Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! It's completely normal to feel a bit swamped when you're starting out with performance marketing. There's a lot of noise out there, and it's easy to get pulled in a dozen different directions. I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and a bit of a framework to help you cut through the clutter and build a strategy that actually works for your business.
The key isn't to do everything at once, but to do the right things first. Honestly, most of the battle is won before you even spend your first euro on an ad. It's all about getting the foundation right. Let's walk through it.
TLDR;
- Your first job isn't choosing a channel, it's defining your customer's most urgent, expensive problem (their "nightmare"). Generic demographic targeting is a waste of money.
- Choose your starting channel based on how your customers look for solutions. Are they actively searching (Google Ads) or do they need to be shown the problem (Social Ads like Meta/LinkedIn)?
- Your offer is probably the biggest reason ads fail. Ditch "Request a Demo" and instead offer something of genuine value upfront, like a free tool, an audit, or a valuable piece of content that solves a small part of their problem.
- Don't get obsessed with a low cost-per-lead. Calculate your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) to understand what you can actually afford to spend to acquire a great customer. We've included an interactive calculator for this below.
- We've also included a flowchart to help you decide on your initial advertising channel and a diagram showing our recommended audience structure for Meta ads.
Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demographic
Right, let's get this out of the way first because it's the most common and costly mistake I see. Forget the generic Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that says something like "SMEs in Hamburg with 50-200 employees in the tech sector". That tells you absolutely nothing useful and leads to bland, ineffective ads that get ignored.
To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. You need to become an absolute expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. Your customer isn't a job title; they are a person living in a problem state.
For example, if you sell IT support services, your client isn't just a 'Head of Operations'. She's a leader who is terrified of a critical system failure during the busiest sales period, losing the company thousands and making her look incompetent. If you sell a project management SaaS tool, the nightmare isn't just 'disorganised workflows'; it's 'the star developer quitting out of pure frustration with the current broken process'.
Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem you can solve. Once you have truly isolated that nightmare, everything else becomes easier. Your ad copy writes itself. Your targeting becomes laser-focused. You're no longer selling a feature; you're selling relief from a massive headache.
So, your first piece of homework is to stop thinking about who your customers are and start obsessing over what keeps them up at night. Write it down in detail. What are they afraid of? What are they frustrated with? What outcome would make them a hero inside their company? This is the bedrock of your entire strategy.
We'll need to look at your business type to find your battleground...
Okay, once you know the pain you're solving, the next question is where to find the people experiencing it. The answer depends almost entirely on your business model and whether your potential customers are actively searching for a solution or not. This is probably the most important strategic decision you'll make.
Are you selling to other businesses (B2B) or directly to consumers (B2C)? Are you selling a high-ticket service that requires a conversation, or a product someone can buy directly from a website? The channel you pick first should reflect this reality. I've put together a simple flowchart to help you think through this. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good starting point for 90% of businesses.
Target keywords that show buying intent, like "emergency electrician hamburg" or "b2b saas accounting software".
If they are searching for you (Google Ads):
This is the simplest place to start if it fits. You are fishing in a barrel of people who have already raised their hand and said "I have this problem". For a local service business, this is a no-brainer. Someone searching for "electrical repair Hamburg" needs an electrician, now. We've run campaigns for tradespeople and service businesses, and Google Ads is almost always the starting point. I remember one campaign for a home cleaning company that got leads for just £5 each because we targeted people who were clearly looking to hire someone.
For B2B, especially software, it's similar. People search for "CRM for small business" or "data enrichment tool". They are problem-aware and solution-aware. Your job is to show up with a compelling ad and landing page. The challenge here is that it can be competitive and expensive, which is why knowing your numbers (more on that later) is so important.
If they are NOT searching for you (Social Ads):
This is harder, but it's where you can build a massive business by educating a market. Here, you're interrupting someone's day. Your ad needs to be good. It needs to speak directly to that "nightmare" we talked about earlier.
-> For B2B: Your best bet is almost always LinkedIn. The targeting is unmatched. You can get your message in front of the exact decision-makers you need. Want to reach 'Head of Sales' at companies with 50-200 employees in the software industry in Germany? You can do that. It's more expensive per click, but the lead quality can be phenomenal if your offer is right. I remember one campaign we worked on for a B2B software client targeting specific decision-makers on LinkedIn that saw a $22 cost per qualified lead, which was a huge win for them given their deal size.
-> For B2C / some B2B: Meta (Facebook & Instagram) is the king. Its algorithm is incredible at finding people who will take an action, provided you give it the right signals. You'll start by targeting interests related to the problem you solve. Selling handcrafted jewellery? Target interests like 'Etsy', 'handmade gifts', and followers of specific designer pages. Selling a productivity app? Target interests related to 'Getting Things Done', 'Tim Ferriss', or competitor apps. Once you have some data, you can build powerful retargeting and lookalike audiences. It's a structure we use for almost all our eCommerce and SaaS clients. For one of our app clients, we got over 45,000 signups at under £2 each by carefully managing Meta and other social platforms.
I'd say you need to rethink your offer...
This is probably the most contrarian bit of advice I can give you, and it's where most new advertisers fail. Your offer is more important than your targeting, your ad copy, and your budget combined. If your offer is weak, nothing else matters. You can have the best ad in the world, but if it leads to a poor offer, you will fail.
And the single worst offer in all of B2B advertising is the "Request a Demo" button. It is arrogant. It presumes your prospect, a busy decision-maker, has nothing better to do than book a 45-minute slot in their calendar to be sold to. It's high-friction, low-value, and immediately signals that you are just another vendor. You have to delete it.
Your offer's only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing.
What does a good offer look like?
- For SaaS: A completely free trial or a freemium plan. No credit card. Let them use the actual product. Let them experience the transformation first-hand. When the product itself proves its value, the sale is easy. You're creating Product Qualified Leads (PQLs), not Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) for a sales team to chase. I recall one of our SaaS clients was able to get trials for just $7 a pop on Meta Ads because the offer was a frictionless free trial that showed immediate value.
- For Agencies/Consultants: You must bottle your expertise into a tool or asset. We offer a free ad account audit. A marketing agency could offer a free, automated SEO report that finds their top 3 keyword opportunities. A corporate training company could offer a free 15-minute interactive video module on 'Handling Difficult Conversations'. Give them a taste of the result they crave.
- For High-Ticket Services: Offer a "strategy session" or a "blueprint call", not a "sales call". The entire focus should be on providing value and diagnosing their problem, not on pitching your service.
The goal is to shift the dynamic. You're not asking for their time; you're giving them value. This simple change will dramatically improve your conversion rates and lower your acquisition costs. A poor offer is a leaky bucket; you can pour as much budget as you want into the top, but it will all just drain away.
You probably should calculate what you can afford to spend...
The last piece of the foundational puzzle is your budget. But the question isn't "how much should I spend?". The real question is "how high a cost per lead can I afford to acquire a great customer?". The answer comes from a simple but powerful metric: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
Far too many founders get fixated on getting the cheapest possible lead or click, which often leads them to target low-quality audiences. This is a false economy. A £5 lead that never converts is infinitely more expensive than a £250 lead that turns into a £10,000 customer. Once you know your LTV, you can advertise with confidence, knowing exactly how much you can spend to grow profitably.
The calculation is straightforward:
LTV = (Average Revenue Per Account Per Month * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate
Let's break it down. You need to know three things about your business:
- Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): How much does a typical customer pay you each month?
- Gross Margin %: After your cost of goods sold or cost of service, what percentage is profit? For a SaaS business, this is often very high (e.g., 80-90%). For a service business, it's your rate minus your direct costs to deliver that service.
- Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your customers do you lose each month?
I've built a small calculator below so you can play with your own numbers. This is the math that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth and frees you from the tyranny of cheap leads.
Once you have your LTV, a healthy ratio of LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is typically 3:1. So, with a €10,000 LTV, you can afford to spend up to €3,333 to acquire a customer. If your sales process converts 1 in 10 qualified leads, you can pay up to €333 per lead. Suddenly that expensive-looking LinkedIn campaign doesn't seem so pricey after all, does it?
This is the main advice I have for you:
I know this is a lot of information, but getting this foundation right is the difference between a sucessful, scalable advertising strategy and a failed experiment. Tbh, it's what we spend most of our time on with new clients before a single campaign goes live. Here's a table summarising the action plan.
| Step | Action | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Define the Nightmare | Forget demographics. Write down the single most urgent, painful, and expensive problem your ideal customer faces. | This is the source of all effective messaging. It ensures your ads resonate emotionally and aren't just ignored noise. Everything else is built on this foundation. |
| 2. Choose Your Channel | Use the flowchart. If people are actively searching for a solution, start with Google Ads. If not, use Social Ads (LinkedIn for B2B, Meta for B2C). | You must meet customers where they are. Fighting for attention on the wrong platform is an uphill, expensive battle you will definately lose. |
| 3. Craft a Value-First Offer | Delete "Request a Demo". Create a high-value, low-friction offer like a free trial, a useful tool, an audit, or a strategy session. | A great offer reduces friction and proves your value upfront, making the sale much easier. A weak offer is the #1 reason campaigns fail. |
| 4. Know Your Numbers | Use the LTV calculator to figure out what a customer is worth to you. Aim for a 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio. | This frees you from chasing cheap, low-quality leads and gives you the confidence to invest what's necessary to acquire high-value customers. |
| 5. Launch & Test | Start with a modest budget on your chosen channel, targeting your "nightmare" ICP with your value-first offer. Test your messaging and targeting. | You won't get it perfect on day one. The goal is to get real-world data, see what works, and optimise from there. Don't be afraid to turn off what isnt working. |
Starting out can be tough, and while this framework should give you a much clearer path forward, implementing it effectively takes time, experience, and a lot of testing. It's a process of constant optimisation—tweaking targeting, refining ad copy, improving landing pages, and analysing data to find what works.
This is often where working with an agency or a consultant can make a huge difference. An expert partner has already made the mistakes, run hundreds of tests, and knows the patterns to look for. They can help you accelerate the learning curve, avoid costly errors, and get to profitability much faster.
If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can take a closer look at your business and help you map out a more concrete plan. Feel free to get in touch if that sounds helpful.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
