Alex Thilen

Scaling companies by turning paid into growth | Strategy @ Opascope

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

B2B companies invest so much into LinkedIn ads while ignoring Meta.

And the arguments against Meta ads for B2B are honestly weak.

“You can’t filter for job title, company size, and industry on Meta.”

Sure… but Meta’s algorithm is fantastic. If you produce excellent creatives, the algo will put those creatives in front of the right people anyhow.

“Meta is too personal. Our ICP will get frustrated by our ads.”

Nobody likes seeing ads. But ads are about getting in front of people. This argument doesn’t add up.

“Nobody will enter our funnel if they’re doomscrolling Facebook on their phone at night.”

Fine… but they’ll Google you tomorrow, screenshot the ad, and message their team.

Don’t let your obsession with attribution stop you from using Meta.

“Our audience isn’t on Insta/FB. Just LinkedIn.”

This is the weakest argument of all.

Meta has 20x LinkedIn’s daily active users.

Trust me…your buyers are on Meta’s platforms.

Don’t get me wrong, running ads on LinkedIn is great.

But Meta isn’t just a great second option; it’s actually a better place to start.

The targeting isn’t as good as LinkedIn, but the ad costs are so much lower for B2B that it doesn’t even matter.

Try it.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

The biggest victims of poor ad performance are frequent and big changes.

Not only because too many changes make it difficult to see which adjustments are helping, but also because too many changes put you back in the learning phase.

Ad networks return you to the learning phase when they deem your changes too drastic, to the point where maybe you’ve changed audience sets.

This means the algorithm will push your ads in front of new audiences to see where they resonate. Wasting ad spend that won’t lead to new sales for a while.

This is a worst-case scenario for many brands. Don’t let this happen.

When it comes to ads…slow and steady really does win the race.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

It’s incredible how connected everything in your business can be.

Even things that seemingly aren’t related at all.

Think about it this way…

Better relationships with manufacturers → better prices.

Better prices → better margins.

Better margins → better offers.

Better offers → better-performing creative.

Better performing creative → more traffic to your landing page.

More traffic to your landing page → more sales.

This is why so many brands struggle with their ads.

It’s not necessarily one specific flaw in their funnel preventing them from experiencing success.

(although that does happen at times)

It’s typically several unoptimized points throughout their funnel that collectively and unknowingly trickle down to the success or failure rate of their ads.

Everything is connected.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

I’ve heard people say this so many times…

“B2C is two years behind B2B.”

Meanwhile, I’ll also hear the B2C crowd say the same thing in reverse.

“B2B is two years behind B2C.”

But in reality, both are behind each other in different ways.

B2C is ahead in terms of rapid creative iteration, storytelling, and hitting emotional angles in their ads.

Meanwhile, B2B is typically ahead in terms of attribution.

They’re forced to be; their sales cycles are longer.

Whereas many B2B brands unfortunately still rely on platform ROAS, last-click, etc.

So nobody is ahead of the other, in my eyes.

The real winners are individual brands, B2B or B2C, that leverage their strengths while learning from what the other side does better.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

Attribution isn’t really about credit, it’s about confidence. At least it should be. 

Everyone wants perfect attribution, but that doesn’t exist.

I’ve been in hundreds of businesses, and I’ve never seen perfect attribution. 

What businesses actually need is acceptable uncertainty.

If an ad platform says your ads drove $1.5M in revenue, but Triple Whale says your ads drove $1.25M, and your business grew in line with ad spend after a known lag, you can safely assume your ads are working.

This means the ads likely worked somewhere in between the network’s posted revenue and Triple Whale’s, but don’t worry about the exact numbers.

Trying to pin it down to the last dollar is how brands end up ruining their campaigns.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

Here are some unpopular ad opinions I have:

Meta ads > LinkedIn ads for B2B.

Attribution is usually a lie (mostly a B2B issue).

First-principles thinking > data most of the time.

Ads are less important than people think they are.

Most ad problems aren’t inside the ad account itself.

Great companies with excellent products run some of the worst ads you’ll see.

One of the biggest ad mistakes is companies overreacting to short-term ad performance.

There you have it. That’s my list.

Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting LinkedIn ads aren’t worth it for B2B.

LinkedIn’s targeting is better, but Meta ads are so much cheaper that the inferior targeting is actually worthwhile.

You should aspire to run both, but B2B all too commonly sleeps on Meta.

Don’t make that mistake.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

People think excellent attribution relies on one source of tracking.

On-platform, off-platform, etc.

But the reality is a blend of everything that’s helpful.

I like to tackle ad attribution as shown in the Venn diagram below.

No singular attribution source is perfect.

A mixed bag of multiple attribution sources, combined with common sense, is the right play.

This is how you properly track the success of your ads.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

LinkedIn video ads outperform static image ads by over 30%.

Yet despite this, you’ll commonly see corporate static ads on your timeline.

This is the case because a static image is infinitely easier to create than a quality video.

That’s how low the bar is for advertising on LinkedIn.

A little bit of effort still goes a long way on this network.

That’s your opportunity to either put in the effort necessary…

Or hire someone who will work hard for you.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

This part of your paid ads funnel isn’t discussed enough:

Landing page load speeds.

Yes… everyone understands that the faster your page loads, the better.

But I don’t think people realize how quickly traffic drops off when your page loads even slightly slower than the average.

Google found that an extra 0.5 seconds in search page load time dropped traffic by 20%.

Half a second seems harmless, but 20% of the impressions generated from your ads immediately disappear.

You paid for that 20%. Now it’s gone.

So don’t just get your load speeds up to today's standards, exceed them.

Your ads will only work as hard as the page they land on.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

Paid media buys attention, not purchases.

Which is why most B2B brands fall short on their ads.

They’re asking for marriage on the first date instead of building a relationship.

This is why I love thought leadership ads. It forces you to create an ad that’s more interesting and content-focused.

When was the last time you were scrolling through your LinkedIn feed and stopped to look at some B.S. corporate nonsense? Never.

Unfortunately, this is most B2B ads on LinkedIn.

For that reason, thought leadership ads become an immediate pattern interrupter that helps you get leads into your funnel.

Just my two cents based on what’s been working for our clients.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

In my experience, these are the most common self-inflicted bottlenecks holding your ads back…

(in no particular order)

> A weak offer

> Too many changes at once

> Not knowing your sales cycle

> Relying on one source for attribution

> Ignoring middle and lower funnel problems

Notice how I didn’t list off the usual concerns people think are holding them back?

Such as poor creatives, media buying problems, etc.

Those can be setbacks as well, but the aforementioned list is usually where the problem lies.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

We recently doubled our client’s ad spend while keeping their ROAS steady.

Keep in mind, they were already spending a lot.

But after we cranked up their ad spend, they were spending north of $200,000 per day.

Scaling that much without sacrificing ROAS obviously requires us to nail the creative, targeting, and executional side of things.

But the real needle-mover was simply working with the client to understand what their businesses needed, how it works, and understanding the time-to-purchase.

Once we took the time to actually learn the ins and outs of their business, it helped us create a plan to work around what we learned.

For them, it was incremental scaling on certain channels, more aggressive scaling on other channels, trying to maintain a specific overall margin on a regular basis, and things of that sort.

The problem is that most decision-makers pigeonhole themselves into the day-to-day changes in the ad account, instead of the big-picture thinking needed to genuinely drive revenue forward.

Siloing yourself into day-to-day changes can eventually crush month-to-month improvements.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

With creatives, you will lose more times than you win.

But when you find the right creative that resonates with your ICP, it more than makes up for all the times you failed.

This is why the best creative strategy for new angles is split testing combined with massive volume.

One creative can carry an entire campaign while dozens underperform in the background.

That’s the game. A borderline unreasonable amount of volume.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

If your Google PMax ads have video assets, your ads can appear on YouTube as pre-roll ads before the user’s video begins.

If that’s the case, you need to be careful.

Skippable video ads are intrusive by nature.

The viewer wanted to watch something else, but first, they’re forced to deal with your ad.

That creates an environment where if your ad is anything short of incredible, you’re doing more harm than good.

Not just from an ad spend-wasting perspective, but a reputation-damaging one as well.

You need to go above and beyond with your video creative in this situation.

Because you’re not just competing for the user's attention, you’re competing against the video they actually intended to watch in the first place.

Your standards need to rise.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

If more people realized this simple fact, their paid ad success would skyrocket:

Ads don’t generate you sales, they generate attention.

It’s your middle and lower funnel that earn you sales.

So if you’re having a hard time earning revenue, and you’re blaming your ads, I’d encourage you to expand your perspective.

Although your ads may or may not be contributing to the problem, the issue is rarely just about ads.

Don’t be so quick to point the finger.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

Bruce Tannenbolz said this perfectly on our podcast about scaling ads.

“You don’t just double every day, right?”

“You don’t just say I’m going to spend $1,500 today, $3,000 tomorrow, $6,000 the next day… the platforms don’t work that way.”

He’s 100% right.

When people nail the perfect creative and start generating clicks, their first impulse is to crank up the ad spend to the max.

That’s a mistake.

Sudden changes can reset the learning phase and also make it harder to clearly judge the true impact of your ad spend increases.

As cliche as it sounds, slow and steady really does win the race.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

Some of the agency positioning I see on my timeline is questionable.

“We’re an ad agency.”

“We’re an SEO agency.”

“We run ads for enterprise SaaS companies.”

For us, we position ourselves as the complex problem-solving agency.

We aim to solve complex marketing issues that only a small team of killers can solve.

That’s why we’re not trying to have a 500-person team with 5,000 clients or whatever other agencies aspire to.

When you scale to that size, you can’t specialize. You provide a standardized service that, while certainly not the best, still provides a return.

We’re not interested in that. We want to solve the problems your previous three agencies couldn’t. We are optimizing for delivering value to clients.

Seeing real growth in our clients, I’m talking about things like scaling spend from 3mm per month, to 8mm per month, while holding channel & blended ROAS.

That’s the dopamine hit we’re looking for, 

It’s infinitely more rewarding. Just my two cents.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

This is an all-too common way to kill a marketing campaign.

Not listening to the experts you’ve hired.

Whether in-house or an agency, you hired those professionals for a reason.

Fully commit to their suggestions, and if things still don’t work, then fire them.

But if you hire someone and don’t take their advice, what’s the point?

You’ve run a few ad campaigns before; they’ve run thousands.

What are the odds your decision is right, and theirs is wrong?

Don’t try to tell them what to do, tell them what you are thinking. 

You know your business, they know ads, work together.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

There’s an interesting shift we’re seeing in the paid ads space…

For a long time, many paid ad agencies were claiming credit for sales that would have happened anyway.

That’s why clients have started asking for new customer metrics like…

- NCROAS = New Customer Return on Ad Spend
- NCPA = New Customer Cost Per Acquisition

Agencies were running non-incremental programs, which clients understandably didn’t like.

But there’s just one problem:

Clients are now obsessed with new customers at the expense of reactivating old ones.

The truth is, people eventually stop opening your emails.

People eventually unsubscribe from your SMS list.

Those are permission-based marketing strategies. You can only retain people that way for so long.

But with retargeting ads, you’re not asking an old customer for permission to send them an ad.

They simply see the ad, and are reminded of your existence.

This is why retargeting provides incremental revenue. Those old customers wouldn’t have repurchased from you without a retargeting campaign.

I respect when clients demand new customers from their agency partners, but don’t forget about reactivating new ones.

[Alex Thilen @Alxthln]

I’ve seen so many mega brands do this…

They dump $500k/m on a broad match, PMAX campaign with seven keywords.

They’re admittedly profitable, but they could be doing 30%...40%...maybe even twice as well if they simply optimized.

But they don’t because they have an excellent product with P.M.F.

It’s the curse of being a great company.

They naturally have an easier time profiting off ads, so they don’t deep dive into all the little nuances that could skyrocket their revenue to the next level.

It’s the “good enough” trap I see all too often.

Don’t let this happen to you.