Growth & Strategy
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
When I started working with an e-commerce client who was generating decent revenue through Facebook Ads with a 2.5 ROAS, everything looked fine on paper. But there was a hidden vulnerability that most businesses miss: their entire growth engine depended on Meta's algorithm and ad costs.
This is the trap I see everywhere. Businesses build what looks like a solid marketing strategy, but it's actually a house of cards. One algorithm change, one ad account suspension, one platform policy update, and boom – your revenue drops to zero overnight.
Here's what I learned after spending three months rebuilding their entire distribution approach: True multichannel integration isn't about being everywhere at once. It's about creating multiple pathways that work together, where each channel amplifies the others rather than competing for budget.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why your "multichannel" strategy might actually be single-channel in disguise
The distribution overhaul framework I used to reduce platform dependency
How I turned attribution lies into distribution advantages
The 3-month timeline for building anti-fragile marketing systems
Why embracing the "dark funnel" actually improves your results
Check out our distribution strategy guide and growth playbooks for more tactical frameworks.
Conventional Wisdom
What every marketer has already tried
Most businesses think they're doing multichannel marketing when they're really just doing multi-platform spending. Here's what the industry typically recommends:
The Standard Multichannel Playbook:
Spread your budget across 3-5 platforms (Facebook, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn)
Create platform-specific content for each channel
Use unified attribution tools to track cross-platform performance
Optimize each channel independently for best ROAS
Scale winners, pause losers
This advice exists because it's logical, measurable, and gives you the illusion of diversification. Every marketing course, agency pitch, and platform rep will tell you this is the "right" way to do multichannel.
But here's where it falls apart in practice: You're still entirely dependent on paid traffic. If your ad accounts get suspended, algorithm changes hurt performance, or ad costs spike across all platforms simultaneously (hello, iOS 14.5), you're still screwed. You haven't built true distribution – you've just spread your single-channel risk across multiple paid platforms.
The real problem? Most multichannel strategies ignore owned channels entirely. They treat email, SEO, and content as separate "channels" rather than the distribution infrastructure that makes paid channels work better. This creates fragmented customer journeys where each touchpoint exists in isolation.
Here's what actually happened when I stopped following this conventional wisdom and started building real distribution systems instead.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
My client came to me with what looked like a solid setup. They were doing about €50 average order value with a 2.5 ROAS on Facebook Ads, which most marketers would call acceptable. But with their small margins, I could see the math wasn't adding up for sustainable growth.
The deeper issue became clear during our first strategy session: they had built their entire business around a single traffic source. Sure, they had "tried" Google Ads and Instagram, but Facebook was doing 90% of their revenue. Their email list was tiny, their website got almost no organic traffic, and their content strategy was basically "post product photos on social media."
When I dug into their analytics, I found something interesting. They had some direct traffic – people typing their URL directly into browsers. But when I asked how these customers found them originally, they had no idea. Classic attribution gap.
The wake-up call came during iOS 14.5. Their Facebook attribution went haywire, their costs increased, and they couldn't tell which ads were actually working anymore. They were flying blind with their main revenue source.
That's when I realized the fundamental problem: they weren't just dependent on Facebook for traffic; they were dependent on Facebook for their entire understanding of what worked. Without proper attribution across channels, they couldn't build anything else.
I had seen this pattern before. Most e-commerce businesses that "depend" on paid ads aren't really optimizing for the ads themselves – they're optimizing for a single platform's reporting system. When that system breaks down, everything breaks down.
The client was skeptical when I proposed a three-month distribution overhaul instead of just "fixing their Facebook ads." But after explaining that their 2.5 ROAS was probably masking missed opportunities elsewhere, they agreed to try a different approach.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of tweaking their existing Facebook campaigns, I started with a complete audit of their distribution potential. This meant identifying every possible way customers could discover, evaluate, and purchase from them – not just how they were currently being found.
Phase 1: SEO Foundation (Month 1)
I restructured their entire website for organic discovery. This wasn't about adding a blog – it was about making every product page, category page, and collection discoverable through search. I optimized for their product categories, competitor comparisons, and long-tail keywords their customers actually used.
The key insight: instead of fighting for competitive short-tail keywords, I focused on specific product use cases and customer problems. Their main products solved specific problems, but their product pages were focused on features instead of the situations where people needed those solutions.
Phase 2: Content Distribution System (Month 2)
Here's where it gets interesting. Instead of creating "blog content," I created what I call decision-support content. These were guides, comparisons, and educational pieces that lived in the customer journey between awareness and purchase.
But here's the crucial part: this content was designed to work WITH their paid campaigns, not replace them. When someone clicked a Facebook ad but didn't buy immediately, they'd find remarketing ads that led to these educational pieces. This extended the customer journey beyond the single-session conversion window that Facebook optimizes for.
Phase 3: Email Integration (Month 3)
I built email sequences that connected every channel. Someone who found them through SEO got different emails than someone who came from Facebook. But more importantly, I used email to make their paid traffic work better.
When someone visited from a Facebook ad but didn't convert, they'd get an email sequence that included social proof, addressed common objections, and provided additional value. This turned their email list into a conversion amplifier for all other channels.
The Attribution Fix
Instead of trying to "fix" Facebook's attribution, I embraced what I call the "dark funnel" approach. I tracked customer journeys through UTM parameters, email engagement, and post-purchase surveys. This gave us a clearer picture of how channels actually worked together rather than relying on Facebook's last-click attribution.
Most importantly, I set up tracking that showed lifetime value by acquisition channel, not just first-purchase ROAS. This revealed that organic customers had 40% higher lifetime value than paid customers, even if their first purchase was smaller.
Distribution Audit
Map all potential customer discovery paths, not just current traffic sources
Attribution Reality
Track real customer journeys beyond platform reporting with UTM parameters and surveys
Channel Amplification
Design each channel to enhance others rather than compete for budget
Dark Funnel Strategy
Embrace unmeasurable touchpoints as part of your competitive advantage
The results were significant but took time to manifest fully. Within three months, organic traffic increased by 300%, but more importantly, their Facebook ROAS jumped from 2.5 to 8-9. This wasn't because their Facebook ads got better – it was because SEO was driving traffic and conversions that Facebook's attribution was claiming credit for.
Here's what actually happened: customers were discovering them through organic search, browsing multiple times, then seeing a Facebook retargeting ad that convinced them to purchase. Facebook claimed full credit for the conversion, making their ads look much more effective than they actually were.
The revenue breakdown after three months:
Organic traffic: 40% of new customer acquisition
Facebook Ads: Still strong, but now enhancing organic discovery
Email: 25% of revenue from automation sequences
Direct traffic: Doubled, indicating stronger brand recognition
But the most important result was resilience. When iOS 15 email privacy changes hit, when Facebook costs increased industry-wide, when Google algorithm updates happened – their revenue stayed stable because no single channel could take down their entire business.
The attribution "problem" became their competitive advantage. While competitors obsessed over last-click attribution, they focused on total customer lifetime value and building systems that worked together, regardless of which platform got the credit.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
The biggest lesson: most businesses oversimplify the customer journey. They want to believe it's linear: see ad → buy product. But real customer behavior is messy. A typical journey actually includes Google searches, social media browsing, retargeting ad exposure, review site research, email nurturing, and multiple touchpoints across channels.
Key insights that changed my approach:
Attribution lies, distribution doesn't: Instead of trying to track every interaction, focus on building more pathways for customers to find and trust you
Single-channel "success" is usually multichannel collaboration: Your Facebook ads work better when people can Google you and find real information
Owned channels amplify paid channels: Email, content, and SEO don't compete with paid ads – they make them more effective
Dark funnel is a feature, not a bug: Unmeasurable touchpoints are actually your competitive advantage because competitors can't easily copy them
Platform dependency is a business risk: Diversification isn't about spreading spend – it's about building multiple growth engines
Customer lifetime value beats conversion rate: Focus on total customer value, not optimizing individual campaign performance
Time horizon matters: Multichannel integration takes 3-6 months to show full results, but creates sustainable competitive advantages
What I'd do differently: Start with owned channel infrastructure (email, content, SEO foundation) BEFORE scaling paid channels. Most businesses do this backwards and wonder why their customer acquisition becomes more expensive over time.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing multichannel integration:
Build content around specific use cases and integration scenarios
Use trial and onboarding sequences to connect all acquisition channels
Track product usage by acquisition channel, not just signup source
Create educational content that supports your sales team's conversations
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores building distribution systems:
Optimize product pages for long-tail, problem-focused keywords
Build email sequences that nurture based on browsing behavior across channels
Use post-purchase surveys to understand real customer journey patterns
Create content that supports rather than competes with paid campaigns