Growth & Strategy
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Here's what most businesses get wrong about distribution: they think it's about finding the perfect marketing channel. I used to think the same thing until I worked with an e-commerce client who had built their entire growth engine around Facebook Ads. They were hitting a respectable 2.5 ROAS, generating consistent revenue, and everything seemed to be working perfectly.
But there was a hidden vulnerability that almost killed their business: single-channel dependency. When iOS 14.5 rolled out and Facebook's attribution started getting wonky, they panicked. That's when they called me, not to fix their ads, but to build what they should have had from day one—a comprehensive distribution system.
What I discovered during that 3-month project completely changed how I think about distribution planning. It's not about finding one channel that works; it's about creating multiple pathways for customers to discover your business. Most companies are sitting on a distribution goldmine without even knowing it.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why single-channel dependency is the biggest threat to sustainable growth
How to build an omnichannel distribution system that compounds over time
The dark funnel reality that's making your attribution data worthless
My step-by-step framework for distribution diversification
Real metrics from a business that went from 2.5 to 8-9 ROAS using this approach
If you're tired of being at the mercy of algorithm changes and want to build a distribution engine that actually scales, this is for you. Read our distribution strategy guide for the foundational concepts, then dive into this real-world implementation.
Industry Reality
What every business owner believes about distribution
Walk into any marketing conference or scroll through any growth blog, and you'll hear the same advice repeated like gospel: "Find your one golden channel and double down on it." The distribution planning wisdom sounds logical on paper.
Here's what the industry typically recommends:
Channel Testing: Test 3-5 marketing channels simultaneously to find your winner
Resource Concentration: Once you find a profitable channel, put 80% of your budget there
Optimization Focus: Perfect your winning channel before exploring others
Attribution Tracking: Use last-click attribution to measure channel performance
ROI Maximization: Scale the channel with the best immediate returns
This conventional wisdom exists because it's easier to manage, measure, and explain to stakeholders. Single-channel focus gives you clear attribution, predictable costs, and straightforward optimization paths. Most agencies love this approach because it's simple to report on and manage.
But here's where this falls apart in practice: the internet doesn't work like a linear funnel anymore. Customer journeys are messy, attribution is broken, and platform algorithms change overnight. When iOS 14.5 hit, businesses that had built everything on Facebook's attribution suddenly couldn't track their customers properly.
The real kicker? While everyone's focused on optimizing their "winning" channel, they're missing the compound effect of distribution diversification. Multiple touchpoints don't just add up—they multiply each other's effectiveness. A customer who sees your Google ad, then finds your blog post, then gets retargeted on Facebook is exponentially more likely to convert than someone who only sees one touchpoint.
I learned this the hard way when traditional distribution planning almost cost my client their entire business. Time to share what actually works in 2025.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When this e-commerce client first reached out, they weren't looking for a distribution overhaul. They wanted help "fixing" their Facebook Ads performance. They had a solid product catalog with over 1,000 SKUs, decent margins, and had been successfully running Facebook campaigns for two years.
But there were warning signs I noticed immediately. Their entire customer acquisition strategy depended on Meta's ecosystem. No email list growth. No organic traffic. No referral programs. No content strategy. Just Facebook Ads driving traffic to product pages, and when people bought, that was it.
The wake-up call came when iOS 14.5 rolled out. Suddenly, Facebook's "verified" 2.5 ROAS became questionable. Their attribution was all over the place, they couldn't track customers properly, and worst of all, they had no other traffic sources to fall back on. They were completely dependent on one platform's ability to deliver customers.
Here's what I found when I audited their entire customer acquisition system:
Zero organic traffic: Their website had been built purely for paid traffic conversion
No email marketing: They collected emails but never used them strategically
Missing content strategy: No blog, no resources, no reason for customers to return
Poor SEO foundation: Great for conversions, terrible for discoverability
No referral system: Happy customers had no way to share the business
The scariest part? They thought they were doing well because their Facebook campaigns were "profitable." But they were one algorithm change away from losing everything. When I showed them what would happen if Facebook shut down their ad account (which happens more often than people think), the founder's face went white.
That's when we decided to completely rebuild their distribution strategy from the ground up. Not as a replacement for Facebook Ads, but as a comprehensive system where every channel reinforced the others. What happened next surprised both of us.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of trying to "fix" their Facebook Ads, I convinced them to invest three months building what I call a Distribution Ecosystem. The goal wasn't to replace Facebook—it was to create multiple customer acquisition engines that would make their business antifragile.
Month 1: Foundation Building
We started with the unsexy but crucial infrastructure work. Complete website restructuring for SEO optimization, not just conversion. This meant rebuilding their site architecture to support content, implementing proper technical SEO, and creating landing pages for long-tail keywords their customers actually searched for.
The key insight: we weren't building a website anymore—we were building a customer magnet. Every page became a potential entry point, not just a conversion destination.
Month 2: Content & Email Systems
While the SEO foundation was being built, we launched an aggressive content strategy focused on search intent, not brand messaging. But here's the twist—instead of generic "How to" content, we created buying guides for their specific product categories.
Simultaneously, we built email capture systems throughout the customer journey. Not just newsletter signups, but value-driven lead magnets that actually helped people make purchasing decisions. Cart abandonment sequences, browse abandonment emails, and post-purchase follow-ups that turned one-time buyers into repeat customers.
Month 3: Distribution Amplification
This is where the magic happened. We didn't launch new channels—we amplified everything we'd built. The SEO content started ranking. The email sequences began converting. The retargeting audiences from organic traffic became gold mines for Facebook campaigns.
But here's the counterintuitive part: Facebook's reported ROAS actually went UP to 8-9. Not because we improved the ads, but because SEO was driving significant traffic and conversions that Facebook's attribution model was claiming credit for.
This taught me the most important lesson about distribution: when you have multiple touchpoints, attribution becomes meaningless but results become magical. Customers were discovering the brand through Google, researching through content, getting nurtured via email, and converting after seeing a Facebook retargeting ad. Which channel gets "credit"? Who cares—the business was growing.
The framework I developed from this experience now guides every distribution strategy I build:
Audit Current Dependencies: Identify single points of failure
Build Distribution Infrastructure: SEO foundation, email systems, content strategy
Create Touchpoint Multiplication: Each channel should feed and amplify others
Embrace Attribution Darkness: Focus on business growth, not perfect tracking
Attribution Reality
Facebook's ROAS jumped from 2.5 to 8-9, but SEO was actually driving the growth that Facebook claimed credit for
Email Foundation
Built cart abandonment and browse abandonment sequences that converted 18% of email recipients into customers
Content Strategy
Created buying guides that ranked for 200+ product-related keywords within 90 days of publication
Infrastructure Investment
Rebuilt website architecture to support both conversion optimization and organic discoverability simultaneously
The results spoke for themselves, but not in the way anyone expected. Within 90 days, we had fundamentally changed how this business acquired customers:
Traffic Diversification:
Organic traffic grew from near-zero to 40% of total sessions
Email marketing became 25% of total revenue
Facebook Ads remained profitable but now accounted for 35% instead of 95%
Direct traffic increased 3x as brand awareness improved
Business Resilience:
More importantly, the business became antifragile. When Facebook's algorithm changed (which it did, twice, during our project), total revenue barely fluctuated. The other channels compensated automatically.
The most surprising result? Customer lifetime value increased by 60%. Customers who discovered the brand through multiple touchpoints became more loyal, made larger orders, and referred more friends. The distribution diversity didn't just protect the business—it made it more profitable.
Six months later, when iOS 15 rolled out and wreaked havoc on Facebook attribution again, this client was completely unaffected. Their competitors were scrambling to fix their tracking; they were busy scaling their omnichannel engine.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This project taught me seven critical lessons that completely changed how I approach distribution planning:
Attribution is a vanity metric: In the age of the dark funnel, focus on business growth, not perfect tracking
Channels multiply, they don't just add: Multiple touchpoints create exponentially better results than single channels
Infrastructure before amplification: Build the foundation (SEO, email, content) before scaling paid channels
Diversification is growth insurance: Multiple channels protect against algorithm changes and market shifts
Organic compounds, paid doesn't: SEO and content create long-term assets; ads stop working when you stop paying
Customer journey complexity is your friend: Embrace the messy, multi-touch customer experience
Distribution planning is product strategy: How customers find you affects how they perceive and use your product
What I'd do differently: Start with content and SEO from day one, even when paid ads are working. Don't wait for a crisis to diversify your distribution. The time to build a distribution ecosystem is when you don't need it.
This approach works best for businesses with proven product-market fit who are currently dependent on 1-2 channels. It doesn't work for early-stage startups who need to focus on finding their first profitable channel.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups implementing this distribution planning approach:
Build content around specific use cases and integrations your target customers search for
Create email nurture sequences for trial users that combine product education with industry insights
Use SEO to capture bottom-funnel searches like "[competitor] alternative" and "[solution] for [industry]"
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores looking to diversify their distribution strategy:
Create buying guides and comparison content for your product categories to capture research-phase traffic
Implement browse and cart abandonment email sequences with personalized product recommendations
Build SEO around product-related keywords and local search terms to reduce paid acquisition costs