When marketing "isn't working," the channel is rarely the culprit. The problem is usually upstream, in the offer, the fit, or a funnel that leaks before the ad ever gets a fair shot.
Most marketing problems get blamed on the wrong thing. The ads. The agency. The channel of the month. So the fix is always to spend more, or switch platforms, and hope.
The channel is rarely the culprit. When marketing is not working, the problem is usually upstream. The offer is weak. The fit is off. Or the funnel leaks before the ad ever gets a fair shot.
So before I touch the ad account, I check the vitals. An audit is a blood test for your business: it shows the real diagnosis under the symptom you can feel, and like any blood test it takes a good doctor to read it and prescribe the fix. You run the vitals check before you write the prescription.
Nine times out of ten the money is not in a new channel. It is in fixing what happens before and after the click. A sharper offer. A page that converts. A follow-up that does not drop the lead.
If you are spending more and getting less, the answer is probably not another campaign. It is to bring in a fractional CMO to fix it upstream. Fix the upstream, and the same spend starts to work.
Articles
First posts coming.
This pillar is next in the writing queue. In the meantime, the flagship data and analytics pillar has live articles.
Tell me what feels off, and I’ll read the raw data to tell you what’s actually broken.