Pre-growth audit

Most founders blame ads when results sink, but the real problem hides in their own set-up. Tracking says everything is fine, yet three silent leaks are already draining next quarter’s budget. A fast pre-growth audit reveals those gaps, lets you fix them within a week while costs stay low, and prevents a painful rebuild when spend ramps up.

Yeah, the project was an EV charging company and they wanted to sell their EVs to anyone. And then you have very vague copywriting and then it basically doesn't work. So vague copywriting has low CTR, has low conversion rates, and then that just doesn't work.

My path from rookie growth lead to six successful exits hammered one truth into me: spend a little now to avoid paying a fortune later. Putting aside €1K to tighten the system beats writing a €10K cheque once scale makes every weakness bigger. The fix starts with three checks: prove the business model makes sense, tidy the stack of tools so data flows cleanly, and ensure the team running those tools can act fast. Nine times out of ten those steps uncover the blockers that kill campaigns before they launch. When the pipes run smooth in the background, experiments fire quickly and results add up instead of leaking out.

This guide is your wake-up call. Before you hire an agency or complain that ads do not work, walk through the same pre-growth audit I give to clients. Follow it and you will know whether to scale with confidence or to shore up the basics first. Let us start.

Most marketing failures are not dramatic explosions; they are slow leaks that stay hidden until budgets vanish. By checking your set-up before you press ‘live’, you change the odds in your favour. Start with the offer itself. If it is open to everyone, it resonates with no-one. Sharpen the segment, write in their language, and demand proof of fit. When copy and targeting line up, even small tests give clear signals.

Next, examine the glue that holds your data together. Look at every tag, webhook and spreadsheet that touches the customer journey. Confirm each event fires once, in the right order, and lands in a single source that the whole team trusts. This step feels dull, yet it saves countless hours of arguing about which number is correct. Good data also shortens feedback loops, so you can spot a weak message after one day, not one month.

Then focus on the humans who will act on that data. Do they gather around one scorecard each week? Can they launch a revised ad or landing page without waiting for a developer? Tight process, clear ownership and a culture of quick tests turn insight into revenue. Without that rhythm, even perfect tracking gathers dust.

To put these ideas into practice, try running a lightweight customer interview before you write new copy, use a tag-validation tool to record one fresh session, and hold a fifteen-minute stand-up dedicated to decisions, not discussion. These actions cost little, yet together they close the three biggest leaks: unclear offer, broken data flow and slow execution. Once they are sealed, you can push budget with confidence, knowing that every euro enters a system built to learn and scale, not to leak.