Many agencies tell their clients it’s impossible to scale and still hit KPI because their market is “too niche.”
Back in 2021, a leading training company in the legal space came to us because that’s what they were told by their agency at the time.
While that is true in some cases and to some extent, in many cases, the people who make such a claim usually haven’t even scratched the surface of the scale that could be achieved.
So, if you’ve been told that you can’t scale because your niche is too narrow, buckle up because, in this case study, we’re going to shatter the “too niche” myth once and for all. And we’re going to reveal to you the REAL bottlenecks that could be halting the growth of your business.
You’ll discover the challenges that our client faced and how our team helped them overcome those challenges to scale their information and digital products brand to unprecedented levels.
There is nothing more frustrating than hearing about your competitors achieving 2x, 3x, or even 4x your scale while you seem to be stuck at the same level for months on end.
And sometimes, those very competitors are not even as good as you are. Yet they’re able to scale, and you’re not.
To add insult to injury, when you ask your agency to scale up, they say something along the lines of:
“We can’t scale up and still hit KPI, because your market is too narrow”
It’s exactly what our client had been told!
Their previous agency said their market is too niche, and therefore, they couldn’t scale past $25k/month in ad spend (SPOILER ALERT: We got this client to $63k. Read on to discover how we did it.)
This seemingly unsurmountable challenge is more common than you’d think.
But most marketing leaders approach it the wrong way because they don’t realize that the inability to scale isn’t a problem in and of itself.
It’s rather the symptom of other problems. Once those are solved, scale is unlocked, which is exactly what happened with this client.
In addition to the inability to scale, our client was facing another issue that made them sweat bullets every month.
Their volume of booked calls was unpredictable and inconsistent.
It was a roller coaster in terms of the volume of booked calls. But it was also an emotional roller coaster.
You see, when you have payroll and overhead due every month, unpredictability is the last thing you would tolerate.
Not only does it create unnecessary stress for you and your team, but it also hinders your ability to grow your business.
So, our client wished to get a consistent and predictable flow of booked calls that would make establishing a growth plan (and sticking to it) possible. It’d also relieve their anxiety that used to ramp up throughout the month as days go by and sales KPIs aren’t being met.
Sadly, you can probably relate to this one, as most agencies have developed a notorious reputation for being bad at communication.
You find yourself chasing them down to get answers to your questions. You may need to repeat the same request or question again and again to get a proper answer.
Most of the time, you get some cookie-cutter reply that doesn’t acknowledge your business's specific situation and circumstances.
Poor communication, paired with the inability to scale and the inconsistency of results, are the reasons that pushed our client to look for a better partner.
That’s when they decided to hire Tier 11.
As a leading advertising agency that employs the best marketers in the world, we know that the REAL problem isn’t the inability to scale.
As mentioned earlier, the inability to scale is usually just the symptom of that problem. And it’s what the client sees from their perspective.
For this client, three main bottlenecks halted their growth. Once remove, we scaled them from $25k/month to $63k/month in ad spend
Here’s what we did:
When we took over the account, it was a complete mess in terms of structure.
100 active campaigns and about 6,000 ads.
Even though such a structure was valid a few years ago, it’s completely outdated and goes against the direction the Meta platform has taken.
Meta has been encouraging consolidation because it allows machine learning and AI to perform optimally.
So when you have too many campaigns running simultaneously, not only are you affecting the machine learning and, consequently, your ad performance. But you’re also making it tedious and hard to manage your account.
In order to overcome this issue, our team has consolidated the entire account and turned the structure to having one campaign per funnel.
This has reduced the number of campaigns from 100 to 6-7 campaigns only.
In terms of creatives and messaging, the previous agency had uncovered one angle that worked that kept hammering that angle. And that’s fine until you decide to scale up.
Our talented creative team devised a creative strategy based on what we’ve seen work, as well as the findings of our in-depth market and avatar research.
This has allowed us to produce dozens of new hooks and angles, translating into hundreds of creatives.
This kind of volume is what allows you to scale up.
Because as you start to scale, you’ll start running into audiences that do not necessarily respond as well to your go-to angle.
Therefore, you need to be equipped with an arsenal of hooks and angles ready to deploy.
You see, one person might completely disregard one of your ads because it doesn’t resonate with them.
But that same person can be completely hooked by your ad if you use a different angle that resonates with them.
To do this, you need to have a deep understanding of your ideal customer profile.
In fact, you need to have different customer profiles for the different types of customers your offer may appeal to. And then each one of those profiles will have its own creative and messaging.
That’s what we did for this client. And that’s what we do for all of our clients.
Attribution, the unsexy topic that most marketers wish to avoid, was the biggest elephant in the room.
Unfortunately, inaccurate attribution can be a massive bottleneck. It can hinder a brand’s ability to scale, especially if your brand has a long sales process, which was the case for this client.
At first, we optimized based on the platform-reported stats, but when we crossed those numbers with the client’s backend numbers, they didn’t match.
And since our client had multiple funnels of different types, accurate attribution was even more challenging to establish.
Fortunately, we were able to fix it.
As you may or may not know, Tier 11 has a privileged relationship with one the best 3rd-party attribution software in the world: Wicked Reports.
Our attribution experts collaborated with the Wicked Reports team to diagnose the issues our client faced with their attribution.
And after a few weeks of working on the issue, attribution was finally on point. And we could finally scale and optimize appropriately.
Here’s the thing though:
Our client had Wicked Reports BEFORE they hired us.
Yet, the complexity of their business model made setting up a 3rd party attribution tool quite overwhelming and complex. And virtually impossible without the intervention of our attribution experts in conjunction with the WR team.
At Tier 11, we put a lot of emphasis on communication because it is the base of a successful collaboration. And we believe most issues can be fixed through clear and timely communication even before they arise.
The client was happily surprised with how quickly and accurately our team responded to their requests in the dedicated Slack channel.
All team members who work on the account are in that channel. So when the client had a specific question, for example, if it were a creative request, our creative strategist would be the one to provide an accurate answer promptly.
This ensures that the client always gets answers to their question and requests. And it showed them that we were dedicated to their success. Which made them feel they were in good hands.
Applying the solutions explained in the previous section has resulted in jaw-dropping growth, considering how long the client has been stuck.
At Tier 11, our mission is simple:
We help purpose-driven companies unlock their online business potential through multi-platform, full-funnel digital advertising.
This client’s big why is to create a better world for lawyers and their clients by providing them with a proven business model that’s based on social consciousness, shifting the legal services paradigm, and elevating the client relationship from mere transactions to long-term relationships.
This means that our efforts didn’t just scale their ad account and generate more sales, it ultimately led to the improvement of families and communities across the nation who got the services these lawyers provided.
At Tier 11, we’re doing more than “running ads”; we’re enabling great businesses to achieve their purpose, and for this client, it means being able to continue making a difference in communities around the world.
Ready to explore how we can help your team achieve your brand’s purpose through a world-class media buying and creative strategy? Apply to speak with us today.