How to build a growth engine that compounds
Why performance marketing still wins
Performance channels (search, social, display, affiliates) offer fast feedback loops, controllable spend, and precise audience targeting. When run as experiments—not set‑and‑forget—they provide the quickest path to learn what messages and offers convert.
Benefits you can bank on
- Forecastability: You can model pipeline by controlling bids, budgets, and audiences.
- Speed: Launch and iterate in hours; A/B test creative, landing pages, and offers.
- Granularity: Report down to keyword/ad group/placement and shift spend to winners.
- Global reach: Platforms deliver instant access to new geographies with local signals (language, device, time).
SEO: the compounding flywheel
SEO lowers blended CAC over time. Pillars:
- Technical health: Crawlability, Core Web Vitals, structured data.
- Content depth: Topic clusters that satisfy intent across the funnel (informational, commercial, transactional).
- Authority: Editorial links from relevant domains, not schemes.
- Experience: Search intent alignment, clear IA, and helpful UX boost dwell time and conversions.
How to make global programs cost‑effective
Centralize strategy, decentralize execution. Maintain a global messaging spine, design system, and analytics taxonomy; let local teams/localizers adapt creative and offers.
Create a ‘campaign factory’: shared briefs, modular creative, landing page templates, and QA checklists to reduce unit costs.
Leverage time‑zone arbitrage for always‑on optimization (bid, budget, and creative rotations).
Attribution and measurement without the myths
Ditch over‑reliance on last‑click. Blend platform data with first‑party analytics. Use geo‑split or time‑based experiments to prove incrementality.
Define north‑star metrics: LTV:CAC, payback period, qualified pipeline, and contribution margin—not only CTR/CPA.
Performance marketing playbook (90 days)
Days 0–15: Audit accounts, pixels, feeds; define ICPs and value props; set baseline metrics.
Days 16–45: Launch 3–5 hypothesis‑led campaigns per market; stand up weekly test cadence; implement server‑side tagging.
Days 46–90: Cut 30% of spend on low‑incrementality segments; scale winners; publish a growth scorecard to the exec team.
SEO playbook (90–180 days)
Technical fixes in first 30 days; publish topic clusters (pillar + 6–8 spokes) monthly; secure 3–5 relevant editorial links/month; build internal link maps; measure share of voice and non‑branded clicks.
Common pitfalls
Optimizing to platform proxies (e.g., view‑through) instead of revenue.
Launching in new geos without localization (currency, units, cultural cues).
Underinvesting in landing pages—where 70% of ROI is won or lost.
