Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Six months ago, a B2B SaaS client came to me frustrated. Their marketing team was celebrating their "diversified channel strategy" - Facebook ads, Google ads, LinkedIn campaigns, content marketing, email sequences, and even podcast sponsorships. They had all the channels running. The problem? Their cost per acquisition was through the roof, and they couldn't figure out which channels actually drove revenue.
Sound familiar? Most businesses think channel optimization means having more channels. After working with dozens of SaaS and ecommerce clients, I've learned the hard truth: more channels usually means more problems, not more growth.
I've spent the last three years testing a different approach - what I call "channel focus optimization" instead of "channel diversification." The results have been eye-opening. One ecommerce client went from a 2.5 ROAS across six channels to an 8-9 ROAS by focusing on just two. A B2B startup cut their marketing spend by 40% while doubling their qualified leads.
Here's what you'll learn from my real experiments:
Why the "test everything" approach is bleeding your budget
The channel elimination framework I use with every client
How to identify your one "distribution engine" channel
Real metrics from clients who pivoted from multi-channel chaos to focused growth
When channel expansion actually makes sense (hint: it's not when you think)
This isn't another "omnichannel marketing" guide. This is about finding what actually works for your specific business and doubling down on it. Let's dig into what I've learned from the trenches.
Industry Reality
What the marketing gurus tell you about channel strategy
Walk into any marketing conference or open any growth blog, and you'll hear the same advice: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." The conventional wisdom preaches channel diversification as the holy grail of sustainable growth.
Here's what every marketing expert will tell you:
Diversify your traffic sources - "What if Facebook changes their algorithm?" they ask. "You need multiple channels to reduce risk."
Test every channel - Google ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn, TikTok, influencer marketing, SEO, content marketing, email, affiliate programs, partnerships. The list goes on.
Optimize across all touchpoints - Create an "omnichannel experience" where customers see you everywhere.
Attribution is key - Track every interaction across every channel to understand the "customer journey."
Scale what works - Once you find winning channels, pour more budget into all of them.
This advice exists because it sounds logical. Diversification works in finance, so it must work in marketing, right? Plus, there are impressive case studies of companies using 10+ channels successfully.
The problem? Most of these case studies come from companies with massive budgets and dedicated teams for each channel. When you're a startup or small business trying to replicate this approach, you end up spreading yourself too thin.
What the gurus don't tell you is that channel optimization for most businesses isn't about managing more channels - it's about finding the one channel that actually drives sustainable growth and perfecting it. Everything else is just expensive noise.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
My wake-up call came from working with an e-commerce client who was stuck in what I now call "multi-channel purgatory." They were running Facebook ads with a 2.5 ROAS, Google ads that barely broke even, influencer partnerships that generated buzz but no sales, and an email sequence that had decent open rates but terrible conversion.
The client was spending €8,000 per month across these channels and feeling frustrated. "We're doing everything the experts say," they told me. "Why isn't it working?"
I dove into their analytics and discovered something interesting. Their "direct" traffic was actually performing better than all their paid channels combined. But when I dug deeper, I realized this wasn't really direct traffic - it was people who had discovered them through SEO, then bookmarked the site or typed the URL directly later.
Their paid channels were bringing in customers who bought once and never returned. Their SEO traffic was bringing in customers who not only converted better but came back repeatedly. The data was clear, but it took months to convince them to make a radical change.
I suggested we pause all paid advertising for 30 days and redirect that entire €8,000 budget into a comprehensive SEO overhaul. The client was terrified. "What if our sales drop?" they asked. "What if we lose momentum?"
But here's what actually happened: during that first month, sales stayed roughly the same. Customer acquisition cost dropped by 60%. Most importantly, the quality of customers improved dramatically. Instead of one-time buyers, they were attracting people who actually understood their product category and came ready to purchase.
This experience taught me that channel optimization isn't about balancing multiple channels - it's about finding your one distribution engine and making it work incredibly well.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that first success, I developed a systematic approach I now use with every client. I call it the "Channel Focus Framework" - a process for identifying and optimizing your single best channel before expanding anywhere else.
Phase 1: The Channel Audit
First, I map out every current channel and calculate the true cost per acquisition for each. This isn't just ad spend divided by conversions. I include:
Time investment (both yours and your team's)
Tool costs (software, platforms, subscriptions)
Content creation costs
Customer lifetime value from each channel
With the ecommerce client, this revealed that their "cheap" social media marketing was actually costing €180 per customer when you factored in content creation time and low retention rates.
Phase 2: The Quality Score
Next, I analyze customer quality from each channel using three metrics:
Retention rate - Do customers from this channel come back?
Engagement depth - Do they use the product/browse the site extensively?
Referral potential - Do they recommend you to others?
This is where most businesses get shocked. The channels bringing the most volume often bring the lowest quality customers.
Phase 3: The Channel Elimination
Here's the controversial part: I recommend pausing every channel except the top performer. Not reducing spend - completely pausing. This forces you to see what each channel actually contributes versus what you think it contributes.
One B2B SaaS client discovered that their "successful" LinkedIn campaigns were just taking credit for leads that would have found them through Google search anyway. When we paused LinkedIn, organic search traffic increased because they weren't competing with their own ads anymore.
Phase 4: The Deep Optimization
With all resources focused on one channel, magic happens. Instead of managing six mediocre campaigns, you can create one exceptional growth engine.
For the ecommerce client, this meant:
Creating 500+ SEO-optimized product pages
Building topic clusters around their main product categories
Implementing technical SEO improvements that would have been impossible with divided attention
Creating a content calendar focused entirely on search intent
The results? Their organic traffic grew from 500 monthly visitors to over 5,000 in just three months. More importantly, these visitors converted at 3x the rate of their previous paid traffic.
Phase 5: Strategic Expansion
Only after dominating one channel do we consider expansion. But now it's strategic expansion, not scattered experimentation. We look for channels that complement the main engine, not compete with it.
For example, after establishing SEO dominance, we added email marketing to capture and nurture the organic traffic. Then we tested content partnerships with other sites in their niche. Each addition amplified the main channel rather than fragmenting attention.
Channel Audit
Map your true cost per customer across all channels including time, tools, and team resources - most businesses discover their "cheapest" channels are actually the most expensive.
Quality Score
Measure customer retention, engagement depth, and referral potential from each channel - high-volume channels often bring the lowest-quality customers.
Focus Phase
Pause all channels except your top performer for 30 days to eliminate false attribution and see what each channel actually contributes to growth.
Deep Optimization
With resources focused on one channel, implement improvements that would be impossible with divided attention - this is where exponential growth happens.
The results from this approach have been consistent across different industries and business models. Here's what happens when businesses focus on channel optimization instead of channel multiplication:
Immediate Impact (0-30 days):
40-60% reduction in marketing complexity
20-30% reduction in total marketing spend
Clearer understanding of what actually drives revenue
Medium-term Growth (30-90 days):
2-3x improvement in the primary channel's performance
50-80% improvement in customer quality metrics
Significantly better attribution and decision-making
The ecommerce client achieved a 10x traffic increase in 90 days by focusing entirely on SEO. A B2B SaaS client doubled their qualified leads while cutting marketing spend by 40% by focusing on content marketing and pausing all paid ads.
The most surprising result? Most clients don't want to go back to multi-channel chaos. Once they experience the clarity and growth that comes from channel focus, managing multiple mediocre channels feels like a waste of time and money.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this framework with 20+ clients, here are the key insights that surprised me:
Attribution is mostly fiction - Most analytics tools give credit to the last click, creating false confidence in channels that are just intercepting customers who would have converted anyway.
Channel synergy is overrated - The idea that multiple channels "work together" usually just means you're paying multiple times for the same customer.
Quality beats quantity every time - 100 customers from your best channel are worth more than 1,000 customers from scattered sources.
Focus enables innovation - When you're not juggling six channels, you can experiment with advanced tactics that actually move the needle.
Simplicity scales better - A simple system that works is easier to scale than a complex system that sort of works.
Timing matters more than tactics - Channel expansion works best when you've exhausted the potential of your primary channel, not when you're bored with it.
Team clarity improves everything - When everyone focuses on one channel, execution quality improves dramatically because there's no confusion about priorities.
The biggest mistake I see businesses make is expanding channels too early. They get excited about a new opportunity and start testing before they've fully optimized what they already have. This leads to perpetual mediocrity across all channels instead of excellence in one.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing channel optimization:
Start with content marketing or SEO as your primary channel - they compound over time
Focus on channels that capture existing demand before creating new demand
Measure customer lifetime value by channel, not just conversion rates
Only expand channels after achieving consistent month-over-month growth from your primary engine
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores optimizing channels:
Test SEO vs paid advertising with equal budgets for 90 days to find your best fit
Consider channel-product fit - different products may perform better on different channels
Track customer retention rates by channel to identify quality traffic sources
Use email marketing to amplify your primary channel rather than as a standalone strategy