Most paid media is judged on the wrong number.
Platform dashboards tell you what platform wants you to hear. We report against the number that actually decides if it was worth doing — cost per acquisition against customer value.
What is performance marketing?
Advertising measured against a business outcome rather than exposure. A lead, a sale or a booking at a cost agreed in advance. If nobody can tell you the target cost per acquisition and what happens when a campaign exceeds it, that is media buying with a report attached.
- Platform dashboards are written by the platform — they grade their own homework
- The number that matters is what you paid to acquire a customer against what that customer is worth
- Rules published before spend, in writing
- We will recommend spending less regularly
| Question | What it decides |
|---|---|
| What is a conversion worth? | Deal value, margin, close rate, lifetime value |
| What can you afford to pay? | Target CPA derived from margin and close rate |
| Where is the demand? | Platform choice based on where your buyers actually are |
| What creative will they respond to? | Message, format, hook — tested, not assumed |
| How do we know it worked? | Revenue, not impressions. MER, not platform-reported ROAS |
Why businesses need performance marketing work
Most paid media is judged on the wrong number. Platform dashboards are written by the platform. Google will tell you Google worked. Meta will tell you Meta worked. Add up what each one claims and you will find they converted 140% of your actual sales between them.
The patterns we see most
Cost per lead triples when you scale
That is not a bidding problem. That is a market size, offer or creative problem wearing a bidding costume.
Reports look great, revenue does not follow
Vanity metrics — impressions, clicks, reach — mask the real question: what did you pay to acquire a customer?
Attribution conflict between platforms
Both platforms counted some of the same customers. Each one grades its own homework. Nobody is looking at the real number.
Creative fatigue kills campaigns
Your audience has seen the ad and stopped responding. The only real fix is fresh creative, not a new bid strategy.
Wasted spend on branded search
A large share of performance in most accounts is people who already knew your name. Counting them as acquisition inflates every number.
No conversion tracking
Google's automation optimises toward whatever signal it receives — a broken signal means the machine gets very good at finding the wrong outcome.
| Problem | What strategy does about it |
|---|---|
| Cost per lead triples at scale | Tests the ceiling honestly, reallocates to channels with room, fixes offer before spend |
| Reports look great, revenue flat | Reports against MER and revenue, not platform metrics |
| Attribution conflict | Uses Marketing Efficiency Ratio as the headline number, separates branded and non-branded |
| Creative fatigue | Continuous creative pipeline, hook testing, fatigue monitoring as a tracked metric |
| Wasted branded spend | Separates branded and non-branded from day one, shows the real acquisition cost |
| No conversion tracking | Tracking verified before spend, server-side setup, proper conversion definitions |
Why choose this service
Rules published before we spend
Allocation, kill thresholds, scaling limits, conversion definition — agreed at kickoff, in writing.
Branded and non-branded, always separated
A large share of "performance" in most accounts is people who already knew your name. We'll show you the number without them.
We'll recommend spending less
Regularly. Killing waste and stripping misattribution often produces the same revenue on a smaller budget — even though it costs us.
How our approach is different
We publish our rules before we spend. Allocation, kill thresholds, scaling limits, conversion definition — agreed at kickoff, in writing.
Rules published before we spend
Allocation, kill thresholds, scaling limits, conversion definition — agreed at kickoff, in writing.
Branded and non-branded, always separated
A large share of performance in most accounts is people who already knew your name. We will show you the number without them.
We will recommend spending less
Regularly. Killing waste and stripping misattribution often produces the same revenue on a smaller budget.
MER as the headline number
Total revenue over total marketing spend. Not platform-reported ROAS, which grades its own homework.
Creative is the lever, not the bid
Automation took the bidding. What is left is the creative pipeline, and an agency without one is fiddling with settings.
What's included
Everything you need under one roof — no juggling multiple agencies.
Google Ads
Capturing demand that already exists.
Meta Ads
Creating demand that didn't exist ten seconds ago.
TikTok Ads
Where the creative is the targeting.
LinkedIn Ads
Expensive, precise, and correct for a narrow set of businesses.
Email Marketing
The channel you own, aimed at people who already raised a hand.
Lead Generation
The whole path from a stranger to a qualified conversation.
The strategy process is the same. The answers are never the same.
The constraint moves by industry. Same six questions, wildly different answers, and an agency running one template across all of them is guessing on at least eight of the ten.
| Industry | Where the constraint usually sits |
|---|---|
| Construction | Tender-stage leads, local search, project proof |
| Healthcare | Compliant advertising, appointment intent, trust |
| Finance | Long consideration, authority, claim control |
| Legal | Practice-area intent, local competition, consultation |
| Education | Enrolment cycles, dual audience, seasonal |
| Hospitality | Direct booking, review velocity, local visibility |
| Manufacturing | Long B2B cycles, spec-level buyer, LinkedIn |
| Technology / SaaS | Product-led, trial signups, retention |
| Retail | Seasonal campaigns, local inventory, ROAS |
| Ecommerce | Feed quality, ROAS ceiling, contribution margin |
| Professional services | Referral amplification, lead qualification |
Our process
Eight stages: Discover, Research, Strategy, Implementation, Testing, Optimisation, Reporting, Growth. Stages one to three produce the plan. Everything after is where the plan meets reality.
| # | Stage |
|---|---|
| 1 | Discover |
| 2 | Research |
| 3 | Strategy |
| 4 | Implementation |
| 5 | Testing |
| 6 | Optimisation |
| 7 | Reporting |
| 8 | Growth |
Discover
We need your margin. Not your revenue, your margin, plus deal size, close rate, cycle length. Those numbers decide whether a channel can even work for you.
Research
Who else is in the auction, what does demand actually look like at your price point, what creative formats are working.
Strategy
Platforms, split, structure, and the rules. Kill thresholds and scaling limits get written down. If a stakeholder disagrees, this is the stage to have that fight.
Implementation
Tracking first, and this is a gate, not a preference. Every conversion event verified before spend scales.
Testing
Staged launch. Budget sufficient to exit the learning phase, because a starved ad account produces noise.
Optimisation
The actual job. Creative is the primary lever on Meta and TikTok, structure and bids on Google. Test against a stated hypothesis.
Reporting
Monthly against the KPI from stage 1, with a recommendation and a kill list attached.
Growth
Once something is stable and profitable, widen it. New audiences, new platforms, new creative formats.
Key takeaways
- check_circleThe rules are written before the first dollar is spent.
- check_circleBranded and non-branded are always reported separately.
- check_circleCreative is the primary lever on Meta and TikTok.
- check_circleMER is the headline number, not platform ROAS.
Tools and platforms we use to deliver results
We pick the right tools for the job, not the ones we have a reseller relationship with.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about working with us.
Advertising measured against a business outcome rather than exposure. A lead, a sale or a booking at a cost agreed in advance. If nobody can tell you the target cost per acquisition and what happens when a campaign exceeds it, that's media buying with a report attached.
Enough that each platform can exit the learning phase, and no more than your margin supports. Underfunding two platforms is worse than properly funding one. We'll tell you the floor before you commit.
Data within days, reliable signal in two to four weeks once the learning phase clears, meaningful optimisation from month two. Anyone promising results in week one is describing spend, not results.
No, and be careful with anyone who does. We commit to the target, the rules, the process and honest reporting against them. Your competitors also get a vote in the auction.
Because both platforms counted some of the same customers. Each one grades its own homework. This is why we use Marketing Efficiency Ratio (total revenue over total marketing spend) as the headline number.
The period where a platform's algorithm gathers enough conversion data to optimise reliably. Significant budget changes and campaign edits reset it — which is why we scale at 20% rather than doubling.
Three usual causes: your addressable demand is smaller than the budget assumes, your offer can't compete at the price the auction demands as you go broader, or the scaling was too aggressive and reset the learning phase.