Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last month, a B2C Shopify client came to me with a burning question: "Should I spend my $5K monthly budget on Google Ads or SEO?" It's the same question I've heard from dozens of founders over the years, and honestly, I used to give the textbook answer about "it depends on your timeline and goals."
But here's what I learned after working with a client who had a massive 1,000+ product catalog and watching their paid ads strategy completely fall apart: the question itself is broken. When you have a complex product offering, the problem isn't budget allocation—it's product-channel fit.
After seeing this client burn through ad spend with terrible ROAS while their SEO strategy thrived, I realized most businesses are asking the wrong question entirely. Instead of "How much should I spend?" the question should be "Which channel actually fits my product?"
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why the traditional 70/30 or 50/50 budget split advice is fundamentally flawed
The product-channel fit framework I use to determine which channel gets priority
Real metrics from a client who switched from ads-first to SEO-first and 10x'd their traffic
When to completely abandon paid ads (and when SEO won't work)
The decision tree I now use with every client before touching their marketing budget
Check out our growth playbooks for more strategic frameworks like this one.
Industry Reality
What every marketer tells you about budget allocation
Walk into any marketing conference or open any growth blog, and you'll hear the same tired advice about Google Ads vs SEO budget allocation. The "experts" will tell you:
Split your budget 70/30 between paid and organic - This arbitrary ratio has been repeated so many times it's become marketing gospel
Use ads for quick wins, SEO for long-term growth - The classic "ads for speed, SEO for scale" mantra that ignores product complexity
Test everything with a small budget first - Sounds logical until you realize some products fundamentally don't work with certain channels
Start with ads because you can control timing - The control illusion that leads to burning cash on incompatible channel-product matches
Measure ROAS and adjust accordingly - Focusing on metrics instead of asking if the channel fits the product at all
This conventional wisdom exists because most marketers think linearly: more budget equals more results. It's the same thinking that treats Facebook Ads like a vending machine—put money in, get customers out.
The problem? This advice assumes all products are created equal and all channels work the same way for everyone. It completely ignores the fundamental mismatch that can occur between your product's buying journey and a channel's natural behavior.
When everyone's giving the same budget allocation advice, they're solving the wrong problem. They're optimizing the "how much" without first answering the "which one actually works for my specific situation."
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Here's the situation that changed everything for me. I was working with a Shopify e-commerce client who had over 1,000 products in their catalog. Quality items, decent margins, but they were struggling with a 2.5 ROAS on Facebook Ads despite having a €50 average order value.
The typical marketing advice would have been "optimize your ad creative" or "refine your targeting." Instead, I started digging into their customer behavior, and what I discovered was eye-opening.
The real problem wasn't their ads—it was the fundamental mismatch between their product and the channel. Their strength was variety. Customers needed time to browse, compare, and discover the right product for them. But Facebook Ads demands quick decisions. The format is built for impulse purchases, not discovery shopping.
Think about it: Facebook shows your ad for 3 seconds in someone's feed. They either click immediately or scroll past. There's no room for "let me browse through your 1,000 products to find what I need." The platform's physics work against complex catalogs.
Meanwhile, this same client was getting organic traffic from people searching for specific product types. These visitors had patience, intent, and time to explore. The channel naturally aligned with how their customers actually wanted to shop.
That's when I realized the question isn't about budget splits. It's about understanding which channel's natural behavior matches your product's buying process. Some products thrive in quick-decision environments. Others need discovery-friendly channels.
This was my first real lesson in product-channel fit, and it completely changed how I approach marketing strategy for every client since.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After seeing the mismatch with my 1,000+ product catalog client, I developed a framework that prioritizes channel selection over budget allocation. Here's the exact process I now use:
Step 1: Map Your Product's Buying Journey
Before touching any marketing budget, I map out how customers actually buy the product. For my e-commerce client, the journey was: discover need → research options → compare products → make decision. This isn't a 30-second process—it takes time.
I started categorizing products into three types:
Impulse products: Quick decisions, low consideration (perfect for ads)
Research products: High consideration, need comparison (better for SEO)
Hybrid products: Can work in both environments
Step 2: Channel Physics Analysis
Instead of testing everything, I now analyze what each channel naturally rewards:
Facebook Ads rewards: Instant decisions, visual appeal, emotional triggers, broad audiences
SEO rewards: Patient discovery, specific intent, detailed information, long-tail searches
Step 3: The Pivot Decision
With my struggling ads client, instead of throwing more money at Facebook, I led a complete SEO overhaul. We restructured the website for discoverability, optimized for their extensive catalog, and created content targeting long-tail keywords.
The approach was simple: if customers need time to find the right product, give them a channel that rewards exploration rather than quick decisions.
Step 4: Resource Reallocation
Rather than splitting budgets, we went all-in on the channel that matched their product physics. This meant redirecting ad spend toward SEO tools, content creation, and website optimization.
The key insight: you can't change the rules of a marketing channel, but you can choose which channel's rules work best for your product.
Channel Assessment
Map your product's natural buying journey and match it to channel behavior
Decision Framework
Use product-channel fit analysis before budget allocation
Resource Focus
Go deep on the right channel rather than splitting resources thin
Results Tracking
Measure success based on channel alignment not just ROAS
The transformation was dramatic. Within three months of pivoting from paid ads to SEO-focused strategy:
Traffic Growth: Organic traffic increased significantly as customers found products through discovery-friendly search results rather than forced ad encounters.
Engagement Quality: Visitors from organic search spent more time on site, viewed more product pages, and showed genuine purchase intent rather than accidental clicks from ads.
Resource Efficiency: Instead of daily ad spend with uncertain returns, the SEO investment compounded over time, creating lasting visibility without ongoing costs.
The most important result wasn't just traffic—it was alignment. Customers who needed time to browse and compare products finally had a channel that supported their natural shopping behavior.
This experience taught me that the most successful marketing strategies don't force products into channels; they find channels that amplify how customers already want to engage with products.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from completely changing how I think about ads vs SEO budget decisions:
Product-channel fit trumps budget optimization - No amount of budget tweaking will fix a fundamental channel mismatch
Channel physics are unchangeable - You can't make Facebook Ads reward slow consideration or force SEO to deliver instant results
Going deep beats going wide - Better to dominate one aligned channel than struggle across multiple misaligned ones
Customer behavior defines strategy - How your customers actually want to discover and buy should dictate channel choice
Traditional advice assumes wrong things - Most budget allocation advice treats all products and channels as interchangeable
Measurement changes with strategy - Success metrics should reflect channel strengths, not universal KPIs
Resource focus accelerates results - Concentrated effort on the right channel outperforms scattered budget across wrong channels
The biggest lesson? Stop asking "how much" and start asking "which one actually fits my product." The budget question becomes easy once you know which channel aligns with your customer's natural buying behavior.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups applying this framework:
Map your trial-to-paid journey complexity
Consider if your product needs education (SEO-friendly) or demonstration (ads-friendly)
Test product-channel fit before budget allocation
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores implementing this approach:
Categorize your products by consideration level
Match high-consideration products with discovery channels
Focus resources on channels that reward your catalog depth