Your ad spend and your community can't wait for a hire.
Someone left. The campaigns didn't stop, the comments didn't stop, and the replacement is six weeks away at best. We cover the gap in days — managing the spend and answering the community until your new hire is in the seat.
Cover ends when the gap does. A week's notice, not the ninety days an agency asks for.
What the gap actually costs
Six weeks is a fast hire — search, notice period, onboarding. That's a month and a half of budget moving with nobody at the controls.
Still spending. Right now.
This is your own arithmetic, not a claim about waste — we've no idea yet how well your accounts are set up. The point is simply that the meter doesn't pause while a seat is empty, and somebody should be watching it.
Nobody budgets for the gap
Companies plan for campaigns, launches and headcount. They don't plan for their PPC lead handing in notice on a Tuesday, or their community manager going on leave three weeks before peak season.
So the work gets absorbed. A founder takes the ad account "temporarily". A designer starts answering comments. Everyone is busy and nobody owns it — and the account quietly drifts while the search for a replacement drags on.
That's the only thing we do: hold the line between one specialist leaving and the next one starting.
We found the gap by standing in one
Our client's head of account managers went on leave for a week and a half. They asked us to hold her accounts until she was back.
That wasn't the plan. In June, the chief executive of a US digital marketing company got in touch directly — we'd worked with them a couple of years earlier, he'd liked the work, and he wanted that skill back part-time rather than wait out a hire. A few weeks in, one of their managers went on leave, and her accounts needed someone.
Nothing drifted and nothing broke. They were handed back in the state they were found. That week and a half is why this company exists — because it made the gap obvious, and made it obvious that nobody is selling the answer to it.
Agencies want retainers and long commitments. Freelancers disappear. Recruiters take six weeks and a fee. So we built the plain thing instead: cover, starting in days, ending when your hire is in the seat.
What we cover
Two roles, properly held — not a generalist spreading themselves across both.
Paid search & social
- Day-to-day campaign management across Google, Meta, LinkedIn and TikTok
- Budget pacing, bid and targeting adjustments
- Catching spend leaks, and anything odd overnight, before your working day starts
- A written weekly read on what moved, and why
Community management
- Comments, DMs and mentions answered in your brand's voice
- Escalation of anything needing a human decision from your side
- Answered overnight — we work six hours ahead of US Eastern, so replies land before your morning
- Flagging what the community is actually telling you
Founding rate, and an easy way out
Cover starts at a founding rate for your first three months. After that it moves to our standard rate — and only if you decide we've earned it.
| Months 1–3 | Month 4 onward | |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | $25 / hr | $45 / hr |
| Coverage Lite — 20 hrs / mo | $500 / mo | $900 / mo |
| Coverage Standard — 40 hrs / mo | $1,000 / mo | $1,700 / mo |
- No employment contract, and no probation gamble.
- No CCMA exposure — there's no employment relationship to end.
- No retrenchment process and no severance — a week's notice winds it down.
- Cover starts in days, not the months a hire takes to find and settle in.
Rates are quoted in rand and scoped to what you actually need covered — tell us what's uncovered and we'll send them the same day.
Try us for three months at the founding rate. At the end of it you either think we're worth the standard rate — or you don't, and we wind down. A week's notice, not the ninety days an agency will ask for.
How it starts
A fifteen-minute call
What's running, what's most at risk, and when your replacement realistically starts. If we're not the right fit we'll say so on the call.
Access and audit
We're into the accounts within a day, and you get a written read on what we found within forty-eight hours — including anything already leaking budget.
Cover starts
Campaigns managed, community answered, a written report every week. You carry on hiring at your own pace, without the pressure of an empty seat.
Questions worth asking
How quickly can you actually start?
Access on day one, a written audit inside forty-eight hours, and full cover running within the first week. The whole offer is built around the fact that you needed someone last month.
What happens when we do hire someone?
That's the point — cover ends when the gap closes. Give us a week's notice so we can hand over properly, and we'll invoice for the cover you've had to that point. We'll brief your new hire on what we changed and why, if that helps. Handing back a well-run account is the whole job.
Have you actually done this before?
Yes — the first time without meaning to. During our current engagement the client's head of account managers went on leave for a week and a half, and we were asked to hold her client accounts until she was back. That is exactly this job, and it is what made us build the company around it. What we won't claim is a long list of coverage engagements. LZBTH is young, and the free audit exists so you can judge the work rather than take our word for the record.
Can you name clients or share case studies?
No — we don't name who we work with, as policy. If you're covering a gap you'd probably rather your competitors didn't hear about it, and you get the same protection. We'll also not take on a direct competitor in your category while we're covering you. What we will do is show you our work on your own account, free, before you commit to anything.
Is this just one freelancer?
No — there are two of us, doing different jobs. A paid-media specialist who runs the accounts, and an account manager who is your single point of contact. You are never waiting on one person who is buried in an ad account and can't reply.
Are we locked into a term?
No minimum term and nothing that auto-renews behind your back. The founding rate runs three months because that's roughly how long a hire takes, not because you're tied in for it — and cover ends whenever you stop needing it, on a week's notice. You pay for the cover you've had, and that's the end of it.
Tell us what's uncovered.
One email with your platforms, rough monthly spend and when the seat opened up is enough for us to tell you whether we can help — and roughly what it would cost.
— Mark Akol and team
LZBTH is Elizabeth with letters missing.
It still reads perfectly. A team missing a person can too.