About Tactical Digital Marketing
Most agencies will not tell you who is actually going to work on your account. You meet a salesperson, sign, and then get handed to someone you have never spoken to.
That is not how this works. Tactical Digital Marketing is a Google Partner agency in Pretoria, and when you call, you get me.
The person running your account
I am Athan Coutselinis. I founded Tactical Digital Marketing in 2022, after twelve years running search campaigns for South African businesses.
Before that, and for eleven years alongside it, I ran operations for a national franchise — branches first, then a distribution centre serving 180 stores. I built their stock forecasting model off historical sales data, because the guesswork was costing money.
That is the same instinct I bring to an ad account: look at what actually happened, work out what it predicts, then spend accordingly. Most marketers have never had to answer to a P&L. It changes what you think a campaign is for.
I hold Google Ads Search and AI-Powered Shopping Ads certifications, and the agency is a certified Google Partner. My full career history is on LinkedIn.
The technical side
Search work is half marketing and half engineering. Site architecture, load speed, tracking that survives a redesign, schema that actually validates — that is development work, and most agencies hand it to whoever is cheapest that month.
The technical SEO framework we work to is my own, built and refined over years of auditing sites and fixing what the standard checklists miss. The engineering that implements it comes from Sovereign IT, the technical team we build with — over two decades in enterprise systems integration, across financial services, API design and security. The kind of systems where a fault costs someone real money.
That is why our technical SEO is not a checklist. The specification is mine, and the build is done to enterprise standards by our partners. You still deal with me throughout.
How we work
Data first, opinion second. Every strategy starts with what the search data says — real query volumes, real intent, real competitor positions. Not what worked for someone else’s business in another market.
You will understand your reporting. Monthly, in plain language, showing what was spent and what it returned. If a report needs a glossary, it is a bad report.
Tracking before spending. If we cannot measure what an ad returns, we fix that before we scale the budget. A surprising number of accounts we audit have been spending for years without working conversion tracking.
No lock-in for the sake of it. Audits, consulting, once-off projects or monthly retainers. If a retainer is not right for where your business is, we will say so.
What we do
Google Ads strategy, management and audits. Search engine optimisation — technical, local and ongoing monthly management. Meta Ads across Facebook and Instagram. Website design, hosting and subscription websites. GA4 and conversion tracking set up properly.
You can see the detail on our services, or go straight to Google Ads management, SEO services or website packages.
Where we work
We are based in Pretoria and work with businesses across Pretoria, Centurion, Midrand and Johannesburg. We run entirely as a service-area business — no walk-in office — which means meetings happen where it suits you or online, and the overhead that would otherwise sit in a lease goes into the work instead.
If you are a Pretoria business specifically, there is more detail on our Pretoria digital marketing page.
What clients say
Talk to the person who will do the work
If your ads are spending and you cannot tell what they are returning, that is usually the first thing worth fixing — and it is a conversation, not a pitch.
Call 070 710 5549, WhatsApp the same number, or use the contact page. You will speak to me.