About Citamark
Performance is a system. We help install it.
Citamark is a digital marketing operations consultancy for multi-location and growth-stage marketing teams. Founded by Jake Hodges, New Braunfels TX.
Where this came from
Built in the work. Shaped by what scale actually requires.
I started in hospitality marketing. Hotels, restaurants, and the specific challenge of getting someone from "considering" to "booked" with limited budget and a lot of competition. That environment taught me to be direct about what was working and honest about what wasn't. Citamark came out of that period. The name is the mission: help businesses make a mark in their city. City, mark, Citamark.
The early Citamark work was organic, then paid media, then referrals. One of those early clients was a multi-location retailer, and running co-op campaigns alongside national brands was where I first saw the gap clearly: the bigger the account, the more the operational layer determines what's possible. Reporting, naming, attribution. When those are broken, no amount of campaign work closes the gap.
From there, I moved into a franchise marketing environment and ran the paid media buying team. We were advertising several hundred locations when I arrived. We rebuilt the operational layer until it could hold well over a thousand. Naming standards. Automated reporting across every location. Budget pacing that didn't require someone watching it. A small team running what would normally take a department many times its size. Scale didn't come from more headcount. It came from the system.
Today I work with an AI company where marketing systems and automation are part of the core product. I still support franchise clients when they need it. Citamark runs alongside all of that because the systems I know how to build should live inside more businesses. Not managed externally. Not dependent on a vendor. Inside the business, owned by the people who run it.
That's the mission. When the operational layer is solid, the people doing the work get to focus on what actually requires them. Less time chasing numbers. Less time rebuilding reports from scratch. The system holds the repetitive work so the team holds the strategy. I want that for every business we work with.
Outside the work: home is New Braunfels, Texas, with my wife Emily. Weekends are for dirtbikes.
Performance is a system. We help install it.
What we believe
The beliefs that drive how we build, sell, and operate.
Performance is a system.
The marketers who win at scale are the ones whose systems hold the work. Cross-location reporting that arrives without anyone building it. Naming conventions that prevent attribution chaos. Automated alerts that catch problems before they cost money. Talent matters. Systems compound.
The operational layer matters more than the campaigns.
Most marketing leaders focus on creative, targeting, and budget. Those things matter. But the floor underneath them matters more. If reporting is manual, naming is inconsistent, and nobody can compare channel to channel, no amount of campaign optimization fixes the plateau.
Own the work. Don't outsource the system.
Agencies own the system. When the relationship ends, the data, the naming conventions, and the automation leave with them. We build operational systems that belong to the client. When we're done, you run it. That's the point.
Be specific. Show the work.
Vague consulting is easy. We describe exactly what we're building and why — the reporting infrastructure, the alert rules, the naming standards, the automation. If we can't explain what a system does in plain terms, we shouldn't be installing it.
The fit question
Who we work with. Who we don't.
Who we work best with
Marketing leaders who own meaningful digital marketing spend and want to understand what it's producing
Multi-location brands where performance varies by location and nobody can explain why
Growth-stage companies scaling across paid search, paid social, organic, SEO, email, social media, content, and web faster than their operational layer can handle
CMOs and Marketing Directors who want to own their performance data, not depend on an outside party to interpret it
Decision makers willing to share channel access and real performance numbers
Businesses where reporting is manual, attribution is broken, or results have plateaued across channels
Who we don't work with
Spend levels below where an operational system creates meaningful return
Teams unwilling to share account access and performance data
Operators looking for the cheapest possible option
Companies that want strategy decks without execution
Find out what's leaking before you spend another dollar.
If the work sounds like what your business needs, a diagnostic call is the right starting point. 20 minutes. Honest conversation about your accounts and your goals.