Ad Buying is Dead

I had a lengthy conversation with my colleague and friend, Justyna Wilson. She’s been a long-time fractional CMO our agency has had the pleasure of working with. While we agree on many things, she’s not a fan of paid media and believes it no longer works effectively and the need for an agency is 0% given targeting is not required anymore (to summarize her sentiment).

Many people agree with Justyna! At our agency, which focuses on ad strategy and ad buying, we aim to find brands that we can truly add value to through our channel-agnostic ad management.

The reason people this ad buying is dead is because they think ad campaigns no longer require audiences or targeting. So if “targeting is dead,” what value do we add? While targeting may be currently challenging, trends come in waves. It’s true that machine learning campaigns on Meta (Advantage+ Shopping) and Google (Performance Max) generally outperform custom-built audiences these days. However, it's not always the case. Having a team that can adapt, respond, and shift budgets between platforms in service of maximizing marketing efficiency ratio (MER) is always beneficial. That’s why we take a well-rounded approach, running Programmatic, TikTok, Pinterest, Meta, Google, and Spotify as our primary channel offerings, with other platforms in the mix as needed.

Who benefits most from our services? eCommerce brands making $3M-$10M in ARR. At this level, budgets are substantial, and campaigns are complex enough to require constant care and attention.

When Justyna is right: Justyna is correct, and we've tested this countless times: when a brand is new, still proving out product-market fit (PMF), and does not have earned or owned media established, paid ads aren’t a good fit. For brands making less than $30K a month and unable to spend more than $10K on advertising, paid ads aren't really suitable.

So what should brand new eCommerce brands do to scale? While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all rule, bootstrapped businesses generally cannot rely solely on advertising to grow.

First, they need to intimately understand their target persona and the buyer’s decision-making process to create content that addresses their needs. While persona details are no longer crucial for targeting, they are essential for creative. If the creative doesn’t resonate with the persona, the brand will fail to connect with its audience. Also, you’ll need more creative content than you think – aim for around 40 pieces of content per month.

From there, growth can come from earned media by getting early customers and creators to produce content about their products. Press and light press placements can also help spread the word. Within organic channels, brands should optimize their site for SEO and grow their social and CRM programs with relevant content for their target demographic.

Once this groundwork is laid, the next step is to start sparking and boosting brand and customer-generated content (CGC) on a small scale. Next, layer on Google Performance Max. If everything is done well, by the sixth month, the business can scale ad spend to $5-10K a month, setting it on the path to $1M ARR.

Starting an eCommerce business is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of time, effort, and money.

Ad buying is not dead; it’s just more suited for growth brands and above. If you’re just starting, give yourself space to learn the ropes.