What you should know before spending money on marketing.
Scaling does not mean more budget. It means less chaos.
Your 4x ROAS might be the most expensive way to lose money. Sounds absurd? A small-appliance store with 3.8x ROAS can bleed money month after month while the agency praises it every week..
Two founders, same budget, same ROAS. One is profitable, the other is bleeding.
Most founders sell without knowing how much they actually earn. I am not talking about revenue.
Three terms everyone confuses, agencies included. In a typical meeting, the founder says budget ten times and the agency says it fourteen, and by the end neither is talking about the same thing.
Founders who lost money on agencies tell me the same thing: the signs were there from day one. I put them all in one place so you see them before you sign..
You pay the same amount every month regardless of whether you sell. The agency collects regardless of whether it delivers.
You do not need three months and EUR 15,000 to figure out you picked the wrong agency. The clues appear in the first 60 minutes of conversation.
Every phrase your agency uses when results are missing has a real translation you will never hear from them. Here they all are, so you stop paying for empty words..
Efficient ROI, influencer amplification, potential organic reach. Metrics that do not exist.
You need a blank spreadsheet, the last two supplier invoices, and 30 minutes with no phone. You walk out with one number you can trust..
Open your laptop, three tabs and the last three reports. Half an hour later you know whether to stay or switch..
If the pixel is not in, any agency burns 2-3 weeks on setup. Sometimes they bill you for it.
Three agencies in a row, tens of thousands of lei on ads, zero profit. Only after that does the founder look somewhere else.
Before you sign with a new agency, go home and verify whether the business survives double the volume. If it does not, the problem is not the agency.