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We pivoted our entire Q1 budget away from search to “create demand” and the performance team is now screaming at me
Posted by on April 14, 2026 at 11:55 amI genuinely cannot believe what just happened and I need to know if anyone else has made this same catastrophic mistake or if I am actually insane.
So three weeks ago, our brand team kept saying search is too competitive, CTR is down, we need to shift budget to demand creation channels. They made a compelling case to leadership. Everyone agreed. I was tasked with moving 40 percent of our Q1 search budget into ABM, intent-based audiences on LinkedIn, and some experimental first-party data segments.
I told them this was risky. I said search captures existing demand and you cannot just swap it out. The response was "thats the point, we need to BUILD demand not just capture it."
Fine. I did it. I built the strategy. Paused about 200k in search spend. Reallocated it. Campaign launches two weeks ago.
Yesterday we got the first full week of data and I am sitting here staring at my screen in absolute disbelief.
Search conversions are DOWN 35 percent. Like, the campaigns we paused? We were not replacing that volume anywhere else. The new demand creation channels? Generating zero qualified leads. LinkedIn intent audiences are converting at 0.3 percent. The ABM accounts we targeted? Crickets. It turns out you actually cannot just CREATE intent out of thin air with a bigger budget.
Our sales team is now in full panic mode because pipeline for next quarter is going to tank. Leadership is asking me why the strategy failed. The performance team is saying "I TOLD YOU" and frankly they are right and I hate it.
The worst part? We cannot quickly pivot back to search because our competitors have already snapped up those ad positions and the CPCs have gone insane in the meantime. We are basically locked out of the channel for two weeks while we rebuild.
I genuinely thought the brand team's logic made sense at the time. I thought maybe they saw something I did not. Turns out they just wanted to "try something" and I was the one who had to execute it and now I look like the person who blew up a working strategy.
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1 Reply
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This is the best thing I have heard today! Another example of how you should trust people who run your ads about your ads. A room full of generalists are often delusional, and have nothing to bring to the table except these occasional embarrassments.
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You left the bottom of the funnel and your pipeline dried up. And you’re surprised?
Turn search back on and it will come back.
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There is a collective delusion at your company if you think that two weeks of awareness spend after gutting your bottom of funnel is going to yield anything material in the short term. The only reason that you should pull back on bottom of funnel in such a dramatic way is if you have very strong evidence pointing towards inefficiency or unprofitable unit economics.
Y’all should not have divested, y’all should have increased investment into these awareness channels with incremental budget and looked toward overall business lift in the coming months.
Brand awareness works, but where it doesn’t work is in the immediate short term – two weeks lolol
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I mean on the one hand it’s a good way to see how much incremental conversion search drives, you basically did a lift test for the channel.
You’ll be able to compete with your competitors again, they were always bidding aggressively but not like your ads can’t go back to the status quo.
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“thats the point, we need to BUILD demand not just capture it.” – Brand Team
Logic 101 :p
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This is why diversification matters, instead of putting all eggs in experimental channels, we tested ai powered tv advertising Vibeco alongside search. It let us build
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You paused campaigns that were working, what did you expect was going to happen? Competition will move in and capture what you stopped going after. You should not be in disblief at all. This was exactly what you should have been planning for and knew would happen.
You can not compare demand capture with something that has only been running for two weeks and has not be optimized at all. That is an apple’s to orange’s comparison if there every was one. Plus demand capture and demand creation are two very different parts of the funnel and should have different KPIs.
You clearly didn’t think any of this through which is a weird position to be in for someone who was doing the strategy bit. If they saw something you did not, then they should have been able to show you it with clear data.
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I think you can just roll back and be mostly back on track tomorrow if you use the data exclusion tool to exclude history on all campaigns and revert the changes made in the campaigns itself. As others are commenting creating demand is a long game which needs its own budget. And your leadership should learn to trust the experts instead of compelling case presentations
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Here’s the thing, you don’t “create demand”. All you can realistically do is make people aware of your solution that might already be somewhat interested in it BEFORE they type in the search.
No such thing as demand generation unless you invest in TV or DOOH.Protecting the bottom of funnel will always be crucial.
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You make it sound like you made the call but its not your fault? Unless I misunderstand your organization’s structure:
1. You let the “Brand” team telling you and the performance team what to do? But you have to answer to leadership? Who’s accountable in this scenario?
2. You knew it was risky and you just flipped the switch with no forecasts, no testing framework, no plan B?
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Never go all in on anything anyone who doesn’t run ad platforms tells you. Next time, run a 10-15% pilot reallocation first.
Layer in remarketing from the new channels to any site visitors or engagers you did get. That can warm them up quicker.
Document everything with clear before/after metrics and attribution windows (use longer ones for upper-funnel) so leadership sees the full picture instead of pinning it all on you.
Own the execution but frame the failure as a shared learning on timing and testing, then push for hybrid budgets going forward.
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Reverse the pivot. Creating demand takes far longer than capturing existing demand.
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So let me get it straight.
You have stopped your regular PPC, then at the same time started completely new channel, and basically assumed it would instantly replace your PPC?
Why couldn’t you just reduce PPC, why couldn’t you just test new channels? What kind a leadership would make such weird decision? If that would be my board of directors, the marketing/sales would be fired.
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I mean, this was the expected outcome!? Turn off immediate demand capture to build medium to long-term results.
Short term it was always going to be a drop, unless it was a phased decrease / decrease lower performers first. -
we see this all the time, perhaps next time run it through a scenario planner first?
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