Paid media

What it is

Paid search, paid social, and the creative that runs on them. It is the fastest way to change demand volume, which is exactly why it is the easiest way to waste money.

When it is the answer

When you need more qualified demand than exists in your current organic and referral flow, you can afford to fund it for long enough to learn, and your sales process can absorb the extra volume.

When it is not

When the constraint is conversion or follow-up. Paying to add leads to a system that loses them is the most expensive mistake in this list, and it is the one most often recommended.

What we do with it

• Start at a volume your current sales process can genuinely absorb
• Build the capture path before spending to fill it
• Test creative and offer systematically rather than changing everything at once
• Report cost per qualified opportunity and cost per customer, never cost per click alone
• Move spend toward what produced revenue on a stated cadence, and say so when something should stop

What it looks like when it is working

Budget decisions are made against evidence on a schedule, and stopping something is as normal as starting something.

The mistake we see most often

Charging a percentage of spend from the first dollar. It pays the agency more when efficiency gets worse. We include ordinary media management up to a threshold instead.