Advertising is a tactic, not a strategy

I came up through the performance marketing route. Lived and died by dashboards. If a campaign didn’t move the needle by Friday, it was out the door by Monday. But here’s the truth that took me a few battle scars to accept: ads are a tactic, not a strategy. Treat them like the plan and you end up feeding the algorithm (and the pockets of Meta and Google) instead of building a business.

Platforms have trained teams to think the machine will “find the customer.” Press go, target broadly, hope for the best. That’s not marketing. That’s crossing your fingers and funding someone else’s margins. Marketing starts with who you’re for, what you stand for, and why you deserve the sale. Ads come after that.

Strategy first, like any good commander

Before you touch advertising, name your minimum viable audience. The cohort you can actually win with now. Then scout the terrain: mine CRM, support tickets, reviews, search data; top up with third-party research; turn it into tight segments with real jobs-to-be-done. You don’t need to wait for 1:1 personalisation, just sensible clusters and a clear job for each.

Quick test: If I ask, “Who’s the smallest audience that delivers the biggest commercial impact this quarter?” and you can’t answer in one sentence, you’re not ready to spend.

Don’t chase Pyrrhic victories

History lesson: King Pyrrhus won battles so costly they nearly cost him the war. That’s what “ads first” often buys you. Short-term wins that burn cash, team trust and brand equity. You celebrate a low CPA, but churn spikes, margin shrinks, and you’ve trained customers to only respond to discounts. That’s a Pyrrhic victory: technically a win, strategically a loss.

The Charge of the Light Brigade (aka “hope as a media plan”)

Charging into paid without positioning, proof and a working path is marketing’s version of the Light Brigade; gallant, dramatic, and straight into the guns. “Theirs not to reason why” is not a brief. If you haven’t mapped the customer journey, built trust assets, or tested your offer, you’re sending budget over open ground and hoping the platforms are kind. Hope is not a strategy.

Uneven battlefield? Then stop fighting blind

“Ads first” mentality fights on an uneven battlefield. You haven’t scoped the terrain (category norms, seasonality, price bands) or the enemy positions (status quo, top 3 alternatives, switching costs). You’re optimising CTR while your competitor owns the comparison pages, outflanks you with better onboarding, and rains down case studies like artillery. Do your reconnaissance. Choose where to fight (discovery vs evaluation vs conversion) and with what.

Pick your lane: functional buyer or emotional buyer?

Some buyers are functional; they need proof of safety, trust, convenience. Others are emotional; anxious, status-seeking, change-averse. One ad won’t fix both. Match your message and media to the buyer’s mode, not your reporting cadence.

Build the playbook before you buy reach

One tight page per segment covering the four Ps that matter:

1. Problem – Say it better than the customer can.
   
   
2. Promise – The outcome you’ll stand behind.
   
   
3. Proof – Case studies, UGC, demos, ROI math.
   
   
4. Price/Position – Premium and proud? Or value and fast? Own it.
   
   

If you can’t show those four, you’re skipping steps and paying a media tax.

Prove the path organically (even at tiny scale)

Run the route without ads: does a qualified visit convert through landing → action → value? Do emails and on-site journeys remove friction? Know your baseline CVR, CAC ceiling and LTV assumptions. If ads had to stay off for 30 days, could you still create demand via owned, partners, community, SEO, PR? If “no idea,” hold the budget.

Context changes the mix (ignore ratio myths)

“60/40 brand to activation” is a nice story; reality is messier. Your split depends on category maturity, price point, cash position and the strength of your proof. A commodity with heavy intent might skew bottom-funnel; a new proposition needs more top/mid to educate. Intent before inventory. Don’t buy impressions you haven’t earned yet.

Creative: one bold claim, strongest proof

Stop launching 17 half-ideas. Pick one memorable claim, attach the strongest proof you’ve got, and A/B the tone: one functional (clear, credible, fast) vs one emotional (outcomes, identity, reassurance). When a direction wins, scale with nuance by segment.

Measurement without fairy tales

No silver-bullet attribution. Build a living dashboard that tracks commercial and leading indicators: qualified CVR, assisted conversions, brand search lift, demo requests, time-to-first-value. Set a weekly decision cadence: what doubles, what holds, what gets cut and why. If your best insights are CTR and CPM, you’re optimising for the platform, not the P&L.

Don’t be scared to create some hypotheses on attribution. I have spoken to many marketing leaders that have witnessed an adverse impact when turning off TOFU/MOFU advertising on brand searches and citation. Select a couple of key data points and keep yourself honest on measurement.

Give good ideas time to breathe

Don’t panic-pause. If strategy is sound and the path is solid, let campaigns reach market maturity before you call it. Too many teams turn off promising work because the pre-conditions weren’t there; weak landing experiences, no nurture, mixed messages - then blame the ads. Fix the system; don’t sack the striker because the midfield’s missing.

The Curated way to get “fit for media”

1. Minimum viable audience: name it, size it, prove it.
   
   
2. Positioning in a sentence: different, not just “better.”
   
   
3. Proof assets ready: case studies, calculator, reviews, demo.
   
   
4. Organic path validated: baselines set.
   
   
5. Channel roles defined: discovery vs evaluation vs conversion.
   
   
6. Creative control chosen + single test plan (functional vs emotional).
   
   
7. Commercial guardrails agreed: CAC ceiling, LTV floor, payback window.
   
   
8. Weekly cadence locked: scale/hold/kill rules in writing.
   
   

Do that, and ads stop being a prayer and start being an amplifier.

Red flags that say “you’re too early for ads”

• You can’t write your positioning for this audience in 15 words.
  
  
• You don’t know which competitor you’d rather be compared to and why you’d win.
  
  
• Your best “proof” is a vibe, not a case.
  
  
• You’ve never checked whether the same message works without spend.
  
  
• Your KPI is CTR. (It shouldn’t be.)
  

Final word

If you want quick dopamine hits, go chase cheap clicks. If you want a business that compounds, start with the unfashionable work: audience → positioning → proof → path → promotion.

Don’t chase Pyrrhic victories. Don’t reenact the Light Brigade. Scout the field, pick your ground, and then bring in the artillery. Ads will still have their day, just not day one.