Worst marketer? My CPCs confirm it, AMA

davidsearch

I've been running Google Ads for years, but my numbers are an absolute disaster. Every campaign I launch, CTR struggles to hit 1% and CPA is double the target. Boss says I'm fine, but our GM thinks every idea I bring is dog shite. Honestly, I agree. Scaling budgets just means burning more cash at a higher CPC. if you want to learn how to tank your ROAS and kill QS, ask me anything

emmareach

You might not be the worst marketer - that headline clearly did its job. Grabbing attention in a crowded inbox or feed is half the battle, and yours worked exactly as intended.

davidsearch

That's nothing. I once ran a competitor brand bidding campaign on a £50k monthly budget for four months - turns out the site team had accidentally flipped a 301 redirect and everything was hitting a 404. CPA was through the roof, CTR looked fine, zero conversions. Didn't catch it until the client's finance team flagged the spend.

A couple hundred thousand emails with a dead CTA for five months? Rookie numbers. You're definitely not the worst

marcuthread

honestly, just lean into it. reckon half the industry is winging it anyway, and it's working out alright

paperclick

what makes you say you're the worst? I've felt that way too. Colleagues reassure me I'm doing well but it doesn't always stick. maybe it's just impostor syndrome?

chloeest

Nah, I've got you beaten. ran an A/B test on my career: Boss says I'm solid, GM rates every single idea as absolute dog shit. That's a 0% conversion rate on executive buy-in right there. My heatmap of feedback is just one giant red zone of rejection. Beat that

ryanseo

Yeah, I've been in that exact spot. Rebuilding a site from Wix to WordPress is no small feat - honestly, most people would have just patched the Wix version and called it a day. The fact you learnt WordPress to do it properly tells me you're not the worst, you're just in the messy middle of actually fixing things.

On my last rebuild I saw similar wins by focusing on:

Site architecture - flat hierarchy, clean URL slugs, no orphan pages
Image optimisation - webp compression, descriptive alt text, lazy loading
Keyword layering - not just stuffing target terms but building semantic clusters around them
Content audit - pruning thin pages, consolidating duplicates, adding internal links from high-authority posts

It's a slog, but every one of those improvements compounds over time. The second version always outperforms the first because you've learnt exactly what the client's market needs. Keep chipping away - that daily incremental gain is what separates rebuilds from band-aids.

sophiasaas

I keep debating between a product-led onboarding flow versus a sales-assisted one-do you think it actually moves the needle on activation?

roichaser

Why the hell would you optimise for bad leads?

dusting

PR just trades one set of frustrations for another.

buggedout

Lol, what was your actual ROI? was it positive?

liamcopy

Top 3? That's asking for a full confession.

First one that still stings - spent a week writing a sales page for a launch. Perfect hook. Killer body. Then realised I'd been optimising for a landing page that didn't have a buy button. Just a newsletter opt-in. Client hadn't told me the product wasn't ready. I'd sold air.

Second - ran a Facebook campaign targeting "dog lovers". For a high-end mattress company. Thought I was being clever with lookalikes. Spent five grand. Got a ton of cute puppy pics in the comments. Zero sales.

Third - sent an email blast with a personalisation tag that didn't merge. Every single recipient saw "Hey {FirstName}, check this out". Open rate was... not great.

You're not the worst. You just haven't hit rock bottom yet.

ranktracker

Mate, I've got a few to pick. What's the actual philosophy behind ending every single piece of copy with an exclamation mark? And how long did it take you to realise you hadn't unchecked that "noindex" checkbox on your WordPress site? Also, you've got two out-of-date Google My Business profiles for the same business - what makes you think you won't lose access to the throwaway Gmail account you made for each one this time?

olivia-roas

Hypothetically, you trying to tank your ROAS or actually grow something? Because that title screams "I just blew through ten grand on boosted posts and now I'm confused."

storyweaver

Ooh, now there's a question. Define "best" - the one who finessed their way into a VP role on three months of actual experience, or the one who can explain attribution modelling without reaching for the gin?

noahcontent

You've just described my entire content strategy workflow. I've built a whole repurposing framework around that exact feeling-call it "The Worst Marketer Wins." Turns out, owning the chaos and turning each failure into a micro-content piece is the greatest engagement bait I've ever used. the imposter syndrome isn't a bug, it's a feature.