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 Marketplace Founders
I run growth for two-sided marketplaces where every dollar is tracked to both sides of the transaction — not vanity GMV that hides broken unit economics.
Join 50+ companies that scaled with profit-led growth marketing
Your agency reports GMV growth like it means something. But your take rate is 12% and your demand-side CAC just passed $80. The math doesn't work and nobody on your growth team is modeling it.
They're running the same Meta campaigns for your supply side and demand side. Same creative. Same landing pages. Same optimization events. As if acquiring a host and acquiring a guest are the same problem.
You raised a Series A to solve the chicken-and-egg problem. Six months later, you have liquidity in two cities and your agency is still optimizing for nationwide signups that never transact.
Your investors want to see improving unit economics. Your agency wants to see more budget.
They're scaling GMV. Your board wants contribution margin.
I run supply-side and demand-side acquisition as separate systems with separate economics. Because acquiring a provider who lists 50 items is a completely different problem than acquiring a buyer who transacts once.
Market-by-market launch playbooks. Liquidity-aware budget allocation — I scale spend where supply and demand are matched, not where impressions are cheapest. Attribution that tracks from ad click to first transaction on both sides.
One operator who's worked with marketplace economics — take rates, LTV by cohort, supply utilization, demand frequency. Not an agency that treats your marketplace like a DTC store.
$10,000/month + profit share
Aligned to marketplace liquidity, not ad spend.
Supply acquisition. Demand generation. Market-by-market growth.
Targeted campaigns to recruit providers, sellers, or hosts. Separate attribution, separate creative, separate economics from demand.
Meta, Google, and TikTok campaigns optimized for first transactions — not signups that never convert to paying users.
Launch sequencing, liquidity thresholds, and geo-targeted campaigns. Scale spend where supply and demand match.
Server-side tracking that connects ad spend to both supply activation and demand transactions. See true CAC per side.
Take rate analysis, cohort LTV, supply utilization, and demand frequency — the metrics your investors actually ask about.
Paid acquisition integrated with referral programs and supply-side incentives. Blended CAC across organic and paid channels.
Fast onboarding. Market-level clarity. Both sides tracked.
I map your take rate, supply utilization, demand frequency, and per-market liquidity. You get clarity on which markets are ready to scale and which need supply first.
Server-side tracking split by supply and demand. A dashboard showing CAC, activation rate, and first-transaction rate — per side, per market.
Separate campaigns for supply and demand. Budget allocated by market liquidity. Daily optimization against transaction metrics, not signups.
Prove unit economics in core markets. Replicate the playbook in new geos. Feed transaction signals back into targeting. Network effects compound.
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.
AI
The 2019 playbook is dead. AI lets one growth marketer outproduce teams of five. First-party data is your moat. Creative velocity wins. Here is how to adapt.
Philosophy
I have hired, run, and competed against agencies—here is the truth. They pull 70-80% gross margins on your retainer. Thirty cents of every dollar does work.
Straight answers. No spin.
One operator. No layers. No vanity metrics. Cancel anytime.