Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
When I started working with a B2C Shopify ecommerce client with over 1,000+ SKUs, they came to me with a classic problem: their Facebook Ads were getting clicks but hemorrhaging money. Their ROAS sat at a painful 2.5, and with their small margins, they were basically paying to lose customers.
"Just optimize the ads," every marketing guru would tell you. "Improve your targeting, test new creatives, increase your budget." But here's what I discovered after working with dozens of businesses: most new websites are throwing money at paid ads when they should be building SEO foundations instead.
The harsh reality? Paid ads are like renting traffic - the moment you stop paying, everything disappears. SEO is like buying real estate - it compounds over time and works for you even while you sleep.
After helping clients transition from expensive paid campaigns to profitable organic growth, here's what you'll learn:
Why the "paid ads first" approach kills most new websites
The real cost comparison between SEO and paid advertising (it's not what you think)
My exact framework for choosing between paid and organic strategies
The product-channel fit test that determines your best approach
Why most businesses get attribution completely wrong
This isn't about following industry best practices. This is about real experiments with real money - and what actually moved the needle for businesses like yours.
Industry Reality
What every marketing agency tells new businesses
Walk into any marketing agency or scroll through any growth-hacking forum, and you'll hear the same gospel: "Start with paid ads for immediate results, then build SEO for the long term." The logic sounds bulletproof on paper.
Here's the conventional wisdom you've probably heard a hundred times:
Paid ads give instant traffic - You can be getting visitors within 24 hours
SEO takes 6+ months to work - Why wait when you need results now?
Paid ads are "predictable" - Spend $100, get X visitors, expect Y conversions
You can "test faster" with paid campaigns than organic content
Scale is easier - Just increase your ad budget to grow
This advice exists because agencies make money from ad spend management, not because it's the best strategy for your business. The "quick wins" narrative sells better than "build something sustainable over 6 months."
But here's what they don't tell you: Most new websites have terrible product-channel fit for paid advertising. Facebook and Google Ads work best for simple, impulse-driven products with high margins. If you're selling something complex, have small margins, or need time to educate customers, you're basically paying premium prices to acquire people who aren't ready to buy.
The biggest lie? That paid ads are "predictable." Attribution is broken, iOS updates killed tracking, and your ROAS calculations are probably wrong. Meanwhile, that "slow" SEO strategy is building an asset that competitors can't just outbid.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
OK, so here's what happened with my ecommerce client that changed how I think about this entire paid vs. SEO question. They came to me spending about €2,500 monthly on Facebook Ads with a 2.5 ROAS. Sounds decent until you realize their average order value was €50 and their margins were tight.
The real problem wasn't their ads - it was their catalog. They had over 1,000 products. Think about that for a second. Facebook Ads work great when you're selling 1-3 hero products that people can decide on quickly. But when customers need time to browse, compare, and discover what they actually want? Paid ads become expensive window shopping.
I watched their customer behavior data, and here's what was happening: People would click the ad, land on a specific product page, realize they wanted to see more options, then bounce to browse the full catalog. Classic mismatch between the channel (quick decision-making) and the product (discovery-driven shopping).
Meanwhile, I was working with a B2B SaaS client who had the opposite problem. They were trying to rank for competitive SEO terms while their founder was already getting quality leads through his personal LinkedIn content. The "direct" traffic in their analytics was actually people who had been following his content for months, then typing the URL when they were ready to buy.
That's when it clicked: We're not choosing between paid ads and SEO. We're choosing between channels that match how our customers actually want to discover and buy our products. The ecommerce client needed browsing and discovery - perfect for SEO. The SaaS client needed trust and relationship building - perfect for content and social proof.
But here's the kicker: both businesses had been following the "start with paid ads" playbook and burning money on the wrong channels.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After seeing this pattern across multiple clients, I developed what I call the Product-Channel Fit Test. Before recommending any marketing strategy, I put every business through this framework.
Here's the exact process I use:
Step 1: The Catalog Complexity Test
If you have more than 10 products/services, paid ads become exponentially harder. Facebook wants to show one hero product. Google Shopping works, but you're competing on price alone. SEO lets customers discover your full range organically.
For my ecommerce client, I completely shifted focus from Facebook Ads to SEO. We rebuilt their site architecture, optimized product pages for long-tail keywords, and created content around buying guides. Within 3 months, they were generating significant organic traffic from customers who actually had time to explore their catalog.
Step 2: The Decision Timeline Analysis
Quick impulse buys? Paid ads win. Complex B2B purchases? SEO and content win. I track how long visitors spend on site and how many sessions before conversion. If people need multiple touchpoints, paid ads just burn through budget on "research visits."
Step 3: The Attribution Reality Check
Here's something wild I discovered: after implementing SEO for the ecommerce client, Facebook's reported ROAS jumped from 2.5 to 8-9. Did the ads suddenly get better? Nope. SEO was driving conversions, but Facebook was taking credit through its attribution window.
This is why I stopped trusting platform-reported metrics entirely. Real attribution is messy. Customers see your ad, Google your brand, read your content, check reviews, then maybe buy. Which channel gets credit? Usually the last click, which misses the entire journey.
Step 4: The Margin Math
I calculate the true cost per acquisition including creative production, platform fees, and internal time managing campaigns. Then I compare that to SEO content production costs. For most businesses, SEO wins on unit economics once you hit the 6-month mark.
Step 5: The Competitive Moat Test
Paid ads have no moat. Competitors can copy your creatives and outbid you tomorrow. SEO builds cumulative authority that's much harder to replicate. I've seen companies lose their entire traffic overnight when competitors started bidding on their branded terms, but I've never seen someone lose SEO rankings that quickly.
Product-Channel Fit
Run the catalog complexity and decision timeline tests before choosing your channel strategy
Attribution Myths
Most platform-reported ROAS is wrong - track the full customer journey instead of last-click data
Margin Math
Calculate true CAC including creative costs and internal time - SEO usually wins after 6 months
Competitive Moats
Paid ads offer zero defensibility - competitors can copy and outbid you tomorrow
The results from shifting my client strategies were pretty dramatic, but let me be specific about what actually happened:
Ecommerce Client (1000+ SKU store):
Within 3 months of focusing on SEO over paid ads, organic traffic increased 5x. More importantly, those visitors actually converted because they were actively searching for products rather than being interrupted by ads. The business went from break-even advertising to profitable organic growth.
B2B SaaS Client:
Stopped paid ads entirely and doubled down on the founder's LinkedIn content plus SEO. "Direct" traffic (actually people who discovered them through content) became their highest-converting channel. CAC dropped by 60% while lead quality improved.
Here's what the data actually showed: businesses with complex products or longer sales cycles consistently perform better with SEO-first strategies. The "quick wins" from paid ads are often fool's gold - high traffic numbers that don't convert because there's no product-channel fit.
The timeline reality? SEO takes 3-6 months to get momentum, but then it compounds. Paid ads give instant traffic that disappears the moment you stop paying. After 12 months, the SEO-first businesses were significantly ahead on total ROI.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After running this experiment across multiple client types, here are the key insights that changed how I approach channel strategy:
Product-channel fit beats channel optimization - No amount of creative testing will fix a fundamental mismatch between your product and the channel dynamics
Attribution is broken, focus on full-journey metrics - Platform-reported ROAS is mostly fiction. Track brand searches, direct traffic, and customer surveys instead
Margins determine strategy - High-margin products can afford paid ads. Low-margin products need organic channels to be profitable
Catalog complexity kills paid ads - The more products you have, the worse paid advertising performs. SEO scales with catalog size
Customer intent matters more than speed - "Quick" paid traffic from people who aren't ready to buy is expensive and ineffective
SEO builds moats, ads build dependencies - Organic rankings create defensible advantages. Paid campaigns create expensive addictions
The "test fast" myth is dangerous - You can't test product-channel fit with ad creative. You need to test the fundamental channel alignment
If I were starting over today, I'd recommend the opposite of conventional wisdom: start with SEO and content, then layer in paid ads only after you've proven product-channel fit organically. The businesses that survive long-term are built on owned channels, not rented traffic.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, focus on:
Content that demonstrates expertise (builds trust for complex B2B sales)
Long-tail keyword targeting for specific use cases and integrations
Founder-led content on LinkedIn (highest-converting channel for most B2B SaaS)
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, prioritize:
Product page SEO for browsing and discovery behavior
Large catalogs benefit more from SEO than paid ads
Focus on organic channels first, then test paid ads for proven bestsellers