Notes from Alex Thilen’s presentation for the 2024 SME Digital & Innovation Forum.

About Alex Thilen

Alex is the founder of Opascope and has managed hundreds of millions of dollars in global media spend for forward-thinking companies that want to win in today’s competitive digital landscape.

Five years ago, Alex was inspired to found Opascope after noticing a gap in the market for companies spending between 100k and 2mm a month on advertising. He founded Opascope alongside his brother, Max, to build bespoke growth strategies to help these types of companies unlock their next level of growth.

From national TV campaigns to global digital strategies, Alex helps companies drive exceptional outcomes by building competitive advantages in digital marketing.

About Opascope

Businesses are complicated. This is why we don’t sell a package or process: because one size does not fit all. We identify opportunities, select the optimal growth levers, and operationalize bespoke marketing strategies while overcoming the obstacles that arise at scale.

Interested in partnering? Reach out to [email protected] to get started.

10 Ways to Kill a Performance Marketing Program

1. Not trusting the experts or being transparent

Hiring experts (whether internal or external) and then not letting them do their job.

2. Focusing on what’s not working

For instance, hyper-fixating on what is new and shiny instead of what has worked historically.

3. Website fails the ‘Mom Test’

If your mom can’t look at your website and understand what you do, you’re losing potential customers.

4. Bad A/B testing

For instance, tests focusing on the top-of-funnel and avoiding the rest of the journey to sale.

5. Not putting your money where your mouth is 

Companies refusing to spend on a well-maintained and optimized website, user onboarding, marOps stack — all the things that lead to improved marketing performance.

6. Ignoring the big picture data and seeking granular perfection

Common tracking issues are to miss out on the high level view of how the company or a program is performing and to keep searching for the perfect view (which doesn’t exist)

7. Treating analytics as a project that can be completed

Setting up analytics isn’t something you do once and then forget about it. It requires iteration and constant improvement.

8. Trusting data and reports without looking deeper

When people start with a hypothesis, they can see data that supports it, leading to compelling but incorrect reports. Tying everything back to high level blended metrics prevents this from happening.

9. Making big account and ignoring the rules

Making big or frequent account changes can send your campaigns into learning which seriously impacts performance. Platform rules matter and differ by platform.

10. Blindly following trends or treating marketing like a marriage

Just because you saw it on LinkedIn or in an article doesn’t mean it will work for you. Conversely, you can’t be committed to one type of marketing. Success requires a mixed marketing approach.