The Secret Ad Buyers Won't Tell You

Marketing Shenanigans (#027)

Hey there,

Here’s a little secret that paid ad buyers would rather keep under wraps: “paid advertising will never save bad content.”

The Truth About Ads and Content

Think of it this way: imagine you’re the most attractive person in the world. You’ve got everyone’s attention. But if you show up to a date and can’t explain who you are, what you do, or why you’re interesting, how far is that going to get you?

Now, picture someone who isn’t conventionally attractive but knows how to hold a killer conversation. They make you laugh, they listen, and they make you feel something. Over time, that connection deepens—and so does the attraction.

This is exactly how advertising works.

A good ad does more than grab attention. It:

1️⃣ Tells a relatable story.

2️⃣ Makes people feel something.

3️⃣ Sparks genuine interest.

Here’s the kicker—great ads don’t even need ad spend to go viral. When your content is strong, people will share it for you.

But here’s the problem: paid ad buyers don’t want you to know this.

Their job depends on ad spend and conversion as fast as possible, so they’ll tell you to throw more money at the problem… which makes sense because that’s the fastest way to figure it out; it’s just not the smartest.

The truth? Ad spend isn’t meant to fix bad content—it’s meant to amplify great content.

When your content is on point, you’ll spend less and get better results. Skip that step, and no amount of money will fix what’s broken.

So in summary - learn what your customers want to hear from you. So do this:

• Start with organic content (this means investing in making content and posting it for free on the internet to see what works and build an audience)

• When you find the right content that works, start boosting that (paying to make the right people see it)

When the algorithm knows who likes your content, you don’t have to pay to find out. This saves you a lot of money.

Ad buyers aren’t the enemy, you need great ad buyers to properly scale a brand, but the truth is you can’t scale a brand (emotion) or scale your advertising (paid promotion) without great content.

Where to Focus First

Good content is your foundation. It builds trust, creates interest, and stretches your ad budget further. Paid ads? They’re the megaphone—but only if you’ve got something worth shouting about.

So, before you hit “boost” or max out your CPC bids, ask yourself: is your content doing the heavy lifting?

Let’s keep growing smarter,

Teddy

Teddy Giard

In case you don’t already know, my name is Teddy, and I operate a firm that specializes in marketing strategies for lifestyle brands. Our approach is simple: align your product development timeline with your marketing production timeline; by doing so, we can own the distribution of our message and our products.

If you’d like to explore working together, feel free to fill out this form, and if we’re a good fit, we can schedule a discovery call. We ask this because we keep a fairly narrow target for whom we work, and we like to be as open about that on the front end as possible. After all, time is life’s most valuable resource.