Commonsense Marketing

Annette Welsford is the founder of Commonsense Marketing, an Australian digital agency she launched after a corporate marketing career spanning Australia and the UK. She holds a Masters in Marketing and spent more than three decades in senior marketing roles at large companies before starting her own firm, with the stated aim of giving small business owners access to the kind of strategy and execution typically reserved for corporates. The agency's About page dates her founding the business to 1992, though elsewhere the site references 18-20 years of digital marketing work, suggesting the digital-focused incarnation of the firm is the more relevant timeline.

Welsford describes her role as Chief Happiness Officer and focuses on marketing strategy, copywriting, and client success. Her thesis, reading between the lines of the site, is that small and mid-sized service and ecommerce businesses are poorly served by either DIY tools or churn-and-burn agencies, and that sustained results come from a consistent team handling website, SEO, and paid media as an integrated stack rather than siloed tactics. The agency points to client relationships lasting five-plus years as evidence of that approach.

The team has grown to include a General Manager (Joseph Tamondong) and a technical lead (Mike Luciano), with additional specialists across SEO, ads, and development. The firm is not plumbing-exclusive; its client base spans trades, holiday parks, legal, accounting, IT, and ecommerce. The public founder story is substantive on background and philosophy but lighter on specific named career milestones or credentials beyond the Masters and corporate tenure.