Hey there,
Last quarter, our return on ad spend dropped in one of our markets.
Not slightly. Significantly.
The marketing team did what marketing teams do: looked at the ads.
Maybe the targeting was off. Maybe the creative wasn't resonating. Maybe we needed better landing pages.
So we tested new campaigns. Different angles. Better offers.
ROAS stayed terrible.
Then I asked a different question: How are our technicians performing in that market?
What I found changed how we think about marketing entirely.
The real problem
One market: 68% close rate. Strong ROAS.
The problem market: 40% close rate. Terrible ROAS.
Same ads. Same budget. Same targeting. Same landing pages.
The only difference was what happened after the call came in.
The ad gets someone to call. The technician determines if that call becomes revenue.
We were optimizing the wrong layer.
Marketing was doing its job. Operations wasn't.
Why this happens everywhere
Most companies organize around departments, not outcomes.
Marketing owns traffic and leads. Operations owns fulfillment and service delivery. Sales owns closing.
Each team has their own metrics. Their own dashboards. Their own goals.
Marketing measures cost per lead and click-through rates.
Operations measures service completion and customer satisfaction.
Sales measures close rates and average deal size.
But to the customer, it's one experience.
They see an ad. They call. They talk to someone. They decide whether to buy.
If any part of that chain breaks, the whole thing fails.
And when it does, we blame the part we can see: the ads.
What ROAS actually measures
Return on ad spend isn't just a marketing metric.
It's the output of your entire system:
Ad quality × Landing page conversion × Lead qualification × Sales skill × Service delivery × Customer experience
If any of those variables drops, ROAS drops with it.
You can have perfect ads and terrible ROAS if:
Your sales team can't close. Your technicians deliver poor service. Your pricing is wrong for the market. Your onboarding creates friction. Your customer experience drives churn.
Marketing can't fix those problems. Operations has to.
The framework: diagnosing marketing vs ops problems
When ROAS drops, here's how to figure out where the real problem is.
Step 1: Segment by market
Don't look at company-wide ROAS. Break it down by region, technician, or service type.
If ROAS is bad everywhere, it's probably marketing.
If ROAS is bad in specific markets, it's probably operations.
Step 2: Compare close rates
Look at close rates by market, technician, or sales rep.
If one market closes at 68% and another closes at 40%, you don't have a marketing problem. You have a training problem or a hiring problem.
Step 3: Check average ticket size
Even if close rates are similar, check average deal value by market.
If one region books $500 jobs and another books $300 jobs from the same ad, the ad isn't the variable. The upsell skill is.
Step 4: Analyze customer feedback
Read reviews, listen to call recordings, check complaint patterns by market.
If customers in one region consistently report poor service, that's your ROAS problem.
Step 5: Test the fix
Once you know where the problem is, test the fix before scaling.
If it's ops, train the team or swap in better technicians.
If it's marketing, change the creative or targeting.
Measure the impact on ROAS. If it moves, you found the real variable.
What this looks like in practice
When we identified the 40% close rate market, we didn't touch the ads.
We invested in technician training. Brought in higher-performing techs from other markets. Raised quality standards.
Close rates improved to 55%, then 60%.
ROAS followed immediately.
Same ads. Same budget. Different outcome.
The broader lesson
Marketing and operations are not separate departments. They're the same outcome measured at different points.
A great ad with poor fulfillment is wasted money.
Great fulfillment with no traffic is wasted capacity.
Both have to work together.
If your ROAS is struggling, ask these questions before you change the ads:
What's our close rate by market? By technician? By sales rep?
What's our average ticket size in each market?
Are customers happy with the service they receive?
Is the problem consistent across all markets or isolated to specific ones?
If it's isolated, the problem isn't the ad. It's what happens after the ad works.
What to do next
Pull your ROAS data by market.
Identify the best-performing and worst-performing regions.
Compare close rates, ticket sizes, and customer feedback between them.
If the worst regions have significantly lower close rates, your problem is operations, not marketing.
Fix the ops. Watch ROAS follow.
That's it for today.
Talk soon,
Sardor
P.S. I read every email personally. Hit reply and tell me: Have you ever blamed marketing for a problem that was actually operations? Most of us have. The question is whether you caught it before burning the entire budget.