of like what you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis, but you know, are you guys like doing a demo or are you doing like a site audit and saying like, hey, here's some areas of improvement? What is that? What is that?
I think it's just, it's kind of like, yeah, going through their site, seeing, you know, what their traffic opportunities are and you know, what they can expect to gain and then Um, just, you know, trying to get an idea of what they want to do and then just getting started. Honestly, there's not, not a huge process there. It's just kind of, you know, tell us your numbers and let's, let's get going on, going on it.
Yeah. Um, awesome. So just going to wrap this up. We like to stay like fast, action-packed, and tactical. Um, last question we ask everyone: what is your morning routine?
Ooh, so I don't know. First thing I do is kind of check the news, I guess. So Reddit or Hacker News is another site I really like.
Do you have a lot of karma on Reddit? Do you like post and stuff?
Sorta. I have a couple accounts. I think the one with the most has like 1,200. So I don't—
What's the weirdest username of an account that you have on Reddit? I don't know.
The one I've been using is randomness talk. I think that might have been the default one that Reddit set me up with, but—
The auto-generated one?
Yeah, right.
All right. So you check the news.
Check the news, get some coffee, and then it's just kind of get to work. Check Ahrefs, see how my sites are doing, and then yeah, get to work.
Get to work. Do you like cow milk, or are you an almond milk guy in your coffee?
So I'm a cream guy. Just give me all the fat. Give me— wow.
Yeah, first cream guy we've had on the podcast. That's all right. That's awesome.
I'm honored.
Yeah, no, it's huge, huge honor. All right, Christian Stewart, thank you so much for joining us today. Christian Stewart from Bigit, Spigot, how do— where do they find you guys if they want to find you or, uh, or your company?
Um, yeah, we're online at spigot.com. Um, we're located in Florida. And yeah, find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook at Spigot.
All right, awesome, Christian. Thank you so much for joining us today on Growing Your Agency.
