Capture
Google Search.
For categories people already type into Google: the tool, the integration, the alternative to the incumbent. High intent, expensive terms, a negative list built from the job seekers and the students.
Growth
One acquisition system, judged on the number in your CRM.
The channel, the offer, the creative, and the measurement that connects a click to a qualified lead, an opportunity, or a first paid action. Four practices, run together, as Growth Partner. Media buying happens inside the system. So does the page. Neither one is the product.
- Customer definition
- One channel
- The offer
- Creative
- Measurement
- Experiment
- Revenue connection
Practice one
The acquisition system.
Four pieces, in this order. The handoff is part of the system: who replies, and how fast. A channel that produces leads nobody calls is a media buy.
01
Customer definition
Company type, role, use case, and the disqualifiers. Written in week one, with who you turn away. Every lead after that is read against it.
02
One channel, chosen by where that buyer already is
Search when the category is already typed into Google. LinkedIn or Meta when the buyer has to be introduced. YouTube when the offer needs explaining. One channel until the record says it works. A second is earned at day ninety.
03
The offer
What is promised, to whom, and the one next step: a demo, a trial, a signup, or a purchase. Tested as its own variable, because the same ad with a different ask produces a different buyer.
04
Creative
Message, proof, format. This is the variable that gets tested. Bids and budgets are maintenance. The page the campaign needs ships here: written for the offer, instrumented, changed when an experiment calls for it.
The channel
Capture, creation, or explanation.
Chosen by the buyer, not the package.
Creation
LinkedIn and Meta.
For a buyer who has to be introduced: by title, company, and stack on LinkedIn, by behavior on Meta. The creative is the test. The page carries the explanation.
Explanation
YouTube.
When the offer needs ninety seconds to understand. Added when the first channel is already producing qualified leads, not before.
Practice two
Measurement. The CRM is the scoreboard.
The source of truth is the CRM or the billing system, not Ads Manager. A result that exists only inside the ad account does not count.
Week one, before spend
- The definitions, held for the ninety days: qualified lead or qualified signup, opportunity, activation, first paid action. Closed-won or collected revenue when the cycle is short enough to see.
- Instrumentation: events, URL parameters, the source field in the CRM, and one test lead from a phone that can be traced end to end.
- A written note of what the ad platform counts, including view-through, so a green dashboard can be read for what it is.
- What a customer is worth, and payback, asked now and used as the ceiling on what a qualified outcome may cost. If the company does not know, the assumption is written down with the date it gets replaced.
Every month
- Platform conversions set next to the CRM count. The gap is a line in the report.
- Cost per qualified lead, and cost per opportunity once opportunities exist. The month’s fee sits inside that cost, with the media.
- For product-led companies: activation and first paid action, by cohort.
- For commerce: new-customer acquisition cost, and contribution after variable cost if the company already tracks it.
Incrementality is the question “would this have happened anyway?” We name the question and do not sell the test. At the spend most companies start with, a holdout cannot be read. A lift study is a later project, when a channel is large enough to split and still read.
Practice three
The experiment.
One change, one hypothesis, one result, one decision: scale, kill, or iterate. At least one shipped every week. Written down.
The surfaces
In the order of the constraint.
Audience, creative, offer, the page, the handoff, and activation if the company can ship a product change. The page is one surface among six.
The rule
Written before the test.
“Kill if cost per qualified lead is above this after this many leads.” At a few thousand dollars a month, one change at a time. Sequential tests and a pre-written rule, not simultaneous A/B tests and a significance readout.
The backlog
Ordered by what is constraining the revenue number.
What was cut, and why, stays in the record. That log is part of the product.
Practice four
The revenue connection.
Click, a CRM record with the source still on it, an opportunity or a paid event, the outcome written back. When the sales cycle is longer than the term, pipeline is the number, and revenue follows on the company’s cycle. Collected revenue or the first paid action is claimed when it happens inside the term.
Speed to lead is in every report; it is the revenue-connection metric most reports omit. One question in every monthly meeting: why did the last losses not buy? The answer changes the customer definition and the creative. Once the CRM is clean, the ad platform is trained on qualified outcomes, not form fills.
Pipeline with the source attached.The number you already manage the company on, reconciled to what the ad platform claims.
Outside scope
What this is not.
Not included
- Brand campaigns with no conversion path
- Influencer and affiliate programs
- Large video or photo productions
- App-store optimization and app-install campaigns as a primary channel
- A marketing site, which is a separate conversation when the record shows the site is the constraint
Why
Each has specialists who do it better than a growth team doing it on the side. We will say when one is the right next move and point you to someone good.
Questions
About growth.
If yours is not here, ask. We answer plainly, including when the answer is that this is not the right engagement.
Which channel do you start on?
The one your buyer is already on. Search when the category is already typed into Google. LinkedIn or Meta when the buyer has to be introduced. YouTube when the offer needs explaining. One channel until the record says it works. A second is earned at day ninety, not added to fill a slide.
Do you handle creative?
Yes, inside the engagement: the message, the proof, the format, cut from what you already have. Creative is the variable that gets tested. Bids and budgets are maintenance. Large productions are scoped separately.
How do you measure it?
From the click to the CRM. Qualified lead or qualified signup, opportunity, activation, first paid action, each with the source attached. Every month the platform’s conversions sit next to the CRM’s count. We report cost per qualified lead and, once opportunities exist, cost per opportunity, with the month’s fee inside that cost.
How do you handle sample size?
At a few thousand dollars a month, one change at a time. The decision rule is written before the test: kill if cost per qualified lead is above this after this many leads. Sequential tests and a pre-written rule. We do not promise simultaneous A/B tests or a significance readout at this spend.
Would these customers have come anyway?
That is the incrementality question, and it is the right one to ask. At the spend most companies start with, a holdout cannot be read, so the answer is the CRM: a result that exists only inside the ad account does not count. A lift study is a later project, when a channel is large enough to split and still read.
We ran ads before and it did not work.
Common. Usually the tracking stopped at the form, so nobody could tell which campaign produced the junk. Give us access to the old account. Its history is useful even if its campaigns were not.
Do you build the page?
The page the campaign needs ships inside the system: written for the offer, instrumented, and changed when an experiment calls for it. A marketing site is a separate conversation, opened only when the record shows the site is the constraint.
Do you take a percentage of spend?
No. The fee is flat. A recommendation to spend more has to survive the revenue record, because the invoice does not grow with the budget.