Key Takeaways
- Give your strategy room to breathe, as not every hiccup means the idea is bad.
- Look behind the scenes; poor conversions can be about process, not promotion.
- Set a review window and decide beforehand how long you’ll wait before tweaking things.
Read More: Executive Positioning 101: How to Align Personal and Company Branding for a Strong Debut
One of my all-time favourite songs is The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. And no, it’s not just because of the old-school charm, it’s that line in the chorus: “You’ve got to know when to hold on, know when to fold up, know when to walk away, know when to run.”
That line has got grit, wisdom, and pops into my head quite a bit when it comes to creating a marketing strategy to drive growth. It’s not just good advice for gamblers. It’s excellent advice for anyone managing digital growth, especially when things aren’t moving as fast as expected.
When the Top of the Funnel Is Lying to You
A while ago, I was brought in to support a well-known Nigerian bank that wanted to scale its digital customer acquisition. They had the budget, the ambition, and a strong appetite for growth. Seemed like all the ingredients for success were ready, so let’s go, go, goooo!
I crafted a strategy that was clear, performance-focused, and designed to meet them where they were: with a strong brand, but a system that needed work.
We launched paid campaigns. Early numbers were encouraging, traffic was up (like, “pinch me, I’m dreaming” kind of up), engagement looked good, and we were attracting exactly the right kind of people. The top of the funnel was humming.
But then…little else.
To say sign-ups were underwhelming is an understatement. Haba! Kilode? What’s going on? Conversions were nowhere near where they should have been. The energy in the room started to shift. And as always happens in moments like this, someone asked: “Do we need to change the strategy?”
The Strategy Wasn’t the Problem
Now, if you’ve ever worked with large institutions, you know that sometimes, the real challenge isn’t always marketing. It’s systems. And, omo, this one had layers.
The customer journey after clicking the ad was… cloudy, to put it politely. Pages took forever to load. Required fields should not have been required (I mean, how exactly is the competition getting away without asking for all that? 🙄). And once users started the process, there was no telling what was going on with the entire journey until completion – it was just this huge, gaping black hole. As if that wasn’t enough, internal processes were cumbersome and slow, silos a-plenty. No one was fully accountable for giving the much-needed visibility into the customer journey.
So while the ads were doing their job, the backend was dropping the ball.
And, of course, the natural instinct especially from teams under pressure is to blame the campaign (and the overpriced growth consultant 🤣). Change the creative. Switch up the targeting. Redo the strategy.
But as Kenny said: you’ve got to know when to hold on.
Managing Panic, Pressure, and People
A major part of what I do as a marketing consultant is managing energy.
I had to walk stakeholders through the journey. Show them how the paid media was performing. Highlight the bottlenecks with data. Speak to team leads to understand internal issues. And in one or two cases… yes, beg certain people to do their jobs. (We’ve all been there.). I wish I could say I was always calm about it, but I snapped a few times, not going to lie.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it was necessary. Because if we’d panicked and changed the campaign based on surface-level metrics, we would’ve missed the real issue, and wasted even more time chasing pipe dreams.
Growth Needs Time (and Backbone)
Sometimes, the hardest part of executing a strategy is not tweaking it too soon. That takes guts, especially when the conversion numbers aren’t singing yet and it looks like the end is farrrrrrrrrrrrrr from sight.
But giving your strategy a definite timeline, backed by clear analytics and data, is how you avoid the trap of knee-jerk reactions. That’s how you differentiate between a bad strategy… and a good strategy buried under operational chaos.
So, What Did We Do?
Instead of changing the campaign, we shifted focus inward. I helped the client:
- Map out the full customer journey, showing what was happening when and friction points
- Clarify internal responsibilities for every stage of lead handling
- Streamline their sign-up process to reduce confusion
- Train key internal teams on urgency and accountability
Once the system got some love, conversions started ticking up. Not overnight. Not dramatically. But steadily. The strategy hadn’t changed. We’d just given it space to breathe and removed the blockers.
Don’t Let Panic Kill Good Strategy
So many marketing strategies fail not because they’re wrong, but because they aren’t given enough time to work. Or they’re simply plugged into systems that can’t support them (ko le werk rara!).
Growth takes more than ads and content. It takes alignment, follow-through, and the confidence to say, “Let’s wait this out a bit longer.” Because pulling the plug too soon can cost you results, valuable insights, and long-term traction.
How To Avoid Knee-Jerk Reactions in Growth Strategy
If you’re building or managing a digital acquisition campaign, here are a few tips to help you know when to tweak — and when to wait:
1. Set a Clear Review Timeline
Before launching, agree on when you’ll properly evaluate performance. Not based on daily anxiety or stakeholder pressure, but a planned date with real data.
2. Fix the System, Not Just the Strategy
If the numbers aren’t converting, zoom out. Look at what happens after the click. Is the experience smooth? Are the teams aligned? Is there a leak in the funnel?
3. Don’t Let Loud Voices Distract You
In every room, there’ll be someone who wants instant results. Smile, nod, and go back to your roadmap. Your job is to deliver results, not perform miracles in two days.
Conclusion: Sometimes, You Just Have to Hold
Growth is hard. Especially digital growth in a complex system. But if you’ve done the work, built a thoughtful strategy, and aligned it with business goals, give it time. Be patient. Watch the signals. And troubleshoot smartly.
Because as Kenny Rogers sang (and as any marketer worth their salt knows), there’s a time to hold, a time to fold, and a time to walk away. And sometimes? The smartest move is staying right where you are, and letting a good plan work.