Growth & Strategy
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, I was working with an e-commerce client who thought they had cracked the code. Facebook Ads ROAS sitting pretty at 2.5, consistent revenue flowing in, everything looking solid on paper.
But here's the thing that kept me up at night: their entire growth engine depended on Mark Zuckerberg's algorithm and Meta's ad costs not going insane. One iOS update, one policy change, one competitor bidding war - and their business could collapse overnight.
Sound familiar? You're probably sitting there right now, watching your Meta ads dashboard like it's life support, wondering if you should double down or find another way. Most marketers will tell you to "optimize your campaigns" or "test new creative." I'm going to tell you something completely different.
After spending three months completely rebuilding this client's distribution strategy, I learned that the Meta ads vs. organic debate isn't really about which channel is better. It's about understanding something way more fundamental: attribution is lying to you, and the customer journey is messier than any dashboard will ever show.
Here's what you'll discover in this playbook:
Why Facebook's "improved ROAS" after implementing SEO was complete fiction
The 3-month distribution overhaul that broke the single-channel dependency
How to embrace the "dark funnel" instead of fighting it
When to kill profitable ad campaigns (and why it might save your business)
The reality check about product-channel fit that most businesses ignore
Reality Check
The conventional wisdom everyone follows
Walk into any marketing conference, scroll through any growth blog, or hop on any marketing Twitter thread, and you'll hear the same tired debate: "Should I focus on paid ads or organic growth?"
The industry has basically split into two camps, both equally wrong in their own special way.
The Paid Ads Camp says: Organic is dead, takes too long, you can't control it. Pour money into Facebook, Google, TikTok - whatever platform is hot right now. Scale fast, optimize creative, test audiences. If it's not working, you just need better targeting or more budget.
The Organic Growth Camp says: Paid ads are expensive, unsustainable, you're just renting an audience. Focus on SEO, content marketing, social media engagement. Build "owned channels." Create valuable content and they will come.
Both sides have their case studies, their success stories, their frameworks and funnels and attribution models. And you know what? They're both missing the point entirely.
The real world doesn't work in neat little boxes. Your customers don't follow linear attribution paths. Someone doesn't just see a Facebook ad, click it, and buy. That's not how humans make decisions, especially for anything that costs more than a coffee.
Here's what actually happens: they see your ad, maybe visit your site, leave without buying, research you on Google, check reviews, see your content somewhere else, get retargeted, ask friends, compare competitors, and maybe come back through a completely different channel to finally purchase.
But your attribution model? It gives all the credit to whatever touchpoint happened to be last. Or first. Or gets the biggest slice based on some algorithm that makes assumptions about customer behavior.
Most businesses optimize for the channel that looks best in their dashboard, not the channel strategy that actually works for their customers. They're playing a game where the scoreboard is broken, and wondering why they're losing.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
So there I was, staring at this client's marketing stack. E-commerce store, decent product catalog, 2.5 ROAS on Facebook Ads. Revenue was consistent, about what you'd expect from a business that size. Nothing spectacular, but not terrible either.
The founder was happy enough, but something felt wrong to me. I kept asking myself: what happens if Facebook decides to change their algorithm tomorrow? What if iOS does another privacy update? What if their main competitor starts bidding on the same audiences?
Their entire business was essentially one algorithm change away from disaster.
But here's what made me really uncomfortable: they had zero visibility into what was actually driving their sales. Sure, Facebook was claiming credit for conversions, but I had this nagging feeling that there were other factors at play.
I started digging deeper into their analytics. Google Analytics was showing traffic coming from multiple sources, but most conversions were being attributed to "direct" or "Facebook." Classic attribution confusion.
The more I looked, the more questions I had. Why were people typing their URL directly? Where had they heard about the brand? What was happening in that mysterious gap between "saw an ad" and "made a purchase?"
That's when I made a controversial decision. Instead of optimizing their existing Facebook campaigns or testing new creative, I convinced the client to let me try something completely different: build a comprehensive distribution system that didn't depend on any single channel.
The client was skeptical. "But our Facebook ads are working," they said. "Why would we change something that's profitable?"
I explained that profitable and sustainable aren't the same thing. We weren't going to kill the Facebook ads overnight - we were going to build additional distribution channels so they'd have options if their primary channel ever got disrupted.
The experiment was simple: spend three months building SEO, content marketing, and organic distribution channels while keeping the Facebook ads running. Then analyze what actually happened to the business.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's exactly what I did during those three months, and why each piece mattered for breaking the single-channel dependency.
Month 1: Complete Website Restructuring for SEO
First, I had to admit something uncomfortable: their website was built for Facebook traffic, not for search engines or organic discovery. The site architecture made sense if you were coming from an ad that told you exactly what to expect, but it was terrible for people discovering them organically.
I restructured the entire site with SEO in mind:
Rewrote every product page to target long-tail keywords their customers actually searched for
Created category pages that could rank for broader terms
Built content hubs around topics their audience cared about
Fixed technical SEO issues that were preventing Google from properly crawling the site
This wasn't just about getting Google traffic - it was about creating multiple entry points for customers to discover the business.
Month 2: Content Strategy That Actually Matched Search Intent
Most e-commerce content strategies fail because they're too focused on the product. I took a different approach: created content that met customers where they were in their journey, not where the business wanted them to be.
Instead of "10 Reasons to Buy Our Product," I created:
Comparison guides for different product categories
Problem-solving content that naturally led to their solutions
Educational resources that built trust before pitching anything
The goal wasn't immediate conversions - it was building visibility and trust with people who weren't ready to buy yet.
Month 3: The Attribution Reality Check
By month three, something interesting started happening. The Facebook ads dashboard was showing ROAS jumping from 2.5 to 8-9. The client was ecstatic - they thought I'd somehow "optimized" their Facebook campaigns.
But I knew better. Facebook was taking credit for conversions that were actually driven by the SEO and content work.
Here's what was really happening: Someone would search for a solution on Google, find our content, read it, maybe visit the product pages, leave without buying, then get retargeted by Facebook ads and complete their purchase. Facebook's attribution model saw that final touchpoint and claimed victory.
This is what I call the "Dark Funnel" - all the research, consideration, and trust-building that happens outside of trackable touchpoints. Traditional attribution models completely miss this, which leads businesses to over-invest in the channels that get credit and under-invest in the channels that actually influence purchase decisions.
The Strategic Shift: From Control to Coverage
Instead of trying to track and control every customer interaction (impossible in today's privacy-focused world), I shifted the strategy to expanding visibility across all possible touchpoints.
More distribution channels meant more opportunities for customers to discover and trust the brand, regardless of which channel got the "credit" in the attribution report.
The business went from being dependent on Facebook's algorithm to having multiple ways for customers to find them: organic search, direct referrals, content discovery, social media, email, and yes, still some paid ads too.
Channel Audit
Analyzed existing traffic sources and identified single-channel dependency risk
Attribution Analysis
Discovered Facebook was claiming credit for SEO-driven conversions
Content Strategy
Built trust-focused content that met customers at different journey stages
Technical Foundation
Restructured website architecture for organic discoverability
Within three months, the business transformation was dramatic - but not in the way most people expected.
The Facebook ROAS numbers looked incredible on paper: 8-9x return instead of the previous 2.5x. But I knew this was attribution fiction. What actually happened was more interesting and sustainable.
Real Business Impact:
Overall revenue increased by 40% while maintaining the same ad spend
Organic traffic grew from virtually zero to 30% of total site traffic
Customer acquisition cost decreased when calculated across all channels
Business became resilient to single-channel disruptions
More importantly, the client stopped waking up worried about their Facebook ad account. They had built a distribution system instead of just a marketing channel.
The most interesting part? When we temporarily paused Facebook ads for two weeks to test channel independence, revenue only dropped by 20% instead of the expected 60-70%. The other channels were carrying more weight than anyone realized.
This confirmed what I suspected: customers weren't making linear journeys from ad click to purchase. They were taking complex, multi-touchpoint paths that crossed channels and attribution models couldn't capture.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Looking back, this experiment taught me some uncomfortable truths about how marketing really works in 2025.
Attribution Is Broken, Accept It
Stop trying to perfectly track customer journeys. Focus on building multiple touchpoints and trust that the math will work out across channels, even if you can't track every interaction.
Customer Journeys Are Messy
People research, compare, leave, come back, ask friends, check reviews, and make decisions across multiple sessions and channels. Plan for this complexity instead of fighting it.
Single-Channel Success Is Single-Channel Risk
If your growth depends entirely on one platform, you're building a house on rented land. Diversification isn't just smart - it's essential for long-term survival.
SEO and Ads Work Better Together
When customers can find you organically, your paid ads become more effective because they're reinforcing an existing impression rather than creating a first impression.
Distribution Beats Optimization
Instead of endlessly optimizing one channel, build visibility across multiple channels. More touchpoints mean more opportunities to influence purchase decisions.
The Dark Funnel Is Real
Most influence happens outside of trackable interactions. Accept this and plan your strategy accordingly.
Focus on Coverage, Not Control
You can't control exactly how customers discover and evaluate your business. But you can ensure they have multiple ways to find you when they're ready.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies looking to reduce paid acquisition dependency:
Build SEO-focused landing pages for each use case and integration
Create educational content that captures early-stage search intent
Develop multiple trial signup paths beyond paid ads
Track customer journeys across channels, not just last-click attribution
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores seeking channel diversification:
Optimize product pages for long-tail keyword discovery
Create content hubs around customer problems, not just products
Build email and SMS channels for direct customer communication
Test reducing ad spend periodically to measure channel independence