Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
I used to watch my e-commerce client celebrate their "successful" Facebook Ads campaigns. ROAS sitting at 2.5, consistent revenue flowing in. On paper, everything looked good. But I knew we were sitting on a ticking time bomb.
Here's what most founders miss: when your entire growth engine depends on Meta's algorithm and ad costs, you're not building a business—you're renting someone else's distribution channel. And rent always goes up.
The uncomfortable truth? Distribution beats product quality every single time. Most startups are building in isolation, hoping the market will find them. This doesn't work. You need to be where your customers already are, speaking their language, solving their immediate problems.
After spending three months completely overhauling my client's distribution strategy, I learned why most "build it and they will come" approaches fail. Here's what you'll discover in this playbook:
Why single-channel dependency is killing your growth potential
How I built a comprehensive distribution system that 4x'd organic conversions
The attribution lies that hide your real growth channels
A practical framework for expanding distribution without breaking your budget
Why embracing the "dark funnel" changed everything about measurement
This isn't about growth hacking or viral loops. It's about building sustainable distribution systems that work even when algorithms change or ad costs spike. Let's dive into what actually moves the needle.
Reality Check
What every startup founder thinks they know about growth
Walk into any startup accelerator, and you'll hear the same distribution advice repeated like gospel:
"Focus on one channel until you nail it" - Find your best performing channel and double down
"Optimize for the highest ROAS" - Facebook says 4x return? That's your winner
"Build it and they will come" - Great products naturally find their market
"Attribution tracking tells the whole story" - Trust your analytics dashboard
"Content marketing takes too long" - Paid ads give immediate results
This conventional wisdom exists because it's simple, measurable, and feels controllable. VCs love clean attribution models. Founders love predictable CAC. Marketing teams love channels they can "optimize."
But here's where this approach falls apart in practice: it treats distribution like a switch instead of an ecosystem. When you depend on a single channel, you're essentially building someone else's business. Meta changes their algorithm? Your CAC doubles overnight. Google updates their ranking factors? Your organic traffic disappears.
The bigger issue is attribution blindness. Most analytics tools are designed to give credit to the last touchpoint before conversion. But real customer journeys are messy—they involve multiple channels, word-of-mouth, dark social sharing, and months of consideration.
What these traditional approaches miss is the compound effect of distribution. When you have presence across multiple channels, they start reinforcing each other in ways that single-channel metrics can't capture.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started working with this e-commerce client, they were the poster child for "successful" single-channel growth. Their Facebook Ads were generating consistent revenue at 2.5 ROAS with a €50 average order value. Most agencies would have called this a win and focused on scaling ad spend.
But I had a problem with their situation. With their razor-thin margins, a 2.5 ROAS wasn't actually profitable when you factored in all costs. More importantly, they were completely vulnerable. Every month was a negotiation with Meta's algorithm.
The client ran an e-commerce store with over 1,000 SKUs—quality products across a wide range. Their strength was variety and discovery, not quick decision-making. But Facebook Ads demand instant decisions. Customers needed time to browse, compare, and discover the right product for them.
Here's what I tried first: optimizing the ads themselves. Better targeting, improved creative, landing page tweaks. We managed to squeeze the ROAS up to 2.8, but we were still fighting the fundamental mismatch between their business model and the channel.
That's when I realized we weren't just dealing with an optimization problem—we had a product-channel fit issue. Facebook Ads work best for businesses with 1-3 flagship products and clear value propositions. My client's strength was their extensive catalog, which was actually a weakness in the paid ads environment.
The turning point came when I started questioning our measurement approach. Facebook was claiming credit for sales that seemed suspicious. Customers were "converting" from ads after browsing sessions that started with direct traffic or organic search. Something wasn't adding up.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of trying to force their business model into Facebook's framework, I decided to rebuild their entire distribution strategy from the ground up. This wasn't about abandoning paid ads—it was about creating a system where paid ads became one touchpoint in a larger ecosystem.
Phase 1: Website Infrastructure Overhaul
The first step was restructuring their website for discoverability rather than just conversion. I implemented a complete SEO overhaul:
Rebuilt the site architecture around keyword clusters, not product categories
Created landing pages for every major product category with rich, searchable content
Implemented schema markup for better search visibility
Optimized for long-tail keywords where customers with high intent were searching
Phase 2: Content Strategy for Discovery
Rather than pushing for immediate sales, I focused on being present during the research phase:
Created buying guides and comparison content for each product category
Developed use-case content that showed products in context
Built resource pages that became bookmark-worthy references
Focused on answering questions customers were already asking
Phase 3: The Attribution Reality Check
Here's where things got interesting. Within a month of implementing the SEO strategy, Facebook's reported ROAS jumped from 2.5 to 8-9. Most marketers would celebrate this "improved ad performance." But I knew better.
The reality? SEO was driving significant traffic and conversions, but Facebook's attribution model was claiming credit for organic wins. Customers would research through organic channels, then see a retargeting ad and convert. Facebook got the credit, but SEO did the heavy lifting.
Phase 4: Embracing the Dark Funnel
This experience taught me to stop chasing perfect attribution and start building for customer reality. Instead of trying to track every interaction, I focused on expanding visibility across all possible touchpoints:
Organic search for product research and comparison
Social media for inspiration and social proof
Email for nurturing and education
Paid ads for retargeting and final push
Direct traffic for repeat customers and referrals
The key insight: More distribution channels mean more opportunities for customers to discover and trust your brand, regardless of which touchpoint gets the "credit."
Channel Diversification
Built presence across 5+ touchpoints instead of relying on single-channel optimization for sustainable growth.
Attribution Reality
Discovered Facebook was claiming credit for SEO-driven conversions, revealing the truth about multi-touch customer journeys.
Product-Channel Fit
Matched distribution strategy to business model—extensive catalog needed discovery channels, not quick-decision ads.
Dark Funnel Strategy
Embraced unmeasurable touchpoints by focusing on coverage rather than perfect tracking and attribution.
The results spoke for themselves, though not in the way traditional metrics would capture:
Organic Traffic Growth: Within 3 months, organic search traffic increased by 340%. More importantly, these visitors showed higher engagement—longer session duration, lower bounce rates, and higher conversion intent.
Reduced Ad Dependency: We gradually reduced Facebook ad spend by 40% while maintaining overall revenue. The cost savings alone improved their bottom line significantly.
Improved Customer Quality: Customers acquired through organic channels showed 60% higher lifetime value compared to paid acquisition. They were more likely to become repeat buyers and refer others.
Revenue Stability: Monthly revenue became far more predictable and less dependent on platform changes or seasonal ad cost fluctuations.
But the most significant result was resilience. When iOS 14.5 hit and Facebook attribution became even less reliable, this client barely noticed. Their distribution system had become platform-agnostic.
The truth is, we never figured out exact attribution. But revenue grew, costs decreased, and the business became sustainable. Sometimes the best measurement is the business health itself.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons that fundamentally changed how I approach distribution strategy:
Product-channel fit trumps optimization. Don't force your business model into channels that weren't designed for it. Match your distribution to your customer's natural buying behavior.
Attribution is a useful lie. Perfect tracking is impossible in today's privacy-first world. Focus on building coverage across touchpoints rather than measuring every interaction.
Single-channel success is single-channel risk. What looks like good performance might be a house of cards waiting for an algorithm change.
Distribution compounds. Multiple channels reinforce each other in ways that individual channel metrics can't capture.
Customer journey reality beats marketing theory. People don't follow linear funnels. They research, compare, get distracted, and come back through different channels.
Sustainable growth requires owned channels. Build assets you control—email lists, organic rankings, brand recognition—alongside rented channels.
Resilience beats optimization. A robust system that works across multiple scenarios is more valuable than a perfectly optimized single channel.
The biggest mindset shift: stop thinking like a marketer optimizing campaigns and start thinking like an architect building ecosystems.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups:
Build content that solves problems before selling solutions
Create educational resources that establish expertise
Focus on discovery channels where buyers research
Develop multiple ways for prospects to experience value
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Build around product discovery and comparison behavior
Create browsable, searchable content experiences
Optimize for long-tail product searches
Balance quick conversion tactics with relationship building