Growth
Fire Your Marketing Agency (8 Signs)
Your $18K/month agency set up three campaigns and watched the algorithm work. That is not strategy—it is babysitting. Here are 8 signs it is time to move on.
For Fintech Founders
I run growth for fintech companies where every creative passes compliance review, every claim is substantiated, and every dollar traces to activated accounts — not app downloads.
Join 50+ companies that scaled with profit-led growth marketing
Your agency writes ad copy like they're selling sneakers. "Earn 10x returns!" gets flagged by compliance before lunch. They've never worked in a regulated industry and it shows — half your creative cycle is spent on revisions that could have been avoided.
The ads that do get approved are so watered down they don't convert. Your agency doesn't know how to write compelling copy within regulatory guardrails. So you're stuck choosing between compliant and boring or effective and rejected.
Meanwhile, your CAC is climbing because fintech CPMs are the highest in digital advertising. Your agency is bidding against neobanks with $100M war chests using the same broad targeting they'd use for a DTC brand. Your unit economics are upside down and nobody's modeling LTV by acquisition channel.
They write ads that get rejected. You need ads that get approved and convert.
I write creative that works within regulatory frameworks — substantiated claims, proper disclosures, approved terminology. Your compliance team gets clean submissions that pass review, not a cycle of reject-revise-reject that delays every campaign by two weeks.
High-CPM environments reward precision. I target by financial behavior, income signals, and product-fit indicators — not demographics. Every campaign optimizes toward activated, funded accounts, not signups that never deposit. Attribution connects ad spend to customer LTV across 12+ months.
One operator who understands fintech economics — CAC payback on a 24-month horizon, interchange revenue, AUM growth, and why a $200 funded account is worth $0 until it reaches a utilization threshold that justifies the acquisition cost.
$10,000/month + profit share
Aligned to funded accounts, not signups.
Compliance-ready creative. Precision targeting. Long-horizon attribution.
Ad copy and creative built for regulated environments. Substantiated claims, proper disclosures, and approved terminology that passes legal review on the first pass.
Financial services-approved campaigns with proper categorization. Targeting by financial behavior and product-fit signals, not just demographics.
High-intent search capture for buyers comparing financial products. YouTube for trust-building and educational content that drives downstream conversion.
Tracking from ad click through signup, account funding, and first meaningful action. See which campaigns drive users who actually use the product.
Bid strategies built for 12-24 month payback periods. Optimization against activated LTV, not signup volume. Patient growth that compounds.
CAC payback, revenue per user, activation rate, and funded account rate mapped by channel. Growth models built on your actual revenue mechanics.
Fast onboarding. Compliance-ready from day one. Accounts that activate.
I map your signup-to-activation funnel, compliance requirements, and current attribution gaps. You get clarity on what a funded account actually costs — and what it should cost.
Creative templates pre-approved by your compliance team. Server-side tracking from ad click through account funding. A dashboard showing cost per activated account, not just signups.
Compliance-approved campaigns go live. Daily optimization against activation metrics. Weekly async updates via Slack and Loom. No surprise compliance rejections.
Kill campaigns that drive signups but not activations. Scale channels with the best funded-account rates. Feed LTV signals back into targeting. Unit economics improve quarter over quarter.
Deep dives on the ideas behind this approach.
Growth
Your $18K/month agency set up three campaigns and watched the algorithm work. That is not strategy—it is babysitting. Here are 8 signs it is time to move on.
Operations
78% of marketers say attribution is their top priority—only 32% feel prepared. The 3-layer measurement stack: server-side tracking, incrementality, and MMM.
Founder Story
20,000 customers. $1,500 LTV. 20:1 LTV/CAC. Zero salespeople. The self-serve growth engine that scaled to exit—and how to know if this model fits you.
Straight answers. No spin.
One operator. No layers. No vanity metrics. Cancel anytime.