Let me first set the scene: I had a conversation with a (profitable) fintech founder not too long ago. 

He was telling me they’d tried Google Ads and "it just didn't work."

Up until then, they were generating clients solely through outreach. They were now looking to hire a marketing manager to boost inbound.

As we talked, he told me, very proudly, that the person running their Google Ads was an ex-aviation engineer (facts changed slightly for anonymity). 

They’d built this amazing dashboard that fed data signals straight into the GAds platform. (Seriously impressive stuff. I certainly couldn’t build anything like that.)

So I asked him: "Why do you think it didn't work?"

All he said was that it was "too expensive."

Here is what I wanted to tell him, but didn’t, because I could sense he’d take offense. 

The reason GAds wasn't generating leads, let alone sales, was simple:

1. You’re ignoring the Top of Funnel. Your entire route to market relies on outreach. You have no articles, no blogs, and hardly any presence on LinkedIn. Google Ads is a bottom-of-funnel, direct response tactic. It’s meant to capture demand that was already generated on other marketing channels.

2. You’re prioritising Tech over Strategy. You placed all the emphasis on fancy tech instead of a full-funnel marketing strategy. 

3. You’re burning cash on "Cold" traffic. Because you didn't generate any prior brand or product awareness, you burnt through your budget trying to convert people who had no idea who you were.

Fellow founders, please don’t make the mistake of building a fancy engine for a car with no fuel. 

Build the awareness first, then use the tech to scale it.