Chris Makara

If your CRO agency is only running UI/UX tests you’re leaving most of the money on the table. Because most agencies stop at Level 1 of testing. They’ll tweak a button. Rewrite a headline. Maybe test a layout shift. And sure, those things can move the needle. But they’re just scratching the surface. If you're serious about scaling profitably, especially with rising CAC and squeezed margins, you need to operate on all three levels of testing. This is CRO 2.0 - Customer Revenue Optimisation. I had a great chat with Alex McEachern 💎 at Intelligems recently, and this framework came through clearly. Here’s how it breaks down: Level 1: On-page testing This is what most people think CRO is. Buttons, headlines, PDP tweaks, layout changes. You're nudging conversion rate or AOV up. Example: bundling skincare products into “routine kits” to increase basket size. These tests are quick and measurable, but they only optimise what's on the surface. If you stop here, you're optimising the symptoms, not the system. Level 2: Beyond-the-page testing Now you're optimising how the business actually works behind the scenes. Things like: - Pricing structures - Shipping thresholds - Promotions and offers These levers impact both conversion and profitability - especially as acquisition costs rise. One brand we audited recently saw their CPM double in 30 days. Same ads. Same targeting. No change in website performance. If you’re not testing margin protection in that environment, you're relying on the whims of Meta to stay profitable and spoiler alert- they don't care. Level 3: Business decision testing This is where CRO becomes a company-wide growth engine. You're testing operational strategy, not just customer-facing tweaks. Examples: - Flat-pack vs pre-built shipping - Trialling subscriptions with a small cohort - Soft-launching new products to validate demand - Testing internal tools that reduce cost or increase capacity This is business model optimisation. And it's where compounding growth happens. Most brands, and most agencies, never get past Level 1. Some touch Level 2. Very few even think about Level 3. But if you want sustainable, profitable growth - all three levels matter. This is the difference between CRO as a service, and CRO as a growth engine. P.S. If you want to test deeper growth levers before Black Friday, now’s the time. Drop a comment or DM me - happy to walk through your testing layers.

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I heard a comment yesterday: use GA ROAS for "short term" optimizations, and use incremental ROAS for "long term" optimizations. This is wrong. I get where they're coming from, and I appreciate that they're trying to incorporate incrementality at all. But this is confusing causality with latency. • Causality: something that CAUSED something else • Latency: the delay between the cause and effect People will say some sequence of logical statements like: "GA4 only favors the bottom of the funnel." "iROAS takes a long time to calculate." "TOF channels have higher iROAS than BOF." And then they somehow, in their mind, combine these different ideas into thinking that "GA4 = short term" and "incrementality = long term." The reality is that using any kind of traffic or click based attribution is just capturing the very last step in the long mental journey the consumer had to make before they purchased. If you dump a bunch of emails and then see a spike in GA4 attributed email revenue, that isn't because you "made more short term revenue." What's actually happening is that a bunch of people who were likely going to buy anyway happened to click on your email link because there was a coupon in there. Let's use the car dealership example again: • GA4 attribution: the car lot itself (your website) • Incrementality: the TV ads that made people want a car Yes, you need to have a car lot, and you arguably need salespeople to convince the user to buy. But it's foolish to give 100% of the credit to the car sale to the person who "convinced" the customer to buy THAT particular car. When in reality: • The customer NEEDED a new car • The customer was AWARE of a few brands • The customer had AFFINITY toward one brand • The customer lived LOCALLY to your car lot • The customer saw your lot's ADS on TV • The customer read good REVIEWS • The customer did RESEARCH All before they ever showed up to the lot. They came there and they had in mind "We're trying to buy a Doyoford Land Shark for our family of 4. I can't spend more than $50k. I heard that Ben's Car Lot is really good, and they're only 10 mins away." And when they got to Ben's Car Lot, Ben was there and did a good job of "selling" them the Doyoford Land Shark (which they had already selected). Incrementality measurement is attempting to understand the true contribution of all of those steps, or at least the ads on TV for the car lot, prior to the customer ever stepping foot locally. Attribution is just giving all the credit to the sales guy. So if you want to "juice" more short term revenue, you don't just "push more budget" toward the channels that have better GA4 ROAS. That's like just hiring more car salespeople on the lot without running ads to get people there. #incrementality #attribution

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I had no idea so many SEO companies would hate my software AI Trust Signals… but they do...and not for the reasons I expected. Turns out, there are a lot of SEO companies doing bad work and not being honest with their clients. And when their clients finally ask hard questions, things get...well...interesting. Here’s a recent example (true story): A lady heard me speak, ran her website through AI Trust Signals, and her scores came back rough. She forwarded the results to her SEO company and asked for an explanation. Their response? “It’s a pile of $hit.” 💩 That was their technical analysis. (seriously, I'm not kidding) But it also triggered alarm bells for her. So she started digging. Eight weeks later, here’s what she uncovered: • GDPR violations • Her entire e-commerce section not visible to Google Shopping • Falsified SEO reporting • A laundry list of mistakes no competent agency should ever miss Her words to me: “You name it… it happened.” She fired the agency and is now fixing what was an extremely broken website. And the crazy part? I'm starting to see similar stories all the time now. When some SEO companies see a low score on AI Trust Signals, the default response isn’t curiosity… it’s defensiveness: “It’s trash.” “It’s wrong.” “Don’t trust it.” Anything to avoid accountability. Why? Because too many firms are still clinging to a world where everything revolves around ten blue links, “keywords,” and link-building spreadsheets. And that world is disappearing...fast. The day is coming when we’ll laugh at how we used to get information online. If you’re using an SEO company, don’t assume they’ve kept up. The shift from “rank me on Google” to “make AI recommend me” is rewriting the industry. Some agencies will adapt. Many won’t. Your job is to know the difference...before the market finds out for you. ----------- Your take? I'd love to hear your thoughts below. 👇

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Two SEO agencies, both making $10M a year, one sells for $17M, the other for $26M. What’s the $9M difference? As someone who brokered both deals, I’ll tell you: it’s not just about revenue. It’s about how you structure your business for maximum value. Here's how Agency B pulled off a $9M higher sale price: 🔑 1. They Focused on Profit, Not Just Revenue Agency A was obsessed with growing their revenue. But in the world of business valuation, profit is the real key. Buyers look at how much a company actually makes after expenses, not just how much it brings in. Agency B understood this, and it paid off big time. 🔑 2. They Specialised in a Niche Market Agency A cast a wide net, offering SEO to anyone who needed it. But Agency B went deep, providing SEO services exclusively to construction companies. That focus allowed them to command a premium price, buyers love niche experts who can charge more for specialised knowledge. 🔑 3. They Reduced Customer Dependency Agency A was heavily reliant on one big client, with 25% of their revenue coming from just one source. This created too much risk for potential buyers. Meanwhile, Agency B kept their customer base diversified, with no client accounting for more than 8% of their total revenue, making the business more stable and attractive. The key takeaway? Valuation isn’t just about numbers, it’s about the strategy behind those numbers. If you want to maximise the value of your business, it’s important to focus on profit, specialise in a niche, and reduce customer dependency. Ready to take your business to the next level? Get exclusive, proven strategies delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to my weekly newsletter now: https://lnkd.in/e96t-RkW

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SEO Insight: I'm beginning to believe schema influences ChatGPT citations. For this eComm prompt set, MANY of the most cited sites use Product schema: At Nectiv, I've been having a lot of fun playing around with the AI Tracker that we've built. We're tracking a few different larger prompt sets for different industries including software and ecommerce queries. It's been cool to analyze the types of sites that get cited and different trends in ChatGPT. One thing that really stood out to me when analyzing our eCommerce prompt set. In the AI Tracker, we're analyzing 500+ prompts that are pulled from Amazon data. The goal is to give us a high level view of what influences results in the commerce space. When analyzing this prompt set, I was surprised at some of the most commonly sites domains. Many of these were editorial affiliate sites that were topically unrelated to commerce. Some of these included sites like NY Mag (3.0%), People (2.3%), FindThisBest (1.9%), Esquire (0.5%). When analyzing those site, one common thread is that the vast majority markup their editorial articles are marked up with Product structured data. Many of them use Product schema directly, while others embed it as a child element under a parent schema (NewsArticle). But it's there more oftentimes than not. FindThisBest is particular interesting. This is a site that has been completely banished from Google. Since the Helpful Content Updates have started rolling out, this site has gone to basically zero in Google search. However, it finds itself in the top 10 results for this set of commerce queries. Obviously, there could be many different factors going on, but it's very interesting to me that the editorial sites using Product schema, tend to get included in ChatGPT citations. This is making me thing that structured data elements might have a bigger role in ChatGPT citations after all. Next week, we're also hosting a webinar that goes over this and other insights we've found from tracking ChatGPT. I'll reference that in the comments below.

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“I think AEO/GEO is a load of crap,” spouted a CMO from a $250mm SaaS company, adding, “if you follow SEO best practices, you’ll be fine.” After I picked up my jaw from the floor, I pondered this purposeful provocation and asked myself, could she be right? Stick with me as I share what I think I know about AEO. Showing up in LLMs has significant business value. Members of the CMO Huddles community report that LLM-generated site traffic converts at 4-6x the rate of traditional Google traffic. These visitors are not your proverbial tire kickers. They’re ready to put you on their short list. So if you haven’t figured out how to track + respond to these visitors appropriately, stop reading this and get on that!  Brands that ranked high in Google searches are more likely to show up in LLMs This makes sense, since these brands tend to have broader digital footprints. But I’ve also read that this only applies to about 50% of LLM searches. So that means that in the other 50% of searches, lesser-ranked brands are finding a way into LLM synopses. And if that is the case, then they must be doing something other than SEO-like activities. [If this logic is faulty, don’t blame an LLM, I’m on my own here.] Yext research agrees with our provocateur CMO This brilliantly timed bombshell dropped into my email this week: “Yext just analyzed 6.8 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity and found that 86% actually come from sources brands already control, like websites and listings. Reddit and forums? Just 2% once location and query intent are factored in.” I’ll give you a second to re-read this. Is Yext’s research relevant to AEO + B2B brands? Not sure. Perhaps their CEO, Michael Walrath, will weigh in here. If Yext's research includes B2B brands and complex queries, those of you investing heavily in AEO may want to reconsider. Another reason to hedge on AEO is that it is so damn hard to measure cause and effect right now. Every LLM search delivers unique results. The game is to measure the percentage of times you show up in an LLM query of 23 words on average. Now imagine one word is different each time. My head hurts thinking about the mathematical permutations. Hedging your AEO bet Many of the AEO “best practices” are things you should be doing anyway. Having extensive Q&As on your website is simply being user-friendly. Taking it a step further and having an answer bot like Webless that pulls from your website content is also being customer-centric. Another example is having competitive information (including pricing) on your website. Prospects need that info, and if you don’t provide it, the LLM will source it from somewhere else.  Like most humans, I hate gated content. Turns out, so do LLMs. So that's another example of doing the right thing that also may help with AEO. There's more to cover, but I'm out of space + am counting on my AEO-expert friends to fill in the vast gaps, including the technical stuff (like schema).

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Agencies often talk crap on other agencies and it's a pointless exercise but here's why I find it amusing Hiring is hard Running a company of 10 is hard Running a company of 40 is harder Most agency owners can never scale above either 40 heads or 40 clients because they don't replace themselves The reason I am at 450 clients and 500 employees is because processes (sops etc) simply outperform talented people who ignore checklists My interns beat anyone Thrasio hired for example, they with ultimate sophistication ignored commandment 1 of selling on Amazon. They let their top sellers go out of stock. Boutique agencies claim better talent allows them better results, often posting on social media like a solo fashion show Not only is this misleading but it's also their only claim they can make because they can't or haven't yet scaled their own company to merit a higher level argument But with that said, it's not me against you (other agencies), it's all of US vs Amazon There is simply no need to attack other agencies to gain ground, the ground is infinite and I get more client referrals when I help my competitors anyway Business is not a zero sum game, on the contrary it's an infinite value giving game This is why I give away everything Some of you will hate on me just because I am successful But most of you who learn something and apply it to your own business will grow And to the few who come back and say thank you for all the content? You're the reward that keeps me going

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Technical SEO optimizations should take days... not years. Run a basic audit. Fix the glaring issues. Then start working on stuff that ACTUALLY brings in organic traffic (collections, link-building, content). Prove me wrong.

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Your obsession with CPL is destroying your agency’s lead gen. Here’s why it’s stifling your growth: 1️⃣ CPL blocks the outcomes that matter “What should my cost per lead be?” → Wrong question. Agency marketing is expensive. You’ll often pay $500–$1,000 per form-fill or enquiry. When you cap CPL at $200 or $300, here’s what happens: → You filter out high-quality leads → You miss high-intent search moments → You underperform in competitive auctions And your pipeline? It suffers. 2️⃣ Focus on revenue, not cost Instead of what's our CPL, think of it this way: If I spend $1,000 and close a $5K/month client who stays for a year... Was that a good investment? Absolutely. You just turned $1K into $60K. So stop obsessing over CPL. Start tracking: → # of MQLs per month → Pipeline generated from MQLs → Deals won from MQLs That’s your real growth engine. 3️⃣ Understand what good ROI really looks like Here’s how to measure your return: Spending $10K on marketing in a month? Aim to close at least $10K in new MRR per month from it. But here’s the nuance - it won’t happen overnight. To consistently close $10K+ in new MRR from a single month’s marketing spend: → It will take 6-12 months of consistent investment & testing. → Circa the 12-month mark, you'll make $20 back for every $1 spent. Too many agencies quit at month 3 - Right before momentum starts to build. Want your marketing to truly work? Patience and consistency are non-negotiable. It's all in the "how" you do it, not the "what". 4️⃣ Looking at CPL per channel is sabotaging your marketing success Because in reality: → Meta helps Google → Google helps SEO → SEO helps Meta → Events boost everything → Website/LP converts it all → Everything works together to win If you only exist in one channel, you will not win. So stop asking: → What’s my CPL from Meta? → What’s my ROI from SEO? Start asking: → What’s our blended cost of acquisition? → How much MRR have we added across all channels? → How much pipeline have we generated from marketing? 💡Final thought: The best agencies I’ve worked with - The ones that scale fast (and sustainably)- All do a few key things: → They don’t obsess over CPL → They don’t treat marketing like a silo → They focus relentlessly on outcomes over activity Those same agencies? For every $1 they’ve spent on marketing They’ve made $20 or more back. Others who obsessed on CPL? Flopped. Marketing isn't just CPL Focus on the bigger picture If you do, you'll win BIG. If you don't, you stifle growth. Which path will you choose? — 👋 Hey, I’m Wasif An agency coach who helps agencies of all sizes. Are you next? Bigger agency? (>$100k MRR) → DM me for a free 1:1 Smaller agency? ($20–$100k MRR) → Ask me about 3x Scaler Bigger agencies I've helped: → StudioHawk, Defiant Digital, Neil Patel Digital, Online Marketing Gurus & many more. Smaller agencies I've helped scale: → Umped, Karma Media, Superbrick, Avoca Digital, FoxGiven & many more.

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How to Track Creative Testing at $10K/Day Spend (Without Burning Cash) If you’re scaling to $10K/day (or want to), creative testing can’t be random. At this level, every ad needs a clear system for tracking performance—otherwise, you’re just guessing. Here’s how we track creative testing at scale: ✅ Naming Conventions Matter → Every ad has a structured name including: Hook | Angle | Offer | Format | Launch Date. This makes it easy to analyze trends over time. ✅ Daily & Weekly Tracking → We log CTR, CPC, thumb-stop ratio, and early add-to-carts within 24-48 hours to determine if an ad deserves more spend—or if it’s dead. ✅ Segmentation by Intent → We bucket creatives into Testing, Scaling, and Evergreen campaigns—so we always know what’s feeding our scaling engine. ✅ Automated Performance Flags → If an ad crosses a certain CTR threshold, it’s flagged for iteration. If it falls below a set CPA multiple, it’s flagged for removal. ✅ Creative Heatmaps → We analyze top-performing visuals, messaging, and formats across different audience segments to double down on what’s working. Scaling isn’t about launching 100+ creatives and hoping for the best. It’s about systematizing what works—and cutting what doesn’t—at lightning speed. How are you tracking creative performance at scale?

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The most overlooked technical SEO issue we’ve fixed this year (and how to spot it): Blocked Googlebot IPs. Not by robots.txt. Not with meta tags. Not through noindex headers. I’m talking about actual server-side blocks, IP ranges quietly denying access to Googlebot. Here’s the scenario: Traffic drops. Rankings fade. Site looks fine on the surface. Pages are indexed. GSC doesn’t show anything major. But dig deeper in server logs or use a reverse proxy, and you’ll find it: 403 or 503 responses for Googlebot only. In one case, a misconfigured WAF (Web Application Firewall) was unintentionally blocking entire Googlebot IP ranges. The site lost nearly 80% of its organic traffic over 6 months. How we spotted it: - GSC showed “Blocked due to access forbidden (403)” for valid URLs - Manual fetch in GSC failed - Server logs showed normal users getting 200s, Googlebot getting 403s - Logs matched known Googlebot IPs (always verify) It took 20 minutes to uncover and a single firewall rule to fix, and rankings started rebounding in days. If you're dealing with unexplained traffic loss and your SEO fundamentals look fine, check server-level access controls.

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𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲. 𝘠𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨. SEO isn’t dead. Social isn’t saturated. Your market isn’t “too competitive.” You’re just not saying anything new. Or loud enough. Or with enough conviction. The fix? → Say something polarizing → Package it smart → Own a repeatable lane It’s not crowded if you lead.

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Most agencies treat audits like a sales step. But if you're using audits to prove your worth, especially with non-technical buyers, you’re doing it wrong. Here’s the thing: The best agencies hold the audit as a prize, not a giveaway. Let me show you what that looks like. 1️⃣ Audits Are Optional, Not Standard - Don’t lead with an audit unless it’s absolutely necessary to close the deal. - Use it only when there’s a sales objection you can’t overcome any other way. - If you’re selling to a warm or pre-sold lead, skip it. 2️⃣ Position the Audit as Premium - “We usually charge $10K for this... but we’ll waive it if you commit to a decision in the next 30 days.” - This turns the audit into a value-builder, not a resource drain. - It also tells the buyer you're serious and sets the tone for your partnership. 3️⃣ Keep It Tight: The Minimum Viable Audit (MVA) - Go too deep and it backfires. Clients throw it in your face months later. - Focus only on the platform or problem that matters most to the client. - You’re not building a strategy doc. You’re earning trust. 4️⃣ Use Audits as Objection Killers, Not Door Openers - Ask for the sale first. - If they resist because they “need to know what you’ll actually do,” then and only then offer a scoped audit with strings attached. - Qualify: “What specifically would you need to see to feel confident moving forward?” Here’s a simplified example: You’re talking to a DTC beauty brand spending $30K/month on Meta. They’ve been stuck at 0.7 ROAS for 2 years and want to get to 2.0. Instead of jumping into an audit, you say: “Sounds like your north star is 2x ROAS. That’s a big gap. We can help, but instead of us wasting a month pulling logins to 6 platforms, what if we just did a focused Meta audit? That’s normally $10K, but if you’re ready to move forward this month, we’ll waive the fee. Deal?” The bottom line: Don’t give the audit away until they’ve earned it. It’s not a pre-sale freebie. It’s the close. Run the play. Hold the line. You’ll save time, look more premium, and close more deals. CQ

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I think the future of SEO (still defined as “Search Engine Optimization”) is changing to overall organic growth optimization. I'm not suggesting a new name (enough new names are being kicked around presently, some of which might be short-sighted as a label IMO). I'm thinking more of a natural extension of what we've been doing for decades, forced by more than the biggest search engine switching to AI modes. User habits are shifting. SEOs should already be flexing. The role hasn’t changed, as we're still the bridge between users and the discovery platforms. But the platform is no longer just Google. It’s also AI interfaces, marketplaces, voice, social, aggregators — wherever discovery happens. The old SEO toolbox (keywords, crawlability, links) still matters to algorithms, but it’s table stakes. They are expected. - Real growth comes from building visibility and value into the product itself at launch (channeling Eli Schwartz here). - Real growth comes from understanding how users actually discover, evaluate, and trust brands (and designing for that reality). - Real growth comes from solving for the entire discovery journey, not just ranking keywords. That’s relevance across every organic channel — not just Google's AI-infused SERPs. After the fact SEO bolt-ons to target the ESV metrics is becoming the new old-school. Organic growth means thinking beyond search. It’s strategy, product, UX, and content — aligned.

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