Growth & Strategy
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Two years ago, I was working with an ecommerce client who was celebrating a "respectable" 2.5 ROAS on Facebook Ads. The numbers looked decent on paper, but something felt off. With their thin margins and €50 average order value, we were basically breaking even while burning through budget.
Then I made a decision that almost got me fired: I recommended they stop paid advertising entirely and pivot to organic growth. The client thought I'd lost my mind. "But everyone says you need paid ads to scale!" they protested.
Here's what happened next: within 6 months, we went from 300 monthly visitors to over 5,000 through pure organic strategy. More importantly, these visitors converted better and had higher lifetime value than our paid traffic ever did.
Most businesses treat paid advertising like a life support system - terrified to turn it off even when it's slowly bleeding them dry. But sometimes the best growth strategy is knowing when to walk away from what "everyone else" is doing.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
The hidden costs of paid advertising that most businesses ignore
How to recognize when product-channel fit is fundamentally broken
My framework for transitioning from paid to organic without losing revenue
The surprising results of going "ad-free" for complex product catalogs
When to restart paid advertising (and when to never look back)
Industry Reality
What every marketer has been taught
The marketing industry has built an entire ecosystem around the idea that paid advertising is essential for business growth. Here's what every agency and "growth expert" will tell you:
"Paid ads are the fastest way to scale" - The conventional wisdom says organic takes too long, and paid advertising gives you immediate results and predictable growth.
"You can optimize your way to profitability" - Just test more creatives, refine your targeting, optimize your landing pages, and eventually you'll crack the code.
"If paid ads don't work, it's a product problem" - This one's particularly toxic. The assumption is that any good product should be able to make Facebook or Google Ads profitable.
"Diversify your traffic sources" - The safe play is supposedly to run multiple paid channels while building organic as a "nice-to-have" supplement.
"Data-driven decisions beat gut feelings" - Track everything, optimize based on metrics, and let the algorithms do their magic.
This advice exists because it's profitable for the platforms and agencies selling it. Facebook and Google have built trillion-dollar businesses convincing you that paid traffic is the answer to everything. Most marketing agencies charge percentage-based fees on ad spend, so they're literally incentivized to keep you spending.
But here's what they don't tell you: some products are fundamentally incompatible with paid advertising channels. And sometimes, the best growth strategy is recognizing this mismatch early and doubling down on what actually works.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The client was a Shopify store with over 1,000 products across multiple categories. Think home goods, lifestyle accessories, and unique finds - the kind of diverse catalog that makes browsing enjoyable but targeting ads a nightmare.
When I started working with them, they were running Facebook Ads with a 2.5 ROAS. For most people, that sounds acceptable. But when I dug into the actual numbers, the picture was different. After factoring in their cost of goods (around 40%), payment processing fees (3%), and the time spent managing campaigns, they were basically treading water.
The real problem became clear when I analyzed customer behavior. Facebook Ads demands instant decision-making. You see an ad, you either buy or scroll past. But this client's strength was discovery - customers needed time to browse their unique products, compare options, and stumble upon things they didn't know they wanted.
I tried everything the industry recommends: better targeting, dynamic product ads, lookalike audiences, retargeting sequences. We tested dozens of creative angles and spent weeks optimizing landing pages. Some tests moved the needle slightly, but we never broke through to genuinely profitable territory.
The breakthrough moment came when I looked at their organic traffic behavior. The 10% of visitors coming through Google search had dramatically higher engagement metrics - longer session duration, more pages per visit, and better conversion rates. These people were finding them intentionally, not being interrupted by ads.
That's when I realized we were forcing a square peg into a round hole. Their product catalog was perfect for discovery-based shopping, but we were trying to sell it through interruption-based advertising.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of continuing to throw money at Facebook Ads, I convinced the client to try a radical experiment: pause all paid advertising for 90 days and redirect that budget into organic growth. Here's exactly what we did:
Step 1: The SEO Foundation Overhaul
First, we completely restructured their website architecture. Instead of thinking like a traditional ecommerce site with category pages, we built it like a content hub. Every product became an entry point with detailed descriptions, styling guides, and related product suggestions.
We optimized 1,000+ product pages with long-tail keywords that people actually searched for. Instead of "blue ceramic mug," we targeted "handmade ceramic coffee mug with vintage glaze finish." The specificity matched how people searched for unique products.
Step 2: Content-Driven Discovery
We created buying guides, seasonal collections, and "rooms" that showcased products in context. Instead of pushing individual products, we focused on helping people discover what they didn't know they wanted.
Each piece of content was optimized for search intent. People searching "minimalist home decor ideas" would find our curated collections, not random product ads in their social feed.
Step 3: The Attribution Reality Check
Here's where it gets interesting. Within 30 days of pausing Facebook Ads, their "direct" traffic increased by 40%. But here's the kicker - their Facebook attribution was claiming credit for organic wins the entire time. People were seeing their products through SEO, then typing the domain directly or clicking through social media.
We had been measuring Facebook's effectiveness based on last-click attribution, but the real customer journey was: Google search → website discovery → social media check → direct purchase.
Step 4: The Compounding Effect
Instead of paying for traffic that disappeared the moment we stopped spending, we were building an asset. Every piece of content, every optimized product page, every earned backlink worked 24/7 without ongoing ad spend.
The beauty of this approach was that it matched their customers' natural shopping behavior. People browsing for unique home goods aren't in a hurry. They want to discover, compare, and decide over time. Organic traffic gave them that luxury.
Product-Channel Fit
Not every product works with every marketing channel. Facebook rewards instant decisions, but some products need browsing time.
Cost Structure Analysis
Calculate true profitability including hidden costs like customer service time, return processing, and opportunity cost of ad management.
Attribution Blindness
Most platforms over-report their impact. Track customer journey across multiple touchpoints to see the real conversion path.
Competitive Advantage
When everyone else is fighting for ad space, organic channels become less competitive and more valuable for patient brands.
The results spoke for themselves. Within 90 days of stopping paid advertising:
Traffic Growth: Monthly visitors increased from 300 to 1,200, then to 5,000+ by month six. This wasn't just quantity - organic visitors spent 3x more time on site compared to previous paid traffic.
Conversion Quality: Organic traffic converted at 2.8% compared to 0.9% from Facebook Ads. More importantly, organic customers had 40% higher average order values and significantly lower return rates.
Cost Savings: By reallocating their €2,000 monthly ad budget to content creation and SEO optimization, they achieved better results at a fraction of the ongoing cost.
Long-term Value: Unlike paid traffic that stops the moment you pause campaigns, organic traffic continued growing month over month. The content we created in month three was still driving traffic and sales a year later.
The most surprising outcome was competitive positioning. While their competitors fought over expensive Facebook placements, they dominated Google search results for hundreds of long-tail product keywords.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from stopping paid advertising and focusing on organic growth:
Channel physics matter more than optimization. You can't optimize your way out of a fundamental product-channel mismatch. Facebook Ads work for impulse purchases, not discovery-heavy shopping experiences.
Attribution lies, but customer behavior doesn't. Most paid advertising platforms over-report their effectiveness. Look at the actual customer journey, not just last-click attribution.
Compounding beats scaling. Paid traffic stops when you stop paying. Organic assets compound over time. The content you create today works for years without additional investment.
Competition has multiple layers. Everyone fights for the same ad placements, but fewer businesses invest seriously in content and SEO. Choose your battlefield wisely.
Customer intent alignment is everything. Match your marketing channel to how customers actually want to discover and buy your products, not how platforms want you to sell them.
Patience is a competitive advantage. In a world obsessed with growth hacking and quick wins, taking the long-term approach often yields better results.
Know when to walk away. Sometimes the best decision is stopping what isn't working, even if "everyone else" says you should keep trying.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies considering stepping back from paid advertising:
Focus on content that demonstrates expertise rather than pushing features
Build organic discovery through problem-solving content and use cases
Leverage founder-led content on platforms like LinkedIn for authentic relationship building
Invest in SEO-optimized help documentation and tutorials
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores thinking about pausing paid ads:
Analyze whether your products need discovery time vs. impulse buying
Focus on long-tail SEO for specific product searches
Create buying guides and contextual content around your products
Optimize for mobile browsing and discovery experiences