Anti-Agency Founders

I was the senior media buyer and analyst at an agency in 2020. This store came to us about something administrative, and a colleague pushed the founders onto a call with me. They sold a changing range of products, tested offer by offer, and made their own sales videos.

They were completely anti-agency and against spending money on anyone, because they'd succeeded on their own. Their ad account ran 12 offers at the same time with no exclusions, no retargeting and no structure for split tests.

I had them pull open their account while we talked, and I walked through what it was missing in their own numbers. I spoke with one founder first. Then the other came in to play the tough guy, and I went through the same screens again. Then I changed what they were buying: counsel on their own accounts, with their in-house media buyer still running the ads. And I proposed starting with one product out of the twelve, fixing it properly, and making it the worked example their buyer could follow on the rest.

• Live ad-account review on the sales call
• Exclusions, retargeting and split-test structure
• One-product worked example for an in-house buyer

They signed a paid advisory contract. The plan was to earn email and the other channels once that first contract had proved itself.

Founders who distrusted the whole industry bought on evidence from their own account, and kept their own buyer running the ads.

Founders who built it themselves won't buy a pitch. Their own numbers on their own screen did the convincing, and calling the work counsel let them keep the control they'd earned.