Just Freakin' Stop It

Today's Goodies

• C’mon Already - Cut It Out

  • X.XX ROAS IN LESS THAN 30 DAYS (it was a number bi …

• Don’t Sell Greed To Desperate People

• Free Agency Assessment

• News & Notes

• Thanks To Our Sponsor - 1440 Media

C’mon Already - Cut It Out

I saw an ad on Instagram last week from an agency where I know the founder. Smart dude, has worked really hard, is finding some real success….

His approach has always been give value - he talks a lot about campaign mistakes, creative testing & optimization, the importance of contribution margin, etc.

But this ad had a headline that I just hated (I am not posting the ad because I don’t want to publicly trash this guy in front of several thousand people):

X.XX ROAS IN LESS THAN 30 DAYS (it was a number bigger than 10, btw)

Now that may have been a real result. It might be 100% true.

But here is why I hate it:

1. ROAS is a stupid metric.

2. It “feels” like a guarantee.

3. It basically asserts that the agency did something extraordinary to achieve that result (they didn’t - they were selling a high demand product).

4. It sells to greed (….OMFG, I can turn $1 into more than $10…) not to business impact on the client.

5. There is no context…no mention of scale or budget or anything.

6. It shows that the agency and the client almost certainly left a bunch of money on the table…if they had pushed the budget so that ROAS was a 6 instead of 10+, would there have been more profit dollars?

Don’t Sell Greed To Desperate People

The real reason I hate it is that it is exploitative. That ridiculous ROAS number is a shimmering oasis mirage in the desert. Those that are desperate chase the promise. That ridiculous ROAS number calls to those that need a miracle. Marketing agencies don’t perform miracles - at their core, they create and promote assets that attract relevant audiences.

They don’t “drive sales on autopilot”, “increase ROAS effortlessly” or “double your conversions”. Agencies understand their clients and their client’s audiences, and get more of the audience to engage with the client.

Agencies manage budgets, make adjustments, create assets, translate value propositions, but at the end of the day, success comes from the connection between brand and its client. Sure, the agency helps more people understand the promise of the product or brand, but at the end of the day, the agency helps their client’s business condition improve…that’s why agencies exist.

Stop selling sh!# that you don’t really do. Learn how to express your true value.

Free Agency Assessment

News & Notes

First It Was Jet.com, then Temu, and now Bookshop.org - Won’t these scrappy upstarts leave Jeff Bezos alone? Indie bookstore infrastructure play, Bookshop.org has just released ebook sales capabilities for local indie bookstores. While I am sure that Jeff feels pretty safe, it’s about freakin’ time that ebooks got a little closer to readers.

I Hope Pete Hegseth Hates This: Two women CEOs announced on the same day? OMFG. Didn’t Trump sign some kind of executive orders stopping these kinds of DEI shenanigans? Agnes Fischer becomes CEO of storied creative agency Grey NY & Beth Ann Kaminkow is slated to become CEO of Dentsu North America in June.

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