Decide on traffic channels

Your calendar overflows with webinars, search ads, LinkedIn videos, content pushes and the odd employer-branding post, yet monthly pipeline refuses to budge. Budget disappears across platforms while the board keeps asking the same question: which effort truly drives revenue and can we turn it up?

When I joined a B2B firm as Head of Growth, the team juggled five traffic sources at once—video ads, SEO articles, Google campaigns, a podcast and an employer-brand feed. Each tactic received just enough time to tick a task list, never enough to master it. Results were blurry; stress was high. I halved the list, chose one primary route, and gave it ninety days of full-throttle focus. The breathing room let us refine message, creative and targeting until cost-per-lead fell by forty per cent and volume doubled. With a proven engine running, we outsourced the maintenance and moved on to the next lane.

That lesson echoes through six scale-ups and exits: selecting a channel is a strategic bet you commit to for a quarter. A/B tests belong inside that lane; jumping between lanes is not experimentation, it is drift. Progress follows a sequence. First win a space where intent is high even if reach is small; only then earn the right to chase broader audiences once the numbers work.

Trying to “do it all” spreads love and data too thin to learn from. Ninety days of unified effort beats six half-hearted trials every time. Stop spray-and-pray tests and pick one pipeline-filling play you can afford, scale and prove, so every euro of ad spend or hour of outreach lands where intent and volume meet.

In the pages ahead you will work out what you can pay for a lead, match that figure to a traffic source, and run a disciplined sprint that either validates the bet or kills it quickly. Scroll on and trade scattered hope for focused growth your investors will recognise.

Great marketing starts with clear economics. Before choosing any route to market, pin down the maximum cost you can pay for an opportunity and still hit margin targets. Work backwards from lifetime value and sales close rates; the exercise forces honest limits on creative ambition. With a ceiling in place you can shortlist only those sources that plausibly deliver the needed blend of quantity and efficiency.

Next, evaluate channels through three lenses: audience intent, reachable volume and operational complexity. High-intent spaces such as review sites or niche newsletters often deliver fewer visitors yet close at healthy rates. Broad arenas like social video hold scale but punish sloppy targeting. Score each option from one to five on every lens, then pick the route with the highest intent that still meets volume and cost thresholds.

Once the choice is made, lock a ninety-day sprint. Assign one owner, ring-fence budget, and write weekly learning goals. Treat creative, landing experience and follow-up as one system; misalignment between them ruins even the best placement. Publish progress every Friday: spend, visits, leads, cost per lead and qualitative insight. Transparent numbers keep leaders patient through the inevitable first-month wobble.

Expect the first thirty days to focus on message fit. Listen to ad comments, email replies and sales calls for objections and language cues. Iterations here compound later. Days thirty to sixty shift to structural tweaks: bidding models, timing, audience splits. The final month aims to lift volume without breaking unit economics. Document every meaningful change; the log becomes your playbook for delegating upkeep once the sprint ends.

With a proven machine live, resist the urge to open five more channels at once. Instead, automate or outsource the steady state, free the core team and repeat the framework on the next most promising lane. Over a year you will build a stack of reliable engines rather than a mess of half-finished experiments. Investors care less about how many platforms you touch and more about predictable cost-to-revenue ratios. This method gives them exactly that.

Remember: focus scales, scatter stalls. Choose, commit, prove, then expand.