Marketing With Elliot

Marketing With Elliot I help business owners fix broken marketing. Book a free discovery call on my website and I’ll customize an advertising solution for you.

06/01/2026

Some businesses think more money is the answer.

Sometimes it is.

But sometimes a big bank account is just keeping a bad idea alive longer than it should be.

More ad spend won’t fix a weak offer.
A prettier website won’t fix bad service.
Hiring another “guru” won’t fix a business nobody actually wants.

Money amplifies what already exists.

If the foundation is solid, money helps you scale.
If the foundation sucks, money just lets you burn cash faster.

You still need to be good at what you do.
You still need a product or service people actually want.
You still need a strategy that makes sense.

Don’t confuse funding with validation.

05/30/2026

Most businesses don’t need “an ad guy.”

They need someone to run the damn marketing department.

Marketing isn’t just a Meta ad.
It’s your SEO.
Your landing pages.
Your CRM.
Your email automations.
Your Google Ads.
Your follow up process.
Your positioning.

And more importantly — how all of those things work together.

One person doesn’t have to personally do every task. But one person SHOULD own the strategy and lead the ex*****on.

Because when you hire 3 different vendors with 3 different agendas, guess who becomes the project manager?

You.

That’s why businesses hire a fractional CMO.
Not for random tactics. For connected strategy that actually makes sense for the business.

Don’t market like a moron.

05/21/2026

Built and sold two businesses and learned something pretty quick:

Most businesses don’t need 7 vendors, 4 meetings, and a 93-page marketing strategy deck nobody reads.

They need one person to actually own the plan, understand the business, and execute the work.

That’s why I shifted into fractional CMO work.

No cookie-cutter “10x your brand” nonsense.

No random tactics pulled from a guru podcast.

Just figuring out what actually makes sense for YOUR business, then building from the bottom up.

Sometimes that’s Google Search.
Sometimes it’s fixing your tracking.
Sometimes it’s admitting your website sucks.

Good marketing should feel connected — not like 5 strangers rowing the boat in different directions.

That’s the lane I like to stay in now.

05/14/2026

Stop thinking organic and paid are supposed to compete.

Organic content helps you learn what people actually care about. Paid traffic helps you put more fuel behind what is already working.

Use organic as the proving ground.
Use paid as the amplifier.

The best marketing systems are not “all organic” or “all paid” — they’re built around how the two work together.

05/12/2026

If you’ve never hired a media buyer before, here’s one of the fastest ways to tell who’s real and who’s selling you a dream:

Are they pitching you a lifestyle?
Or are they explaining a strategy built for your business?

“Imagine how your life will look when we 10x your revenue” sounds exciting.

But:

“I looked at your Google Ads account. Here are the 4 issues I see. Here’s what I’d fix first. Here’s the KPI I’d try to move.”

That’s a marketer.

Less fantasy.
More diagnosis.
More clarity.
More ownership.

The right media buyer should make you feel like they understand the assignment — not like they’re reading from the same script they use on everyone else.

05/11/2026

If I were marketing a local coffee shop, I’d start where intent already lives:

Your Google Business Profile.
Your website.
Your local SEO.

Because before you worry about going viral, you should probably make sure people can actually find you.

Then yes — whether you like it or not — you’ve got to figure out social media.

The good news: your content does not need to look like Spielberg shot it. It just needs to feel real.

Entertaining.
Informative.
Funny.
Authentic.

That will take you further than overproduced content ever will.

05/06/2026

Meta has a funny way of turning “excluded placements” into “excluded-ish placements.”

This setting allows Meta to spend up to 5% of your budget on placements you specifically told it not to use.

So if you said: “Don’t run this on Facebook.”

Or: “Don’t show this on partner sites.”

Meta may still try to sneak a little spend in there because the algorithm pinky-promises it might help performance.

Very cool. Very normal. Definitely not annoying at all.

The lesson?

Don’t just set your placements and assume the platform is going to respect your strategy.

Check the account controls.

Turn off limited spending to excluded placements.

And please, for the love of clean data, don’t let Meta spend money on platforms you intentionally removed from the plan.

The machine is useful.

But it should not be allowed to grade its own homework.

05/05/2026

Being great at what you do matters.

Being great to work with matters more than a lot of people want to admit.

The most talented person doesn’t always get the job.

Sometimes the job goes to the person who communicates better, fits the team better, and makes the whole thing easier.

Talent matters, but fit closes deals.

04/27/2026

Your marketing problem in 2026 probably isn’t effort.

It’s ownership.

Too many businesses have 5 different people touching marketing… and 0 people truly accountable for results.

One person runs ads.
One posts on social.
One “does SEO.”
One updates the website when Mercury is in retrograde.

Meanwhile leads are inconsistent, reporting is messy, and everyone has an excuse.

The businesses pulling ahead right now aren’t necessarily spending more.

They just have one connected strategy with someone actually owning the outcome.

Busy marketing ≠ effective marketing.

If your marketing feels active but growth feels random… we should talk.

04/25/2026

was thinking about marketing on day one.

Not after the food was dialed in.
Not once things slowed down.
Not “when there’s more budget.”

Day one.

Because if you want people to care, you need to know what story you’re telling, where you’re telling it, and how to tell it correctly.

That applies to a restaurant.
It applies to your business too.

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