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"Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time." - Henry Ford Ever finish watching the NBA playoffs, the Premier League, or anything entertaining and wonder how you’ll get by without it? Or maybe after reading a great book, watching a Christopher Nolan movie, or enjoying an amazing meal, you immediately start thinking about when is the next time you can experience it again. Whatever niche you’re into, you’re part of a market, and the choices you make as a fan or consumer place you squarely within a target audience. One of the most crucial aspects of structuring a marketing funnel is understanding your market, and more importantly, the decision-making process of your target audience. Take Starbucks and your local coffee shop—they both sell coffee, but people choose them for different reasons. The same goes for fine dining versus McDonald's, or people who run versus those who lift weights. They may all exist within the same broader market—beverage, food, or fitness—but each niche attracts a distinct audience, and sometimes, there’s even crossover between them. That’s why structuring and timing your marketing funnel correctly is key to gaining as well as maintaining a foothold in your market and reaching your audience. I’m here to help you do just that—by explaining the different stages of the funnel, how to time your campaigns, and choosing the right channels so you can avoid being in a position where cutting back on advertising to save money feels like the only option. The Stages of the Marketing Funnel Think back to the first time you heard about one of your favorite brands. Maybe it was through word of mouth, or while scrolling through TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. When you discovered that brand, it was exciting—you likely resonated with it and maybe even started considering a future purchase. This is known as the awareness stage or top of funnel (ToFu—just like the food!). It’s the moment when you’re casually watching TikTok or YouTube, and suddenly your screen is interrupted by an ad. You might not think much of it at first, but the next time you see it, the brand will feel familiar. The awareness stage is essentially your first impression of a brand. The first time you visited your favorite brand’s website, followed them on Instagram, or liked their content was the moment you moved from simply being aware of the brand to considering what they offer—this is known as the middle of the funnel (MoFu). It’s when you start comparing it to other brands, maybe you’re even researching and taking notes if it’s a big purchase or something you care about a lot before making a decision. Essentially you want to take your time to make a conclusion, and marketers are aware of this. That’s why it’s a priority to engage as much as possible with people who are at this stage of the funnel.  After finding a brand that sells what you want and researching and comparing it to other products, the day finally comes to make your purchase. You’ll likely head to Google Search, type in the brand name and model of the item you want, click the first link that pops up, complete your purchase, and wait for it to arrive. At this point, you've reached the Conversion Stage, also known as the bottom of the funnel (BoFu). And who knows—depending on the information you’ve shared on the website or at checkout, you might start receiving emails or social media ads suggesting other items to purchase from that brand or products commonly bought with your purchase. Or maybe you didn’t even go through with your purchase and you still get the emails and ads. Sound familiar? Before diving into creatives, social media platforms, ad copy, or any other details to run a successful marketing campaign, you need to understand the behavior of your target audience at different stages of the funnel. This will guide the structure of your campaign to effectively reach your audience. In the awareness stage (ToFu), think about how you want to introduce your brand to someone who’s never heard of it. In the middle stage (MoFu), focus on content that keeps your audience engaged—whether it’s a blog, an informative short form video, or a comparison of your product to competitors. The goal is to keep your audience informed as they consume content and weigh their options. Finally, there’s the conversion stage (BoFu), where you want to encourage people to buy your product and potentially come back for more. You might also need to follow up with those who abandoned their cart and just need a gentle reminder to complete their purchase. Plan your Campaign Timing Understanding how your audience behaves at different stages of the funnel is key, but it’s equally important to consider when they will need your product or service. This concept, known as seasonality, refers to how demand for your product fluctuates based on the time of year, month, or even day. For example, as fall and winter approach, more people start buying Pumpkin Spice Lattes and playing Mariah Carey right after Halloween. It's crucial to recognize how sensitive your product is to these shifts in behavior over various periods of time. Keep in mind that seasonality can last anywhere from a few hours to several decades, so it’s essential to analyze your data—or work with someone who knows how to do that effectively. One of the tools I use to track seasonality for a product or promotion is Google Search Trends. Take back-to-school season, there’s a clear cut connection between the end of summer, the winter holidays, and students heading back to school. Many bookstores, online stationery shops, and other businesses see sales fluctuate during these times. To better understand this, I looked up the popular “Back to School” promotion as a search term on Google Search Trends and found this graph based on 5 years of data. I’ll share my insights below. Let’s say I have a client interested in running a back-to-school promotion and they want to know when to launch their marketing campaigns globally. I tend to visualize data, like the graph above, to get a sense of when seasonality tends to occur. The graph shows 5 tall peaks and 5 shorter ones, with some smaller bumps in between. If you hover over the tall peaks, you’ll notice that August consistently shows up across all 5, though the exact dates vary. Similarly, the shorter peaks consistently point to January. This gives us a clear idea that August and January are the two key months when my client can expect the highest sales. Although this is a fictional example, it’s always important to cross-reference this kind of data with internal sales, conversion, and other relevant information to ensure that the fluctuations you observe align with what your business actually experiences. So, we’ve identified January and August as the best months to maximize sales, but we still need to determine when my client should launch their campaign. Launching in January or August wouldn’t be ideal since that's when interest among the target audience peaks—we want to make a strong first impression long before they start finalizing their purchasing decisions. To pinpoint the best dates, I like to analyze data from the last 12 months to identify more specific timing. Based on the graph below, we can see that interest in "Back to School" began to pick up as early as the week of May 19th-25th in 2024. For the smaller January peak, interest starts rising around Christmas time. Choosing the Right Digital Channels Before choosing, setting up, and using all sorts of audience targeting settings on advertising platforms, it’s wise to do an audit. Whether you have me, an agency, or someone working in house doing this, audits are an opportunity to learn what went right, but more importantly what went wrong with campaigns from the past. It’s the one opportunity to set up the best possible conditions for your team and your business to reach the conversions and sales goals that you have set out for yourself.  Since my fictional client has never run a digital marketing campaign before, we’ll assume they have a strong organic presence among students and parents. Based on our understanding of the marketing funnel and the seasonal trends we’ve just analyzed, I’d recommend an omni-channel approach with Google Ads and social media as the primary drivers to maximize sales. Below is a general guide to the channels I would suggest at different stages of the funnel. It’s also important to note that funnel structures can be dynamic—there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for every business. Always take the time to research the unique composition of your target audience and how they engage with your business. For the top of the funnel (ToFu), I’d suggest my client focus on making a strong first impression with as many new people as possible, especially students and parents for a "Back to School" promotion. Whether they want to advertise specific products or just the overall promotion, the first step is letting the target audience know that my client has a promotion that just launched. I usually recommend launching the campaign and promotion simultaneously to keep the user experience seamless. Pre Order campaigns can work too, but it’s important to clearly share the Pre Order details in the ad copy and creatives to avoid any confusion about what the user is getting. After factoring all of this in, I’d typically allocate 10-20% of the total ad spend to top-of-funnel channels that generate a lot of impressions, like TikTok, Social Display, Display,  YouTube, YouTube Shorts, and Demand Gen. For the middle of the funnel (MoFu), I focus on channels that encourage strong engagement between the business and users. At this stage, the goal is to engage users who have recently learned about my client’s “Back to School” promotion and direct them to the landing page. Typically, you’d allocate 20-30% of your ad spend to platforms like Meta, Pinterest, Reddit, or any other channel that fosters meaningful interactions between your business and target audience. Be sure to advertise on platforms that encourage interactions like comments, likes, and follows. These meaningful interactions can then be used to create custom audiences, helping to further optimize campaign results. At the bottom of the funnel (BoFu), you’ll likely allocate 50% or more of your budget to ensure you’re converting as many users as possible. The results here will show how well your initial impressions and consistent interactions have worked throughout the funnel. At this stage, you’ll want a mix of retargeting audiences from the social media channels you’ve used earlier in the funnel and Search Engine channels like Google, Bing, Amazon, and any other high-converting platforms for the business. This helps reach the users most likely to make a purchase during the “Back to School” promotion. Final Thoughts If you take the time to truly understand your target audience and what they expect from your business, you’ll be able to maximize the results of any digital marketing campaign. Focus on making a strong first impression, maintaining consistent engagement, and staying active on platforms where your audience makes purchasing decisions. Plan your campaign to align with the seasonality of your market, like summer and winter holidays for a “Back to School” promotion. By understanding your audience’s decision-making process and the seasonality of your market, you’ll be in a great position to choose the right platforms to sue for your marketing campaign. With a strong marketing funnel you won’t find yourself in a position where cutting back on advertising to save money feels like the only option.

" Given a 10% chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time. " - Jeff Bezos As a business, marketing campaigns can sometimes be the tool that takes a 10% opportunity and turns it into a 100 times payoff. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is one of the key metrics to help you get there. But it’s not always easy to know when to start, keep going, or hit pause on your ad campaigns based on revenue alone. That’s why I put together this piece—to break down what ROAS is, when to use it, and how you can use it to push your results even further. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend ) is exactly what it sounds like—it's a simple ratio between the revenue generated and the amount you spent on your ad campaign. Basically, it's your return on investment. For example, if you spend $20,000 on ads and make $40,000 in return, your ROAS would be 200%. Here's a quick formula: Revenue from Campaign / Amount Spent on Campaign = ROAS So, if you spent $20,000 and made $40,000 in revenue: $40,000 / $20,000 = 200% ROAS Using ROAS to measure the return on your investment is a great way to understand and manage whether your campaign is meeting, under-performing or exceeding your expectations. When Should You Care About ROAS? How Should You Use ROAS to Measure Success? Final thoughts on ROAS When Should You Care About ROAS? If you're running any sort of ad campaign and want measure results by the amount of revenue generated , ROAS is one of the best metrics to track alongside revenue. It gives you a clear picture of how much money you're making for every dollar you spend on your campaign. So, if you spend $10,000 and get $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 in return, your ROAS would be 200%, 300%, or 400%, respectively. So you should care about ROAS if you want to quickly figure out when your campaign is losing money, breaking even, and turning a profit! Remember, ROAS Fluctuations are normal - especially on a daily basis When I first started in digital marketing, I used to panic whenever ROAS fluctuated, especially during the first week of a campaign. That anxiety would peak as the end of the month approached. Here’s some advice that helped me manage those nerves and improve my campaign management— your ROAS won’t always be static . One day it might hit 300%, the next it could drop to 200%, or land somewhere in between. Performance marketing naturally has its ups and downs. Just remember that so as long as you're staying within the 200% to 400% ROAS range, your campaign is doing well and generating a solid return. Plus, you can always optimize your audiences, ads, and settings to push those results even higher. I’ll dive deeper into that in a future piece. Here's a general ROAS benchmark you can use, but be sure to make adjustments based on data, unit economics and results you have available: 200% ROAS and beyond - You're generating a positive ROI. 100% to 200% ROAS - You're breaking even on your investment. O to 99% ROAS - You're spending more than you're getting in return. How Should You Use ROAS to Measure Success? Think of your campaign like a flight—it takes off, rises, adjusts, and lands. Some days your campaign will soar, and other days it’ll dip. So how do you know if your ROAS is too high or too low, and what should you do about it? The answer depends on a few factors: The seasonality of your market or target audience. The supply and demand of your product. Your brand's promotional calendar. There are plenty of other factors that can impact your ROAS, but these three should help you get a sense of when fluctuations are likely to happen and how to react. For example, running a Black Friday campaign on Google Ads or Meta Ads is a great way to boost revenue for an e-commerce brand, but the same strategy might not work as well for a real estate agency focused on lead generation. Make sure you’re setting expectations based on real time data and upcoming events that might affect your campaign’s performance. Final thoughts on ROAS If you're looking for a good way to measure how well your campaign is turning ad spend into revenue, ROAS should be the metric that is at the top of your list to track. Other useful metrics to use alongside ROAS are POAS (Profit on Ad Spend), MER (Management Expense Ratio), total revenue generated, and AOV (Average Order Value) to name a few. Just remember, when it comes to ROAS, some factors are within your control, and some aren’t—so prepare as best you can to navigate through those fluctuations. In a future piece, I’ll share how you can calculate and predict these fluctuations using key metrics.