Marketing Campaign Tactics

Retail Brands Spending $10M+ on Google Ads: Here’s Where to Look First Big budgets hide big leaks. Most large retail brands running Google Search and Shopping think they have spend under control. Smart Bidding is on. PMAX is live. Dashboards look healthy. ROAS checks the box. But under the hood, margin slips away. Not in flashy places, but in the quiet details that get ignored while teams chase new campaigns. When I audit a large retail ad account, I don’t start with pretty charts or last month’s CPA slides. I go straight to the five basics that quietly decide if you’re scaling profit or wasting budget you’ll never claw back. 1. Feed Health Your Merchant Center feed is your real storefront. If your product titles are sloppy, GTINs missing, stock data outdated or categories messy, Smart Bidding cannot fix it. A weak feed means your best products stay buried. It is not glamorous work, but it is always the first place I find hidden margin. 2. Branded Overlap Many big retailers pay for the same branded clicks twice. PMAX scoops up branded terms while exact match Search campaigns bid on them too. Broad match expansions grab brand queries on top. Looks fine on a volume chart, but you are paying extra for what you would likely win organically or with a fraction of the spend. Fixing this is simple. Fence brand terms in PMAX, tighten negatives, monitor overlap weekly. I have seen this one change claw back six figures overnight. 3. Geo and Device Leaks Are you paying for clicks in zip codes you do not even deliver to? Is mobile CPA drifting up while the blended CPA hides the bleed? Small geo and device gaps do not matter at small scale, but at $10M+ yearly spend, they add up fast. 4. Bad or Duplicate Signals Smart Bidding works when the data is real. One duplicate conversion tag doubles your CPA overnight. Tracking weak leads as real conversions tells the algorithm to chase junk. The more you automate, the more critical clean signal hygiene becomes. 5. Offline Conversion Gaps Most retailers do not push in-store or phone sales back to Google Ads. That means Smart Bidding only learns half the profit story. Connecting offline conversions is one of the easiest ROAS lifts at scale. Why It Matters More brands trust Smart Bidding and PMAX to just work, but AI is only as smart as what you feed it. Google will not tell you that you are overspending on overlap or tracking duplicate sales. Your margin lives in the boring checks that slides never show. If you are managing a big retail budget, I've put together a short video showing exactly where to look and what to fix. Additionally, you can gain access to Guide/ Report (Latest in Ads Post Google Marketing Live Event 2025) and get complimentary ad account audit. If you want these, or a quick check of your feed, signals and overlaps, comment 'Interested' or DM me. I will share it with you, no sales pitch. Better spend beats bigger spend every time.

There are over 500+ brands competing in India's healthy food market across quick commerce, online marketplaces & offline. Having engaged with over 80+ brands and investing in 10, there are some patterns & hard truths about scaling in this crowded space. This is a breakdown on marketing and distribution in healthy foods for founders & marketers. First, here’s what you need to know about Indian consumers. - Indians buy food based on trust, not just marketing – If a celebrity promotes it but their neighbour or friend doesn’t recommend it, they won’t buy it. Word of mouth is king. - There is low willingness to pay premium, but high spend on indulgence. People will hesitate on a ₹200 protein bar but will happily buy a ₹500 artisanal mithai box. You need to frame health as indulgence, not sacrifice. -They snack, they don’t diet. Instead of selling "healthy diets", sell better snacking alternatives. That’s why makhanas, chikkis, and seed mixes work. - Unlike the west, 70% of discretionary food spend happens during festivals. Brands that nails Diwali, Rakhi, Ramzan and weddings will win. -Instead of mimicking the US health food market, make Indian-first products. Local trumps global. India is not one country, it’s 20 mini-countries. What works in North won’t work in South. Regional customization is key. - Indians love flavor and indulgence. If your product doesn’t taste good first, it won’t sell. Aim to be a weekly purchase, not a one-time trend. Marketing Don'ts - Don't sell fear, guilt or magic. Most health marketers are doing exactly this. Fear of missing out on fitness. Guilt of not eating right. Magic solutions promising six-pack abs in six weeks, “clinically tested” shortcuts . Health marketing shouldn’t be a psychological warfare. -Don't hijack medical language. Just because you put "backed by science" or "doctor-approved" in your ad ,doesn’t make it true. Most people don’t know what a randomized controlled trial is, but that doesn’t mean you should exploit their ignorance. Don’t throw a lab coat on a model, add "Doctor recommended," and hope no one asks which doctor. -Don't create fake urgency – "Only 3 packs left of our exclusive superfood". Healthy eating isn’t a flash sale; trust and quality build long-term customers, not gimmicks. Marketing Do’s - The best health brands don’t sell a product, they sell a perspective. Tell the truth, but make it interesting. If your product actually works, people will come back. No need to bait them with fake promises. Play the long game. -The best marketing in health is knowledge. Teach people something useful, and they’ll trust you. Educate, don’t manipulate. - Be honest, be helpful, and respect your customer’s intelligence. Anything else is just snake oil in new packaging. If your health product needs tricks to sell, it’s probably not worth buying. More notes on distribution and growth shared in the comments section. Hope this is useful to founders , marketers and their brands.

Something I often say is, “money can’t save bad ideas.” As marketers, we often tend to resort to big media plans to boost our reach for brand campaigns, but at Duolingo we've learned that this approach is usually counterproductive. Over the last three years, we've designed our marketing organization to put creativity first - and the results speak for themselves: millions of new user sign-ups, 350M likes on TikTok, viral moments that break the internet, partnerships like our recent Squid Game activation that drove 100M+ organic impressions. I wanted to share a few key lessons we've learned as we've developed this creativity-first model. Of course, nothing is one-size-fits-all, but my hope is that other marketers find this useful: - 1. Make Content That Moves People  Years ago, we started with polished TV ads and carefully crafted messages meant to appeal to everyone. The impressions were there, but they were empty - lots of eyeballs but no visible engagement or impact on key metrics. Real success only came when we started creating moments that people actually want to engage with, not just see. Today we're reinventing what marketing can be, one viral moment at a time. 2. Let Strategy Emerge Through Experimentation I didn't come in with some five-year master plan. Every major win we've had - from our viral TikToks to our Super Bowl stunt - started as a small experiment or ideas that got us excited. This approach requires humility: you have to be willing to admit you don't have all the answers and let the experimentation guide you. 3. Creativity > Budget You can throw money at marketing problems, or you can solve them creatively. When we didn't have the budget for a full Super Bowl ad, we made a memorable 5-second spot...of Duo farting out a miniature Duo. Being resourceful forces you to think differently about impact versus spend. Of course, we spend a big budget on acquisition campaigns but not on building the Duolingo brand. But we've learned that throwing money at mediocre ideas doesn't make them better. 4. Let Your Team Run Wild When people have true ownership over their work and agency to execute their ideas, magic happens. We've found that having clear ownership and minimal bureaucracy leads to better, faster work. I don’t need to see or approve all our social content. The team will raise it with me if there is a question. Give your team the freedom to do big things and get out of their way. - I'd love to hear from you: what unexpected approaches have worked for your team?

Over the last 4 years, Directive has run over $65M in Google ads for the top companies in tech. Here are the 3 biggest mistakes I see SaaS companies make with Google ads (and how to fix them): 1. They spend their budget on “informational intent” queries that have no chance of converting This seems obvious, but *every* account we audit makes this mistake. Here’s how to fix it: Step 1: Analyze Non Brand Queries - Filter to look at non-brand keywords - Filter those keywords to look at "keyword text contains" and input all the modifiers - Compare these keywords to "keyword text does not contain" the modifiers Example commercial intent modifiers: Software, Services, Provider, Company, Quote, Vendor, Solution, Best, Tool, Platform, Buy, Top, Comparison. Step 2: Segment your Campaigns by Intent - Ensure commercial and non commercial keywords are not in the same campaign (i.e. do not have "employee recognition" in the same campaign as "employee recognition software"). - Control budget on the campaign level. Ensure you don't have commercial intent keywords fighting for budget with lower intent keywords that have more search volume. Step 3: Max out budget on those high intent Keywords - Grow your keyword pool by finding more commercial intent keywords from scraping relevant software directories 2. They Use Request a Demo CTA The most widely used CTA in B2B SaaS is “Request a Demo”. Unfortunately, this causes hidden psychological friction... When you request something there’s an opportunity you wont be able to have it. See IMAGE BELOW for CTA’s you should test instead. Backed by data from our portfolio. 3. They Don’t Audit Their Ad Experience From Search Term > Ad Copy > Landing Page > Form > CTA > Scheduling It ALL needs to be audited. - Search term: Google ads pretends to target by keywords, but the truth in how you show up is in your search term report. Audit and understand this first. - Ad Copy: Don’t give Google control of your messaging. They will keyword stuff your ads and that won't work. - Landing Page: Is it fast? Does it deliver on the promise of the ad? - Form: Is your form too long? Can you do a two column layout for field? Does it have copy to entice you to convert? How long is the trial? Are you using an enrichment tool? - CTA: What is the copy on your form submit button? Can you be more compelling or creative? - Scheduling: What happens after they convert? Can they schedule a call? Do they have to wait for sales? Are they added to a retargeting campaign to support your lifecycle conversion rates? TAKEAWAY: Anyone who says Google Ads don’t work anymore is lying to you. It’s poorly managed campaigns that don’t work. So, go be your prospect. Experience your ads. Be critical. Ask yourself... “If I had to narrow my search to three brands while searching on Google would I choose ours?” Then run AZ tests, not AB tests. And GET OUT of the platform. Great ads are optimized for the wild, not in platform

an underrated marketing strategy for cash-strapped startups? turn your entire team into your marketing engine. here's the thing: while you're stressing about growth channels, your employees are already using dozens of saas tools every day. CRM, customer support software, project management tool, HRIS/ATS. each of these relationships is a marketing opportunity waiting to be activated. three ways to leverage your team for free marketing (that actually drives pipeline): 𝟭/ 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀  get your hr manager to reach out to your hris vendor about becoming a video case study. your sales ops person? perfect candidate to showcase how your crm integration works. your finance team using that new expense tool? boom, another case study opportunity. here's the kicker: prioritise becoming case studies for tools in adjacent industries where your target audience also hangs out. if you're selling to marketing leaders, become a case study for your marketing automation platform. selling to hr teams? showcase how you use your people analytics tool internally. 𝟮/ 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗿𝘀 offer to speak at your vendors' events, webinars, and user conferences. you get free brand exposure to their audience, they get a happy customer story. win-win. 𝟯/ 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿" 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 when you're actively promoting your vendors and being their biggest advocate, you become their favourite customer. first access to beta features, priority support, co-marketing opportunities, better pricing negotiations. 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗻: 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆: ✅ 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 - exposure to your vendors' established audiences for your brand and for your team ✅ 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀 - seo/LLM juice from case studies and event pages ✅ 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘇 - people who are already in-market for solutions will see your brand and product on your vendor’s case study page + at conference and events that your vendors sponsor --- the beauty? your vendors already have the audience you want to reach. instead of building from zero, you're tapping into established communities. what you can do now: get one vendor relationship you could activate for marketing this quarter.

There were 12 zero-dollar marketing strategies that got us to $1m ARR in 3 years: 🚀 1. Build an incredible product 90% of great marketing is a product your customers can’t wait to tell their friends about. We went the extra mile to deliver an Apple-like product that “just works”. 2. Referrals I made a list of ~150 potential customers and reached out to tell them about the company, asked for referrals, and sent a forwardable email to make intros easy. 3. Directories & review sites We submitted eWebinar to over 40 software directories before we had our own content to be searchable. 4. Integrations We integrated with CRMs and marketing software to make our product stickier. We got listed in app stores and companies sent out announcements. 5. Case studies Nothing sells your product like a raving fan on video. I recorded interviews with our most enthusiastic customers where I asked about their life before and after us, and put them on our site and YouTube. 6. Capterra Review sites are highly ranked and it's where prospects do their research. What others say about you trumps what you say about you. I asked for a review whenever someone tells us they love us. 7. Sharing on LinkedIn I shared 322 posts leading up to $1m ARR. That’s 4.5m impressions and 19k followers. LinkedIn was the source for 20% of our demos. 8. Podcasts I guested on 87 podcasts before $1m ARR. 9% of our demos came from this. (See my “Featured” section in profile on how I did this and why every bootstrapped founder should too.) 9. SEO & content We owned our SEO strategy and created 40 optimized pieces of content in 2 years. Organic search was 50% of demo traffic and 25% of new trials. Outside of SEO, we created 100+ pieces of content our customers find valuable. 10. Co-marketing We co-created templates, guest posts, and webinars with others who have large audiences that were shared on both sides. All content was evergreen. 11. Be accessible We all responded to support everyday when available, implemented feedback and told customers when it was done so they felt involved. Being reachable made us human and was one of the reasons people trusted us over competitors. 12. Peers & community I’ve spent my career helping others without being asked and connecting people whenever it made sense. As a result, I am supported by a community of founders who I know will recommend eWebinar every chance they get. Bootstrapped startups often cannot spend enough money on marketing to make a meaningful impact and have no choice but to get creative. 🎙️ On ProfitLed Podcast S2E19, "12 $0 Marketing Strategies", my COO and I dove into each strategy and why it worked for us. 🎧 Find this episode on your favorite podcast app. ___ 🔔 I'm Melissa Kwan, 3x bootstrapper with 1 exit. I'm the Cofounder of eWebinar, Host of ProfitLed, and author of 'your founder next door'. On my newsletter, I share what it's like to build a company without an abundance of resources or friends in high places.

Amazon told a brand they're leaving $36,000 in sales on the table. Every month. The fix took five minutes. Here's what happened. During an audit, I filtered for campaigns with two criteria: 👉 Better-than-average ACOS 👉 Going out of budget before end of day That's it. Show me the campaigns that are performing well AND running out of money. The result: between $12,000 and $36,000 in estimated missed sales sitting behind budget caps on their best-performing campaigns. This is a common revenue leak I see. Brands set budgets, campaigns start performing, and nobody revisits the caps. Amazon literally tells you in the campaign manager when you're leaving impressions on the table. If you're not looking, you'll never prioritize the right ones. But you can't just raise budgets blindly. Before you scale a "high-performing" campaign, check what's underneath: Is it a branded campaign or are branded search terms mixed in, inflating the numbers? (Negate them first.) Is one search term carrying the whole campaign? (Break it out into a separate campaign.) Are the bids all the same round number ($1.50, $2.00)? That tells me nobody has bid optimization rules in place. Once you've cleaned the campaign structure, then you raise the budget. Now you're scaling real performance, not a blended illusion. Five minutes of filtering. A potential $36,000/month in recovered sales. The data is in your account right now. Go look.

After running 200+ outbound campaigns for B2B SaaS companies, almost every underperforming outbound motion comes down to 1 of 3 problems👇 So before you add more tools, more AI, more volume… and make it worse. Here is the cheat sheet: PROBLEM 1️⃣: Small TAM Under 10,000 target companies? Volume outbound will burn your market in 6 months. Recontacting the same audience with the same offer is what I call a "strategy of diminishing returns". The fix: - ABM. - Think in 6–12 month nurture cycles - Recontact accounts quarterly with new angles - Layer intent signals: hiring, leadership changes, funding, launches - Run multi-channel: email + LinkedIn + WhatsApp - Use podcasts, events, dinners,... whatever buys face time PROBLEM 2️⃣: P/M Fit issues Reply rate under 1%? Scaling volume won't save you. You'll burn inboxes and your TAM at the same time. The fix: Fix audience and message first - Start small: ~2,000 prospects - Run focused tests for 4-6 months - ONLY scale after reply rate consistently crosses 1% PROBLEM 3️⃣: Offer issues Bad offers kill good targeting. If people open the email but nobody replies, the offer is usually the issue. The fix: A/B test offer until something hits - Build free mini-tools - Create high-intent lead magnets - Run localized campaigns around specific pain points - Make the value immediately tangible (We’re seeing mini-products work extremely well in 2026) Notice none of the fixes involve buying more tools or adding more AI. You just need to identify which problem you actually have. Which of the 3 is your bottleneck right now? If you’re not sure which one is breaking your outbound motion, DM me. We audit outbound for B2B SaaS teams every week and can map out your specific fix on a 20-min call.

The #1 Rule of Marketing: "Everyone" is not your customer. Targeting everyone dilutes your message and wastes resources. Different people have different needs, and focusing on a specific audience allows you to create more relevant, impactful marketing. Remember, when you try to speak to everyone, you talk to no one. Less is more with this. Here are 6 quick steps to honing in on a specific customer: 1/ Identify Your Core Audience: Analyze your best customers to find common traits and needs. 2/ Create Buyer Personas: Develop detailed profiles of your ideal customers to guide your strategy. 3/ Narrow Your Focus: Specialize in solving specific problems for a defined group rather than trying to appeal to everyone. 4/ Personalize Your Marketing: Tailor your messaging and offers to different segments based on data. 5/ Test and Adjust: Continuously refine your approach with A/B testing and real-world feedback. 6/ Build Loyalty: Nurture relationships with customers who align with your brand values and are likely to become repeat buyers.

I audited $10M+ worth of monthly paid marketing spend in 2024. The truth about marketing in PE port-cos: When you dig into the data, you almost always uncover opportunities to cut CPA and increase conversion volume. But the real aha here is that it’s usually easily fixable issues, not super complex stuff: 1. Port-cos often spend on 'button clickers' instead of 'hand raisers.' Saved one port-co $100k/month by shifting conversion to form completion AFTER watching demos (instead of initial CTA click). 2. Multiple port-cos ran six-figure campaigns on autopilot. No A/B testing, no adjustments, just spend reliant on Google’s algo to make the right decisions. 3. Basic campaign fixes could slash costs in half. Most port-cos pay 2-3x more per click simply due to messy account structure and low quality scores. 4. Most companies try to target too many search terms at once. Almost always, you find that real sales come from a small core set of keywords.  Double down on these. 5. Companies waste money advertising to all regions at once. Focusing on fewer locations (with higher spend) typically improves performance by 20-40%. 6. Basic creative quality control is rare. One company spent $75k monthly on LinkedIn ad creative where half the text was cut off. 7. Marketing teams often throw money at their own brand name in search. That budget is usually less incremental than you think - and better spent reaching new customers. 8. Port-cos focus on ads but ignore where they lead. Better landing pages immediately lower costs and lift sales. 9. You see a lot of money going to channels that don't work. One team cut their cost per lead by 90% just by shifting all ad budget to a single platform (Google). 10. Marketing teams celebrate high MQL conversion rates, but sales can't trace a single closed deal back to those "successful" campaigns. Truth is, most of these issues are fixable. The hard part is finding them. Want to audit your own marketing? Start here: □ Can you link your ad spend to actual closed/won? □ Which campaigns drive real pipeline? □ What are your campaigns actually optimizing for? □ Do marketing and sales measure success the same way? □ Are you paying for traffic you would have already gotten? Otherwise, AMA in the comments. Happy to help!