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What Most Agencies Won’t Tell You: Smarter Marketing by Industry
- Zacharias Wray
- Mar 26
- 11 min read
Most agencies won’t tell you this — because they either don’t know it, or they’re too busy copy-pasting the same strategy across every client: Your industry should completely change how your marketing works.
Yet, in pitch decks and “monthly reporting calls,” everyone gets handed the same stale playbook. Retail, SaaS, manufacturing, nonprofits — all shoved into the same funnel logic, with minor tweaks and recycled KPIs.
That’s not strategy. That’s digital duct tape.
Different industries move differently. What drives conversions in manufacturing isn’t even relevant in nonprofit. What works for SaaS startups will absolutely tank in eCommerce. And the most common reason you’re not seeing better results? Your agency is treating your business like it’s just another vertical to slot into their template.
This post breaks that pattern.
We’re unpacking the real, industry-specific strategies that move the needle — the ones that rarely make it into agency slide decks. For each sector, we’ll show you where most agencies fall short, and how to outpace the competition by doing what they don’t (or can’t).
Manufacturing: Your Website Isn’t for You — It’s for the Engineer Who’s Ignoring Your Sales Rep
Here’s a hard truth: if your manufacturing company is still depending on trade shows, cold calls, and a “Contact Us” form buried three clicks deep, you're not just behind — you’re borderline invisible.
Modern B2B buyers don’t want hand-holding. They want specs, CAD files, lead times, and compliance details at 11:47 PM when your team is asleep. If your digital presence doesn’t meet their standards, you’re out of the running before the RFQ is ever sent.
So why are most manufacturing websites still designed like a brochure from 2008?
What Most Agencies Won’t Tell You:
1. High-volume SEO is a waste of your time. If your agency’s SEO plan involves ranking for broad keywords like “metal fabrication services” or “precision machining,” fire them. These terms attract everyone and convert no one. You don’t need more traffic — you need the right traffic.
What converts in manufacturing is long-tail, specific, and technical. Think:
“CNC milled 7075 aluminum aerospace parts”
“RoHS compliant PCB enclosures with thermal coating”
“ISO 9001 CNC machining supplier Texas”
These are purchase-ready searches. But they require your agency to understand your actual product — not just plug terms into Ahrefs.
2. Your site should function like a technical sales engineer. Most manufacturing sites were built to check a box. But if you want real leads — not form spam — your website has to do actual sales work. That means:
Clear navigation by product type, spec, and industry use case
Instant-access CAD files, certifications, and compliance info
Conversion points that match buyer intent (not just “Request a Quote” slapped on every page)
Think about it: the people you want to sell to are used to functionality. They live in CAD tools, spec sheets, and supplier databases. If your site can’t meet that level of utility, you’ve already lost the sale.
What You Should Be Doing Instead:
→ Reverse-engineer your site around buyer behavior. Don’t just list capabilities. Build pages for real-life search intent. For example:
“Custom heat sinks for LED enclosures”
“Aluminum CNC parts for automotive prototyping” Each of these deserves its own landing page with specs, tolerances, turnaround time, and a direct contact button.
→ Own your brand in Google — especially against your distributors. You’d be shocked how many manufacturers get outranked by the distributors who sell their parts. They’re stealing your traffic, your visibility, and your credibility. A small investment in branded search campaigns and high-intent landing pages can take that back — and let you control the conversation.
→ Track RFQ drop-off like it’s revenue leakage. If someone starts filling out an RFQ and doesn’t finish, that’s not a bounce. That’s a hot lead who bailed. Set up funnel tracking. Identify friction points. Optimize that form like you’re optimizing your bottom line — because you are.
Bottom Line:
Most agencies treat manufacturing like it’s “boring B2B.” That’s exactly why their strategies don’t work. You’re not boring. You’re technical, specialized, and selling to experts. Your marketing should reflect that — not apologize for it.
Nonprofits: Storytelling Alone Isn’t a Strategy — and Your Budget Can’t Afford Lazy Marketing
Nonprofits are constantly told to "lead with the mission," to “tell an emotional story,” and that donors will follow. Sure — storytelling matters. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: emotion doesn’t convert without strategy.
And that’s where most agencies drop the ball.
You’re not just running a cause — you’re running an organization. With KPIs. With stakeholders. With a need for actual performance, not just sentiment. But instead of giving you precision, most agencies give you vague narratives, some social media templates, and a Google Grant campaign they haven't touched in six months. Let’s fix that.
What Most Agencies Won't Tell You:
1. Google Ad Grants are useless without real conversion strategy. Yes, $10K/month in free Google Ads sounds amazing. But here’s the thing: Google severely restricts how those ads are served. Low CTR? They shut it down. Poor landing page experience? Goodbye traffic. High bounce rate? You're wasting impressions.
Agencies love to brag about getting you the grant — then run weak campaigns that don’t convert because they’re chasing vanity traffic.
If your ads aren’t driving:
Email signups
Recurring donations
Volunteer applications …you’re just burning free money.
2. Your email list is your most underutilized asset. If you're sending the same newsletter to everyone — major donors, one-time givers, volunteers, board members — you’re leaving impact and money on the table. Your audience isn't one-size-fits-all, so your messaging shouldn't be either.
Smart nonprofits segment by:
Giving history (monthly, lapsed, high-value)
Program interest (education, housing, climate, etc.)
Volunteer status and event attendance
Automated flows for each segment can triple engagement and unlock donations from people who just needed the right ask.
What You Should Be Doing Instead:
→ Redesign donation pages like eCommerce checkouts. Remove friction. Add urgency. Make the ask clear. Test:
Single vs. recurring default settings
Donation amounts pre-filled with impact labels (“$50 = 2 meals for a family”)
One-click giving for logged-in donors
Also: mobile-first. If your donation form sucks on a phone, you’re losing donors daily.
→ Stop writing content about your mission. Start writing for your donor. Your cause matters — but what does it mean for the donor? How does their $100 make them part of something real?
Instead of “We helped 1,000 families this year,” try:
“You gave 1,000 families a warm place to sleep this year. Here’s what that looked like.”
Subtle shift. Huge difference.
→ Retargeting isn’t just for retail. Yes, your nonprofit should absolutely run retargeting ads:
To site visitors who didn’t donate
To past donors during campaigns
To event attendees you haven’t converted into givers
It’s cheap. It works. And most agencies won’t even bring it up.
Bottom Line:
You don’t need more awareness. You need smarter strategy. Your donors aren’t mindless ATMs — they’re humans looking for meaning, trust, and clarity. Agencies that rely solely on emotional storytelling miss that completely.
Ecommerce: Pretty Won’t Ecommerce: Pretty Won’t Save You — Fix the Leaks Before You Add More Traffic
A sexy website won’t fix a leaky funnel.
But most ecommerce brands — and the agencies they hire — are obsessed with aesthetics: sleek homepage, punchy brand voice, product shots that belong in a museum. All great. But none of that matters if you're converting at 1.3% and burning ad dollars faster than you can say “free shipping.”
If you're spending more on traffic than you are on conversion optimization, you’re scaling a bad user experience.
And the truth is, most agencies don’t want to talk about that. They’ll happily run your Meta ads, boost your impressions, and call it a day — all while your cart abandonment rate hovers at 70%.
What Most Agencies Won’t Tell You:
1. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) will outperform paid ads — every time. If your site’s converting at 1.2% and you double your ad spend, you’re still only getting 1.2% to buy. But if you bump conversion to 2.4%, that’s double the revenue from the same traffic.
Yet agencies rarely touch CRO because:
It requires actual testing and iteration.
It takes longer to show results.
It's harder to scale agency retainers on optimization work.
Here’s the cheat code: fix your funnel first, scale traffic second.
2. SMS isn’t dead — you’re just using it like it’s 2020. SMS isn’t about blasting a weekend sale. It’s about segmentation. The brands crushing it use behavioral triggers:
Text reminders for abandoned carts (that don’t sound like bots)
VIP-only access to early drops
Personalized reorder nudges based on past purchase timing
If you’re still using SMS like a megaphone instead of a concierge, you’re leaving serious LTV on the table.
What You Should Be Doing Instead:
→ Stop looking at the homepage. Start with your PDPs.Your Product Detail Pages are where buying decisions happen. Yet most brands treat them like filler content. Fix:
Weak or generic product descriptions
Poor image hierarchy (size, context, detail)
No urgency or social proof
Test shipping thresholds, reviews layout, dynamic guarantees. These micro-tweaks are often worth more than your next ad campaign.
→ Use post-purchase flows to create future conversions.The sale doesn’t end at checkout. Smart brands build:
Loyalty flows (early access, rewards, referrals)
Cross-sell automations
Review + UGC collection sequences
If your agency isn’t optimizing post-purchase, they’re only doing half the job.
→ Build branded search defense.Your competitors are bidding on your name. So are review sites. If you’re not running branded search ads on Google, you’re letting someone else control your customers’ first impression — right before they were ready to buy.
Bottom Line:
Ecommerce is a blood sport. Margins are tight, acquisition costs are climbing, and attention spans are microscopic. You don’t win by shouting louder — you win by converting better.
Fix your funnel. Then scale.
B2B SaaS: Your Content Isn’t Working Because It’s Not Built to Sell
Let’s be blunt: most SaaS content is a landfill of blog posts, case studies, and whitepapers no one reads. You’re not building thought leadership — you’re building digital clutter.
And your agency? They’re probably encouraging it. “We need to publish three blogs a week for SEO.” Do you? Or are you just lighting budget on fire to check a box?
Content should move pipeline. Not just drive traffic. Not just generate downloads. Not just feed your brand ego. If your agency can’t connect your content to actual user behavior and revenue outcomes, it’s not strategy — it’s busywork.
What Most Agencies Won’t Tell You:
1. You don’t need more content. You need the right content at the right time. Dumping how-to blogs into your site and hoping they rank is a 2016 playbook. Here’s what actually converts in SaaS:
Comparison pages (You vs. Your #1 competitor — yes, name names)
ROI calculators (especially for CFO stakeholders)
Interactive demos or “sandbox” environments
Use-case-specific landing pages that speak to pain points
Spoiler: generic “what is [insert keyword]” posts are not moving enterprise deals.
2. Ebook downloads ≠ pipeline. Your agency tells you that gated content is a lead gen win. But your SDRs are calling people who downloaded a PDF and don’t even remember doing it. That’s not a lead. That’s noise.
The best SaaS brands are shifting to:
Product-qualified leads (PQLs) via freemium or trial actions
Engagement-based scoring (did they watch a demo video and view pricing?)
Sales-assisted signup paths for high ACV deals
What You Should Be Doing Instead:
→ Build funnel-aligned content — not just top-of-funnel filler. Map content by buyer stage, not content type. That means:
Awareness: Technical SEO blog posts that speak to specific use cases
Consideration: Integration guides, platform comparisons, feature breakdowns
Decision: Pricing calculators, ROI validation, security documentation
If you're missing decision-stage assets, you're stalling your own deals.
→ Personalize demo flows.“Book a demo” is not a CTA — it’s a chore. Let users self-select:
Industry
Role
Product interest
Then deliver a tailored walkthrough or connect them with the right AE. Treat demo requests like gold — not a glorified intake form.
→ Use product usage data for smarter upsell marketing.If a user logs in 10x a week but hasn’t activated a core feature, that’s a signal. So is team expansion, workflow duplication, or exporting data.
Set up behavior-based email flows and in-app nudges to push users toward expansion naturally — and make your CSMs look like heroes.
Bottom Line:
SaaS buyers are savvier than ever. They don’t want fluff. They don’t want generic funnels. They want clarity, functionality, and proof that your product solves their problem better than anyone else.
If your agency doesn’t get SaaS — truly get it — they’re just creating noise.
Startups: You Don’t Need More Hype — You Need a Marketing Strategy That Survives Past Your Launch
Startups are built to break things, but that doesn’t mean your marketing should be one of them.
Too many early-stage companies confuse attention with traction. You launched on Product Hunt. Got a few thousand visitors. Your founder’s on podcasts. Cool. But… what’s the CAC? What’s your retention? How many of those early signups actually stuck?
Most agencies feed the hype beast. They’ll promise “awareness,” a viral launch strategy, a killer landing page — all noise if you don’t have the infrastructure to turn that attention into sustainable growth.
Flashy launches don’t build companies. Functional funnels do.
What Most Agencies Won’t Tell You:
1. You’re not ready to scale until you’ve proven conversion. It’s easy to fall into the trap: “We raised a seed round — let’s dump it into ads.” Bad move. If your product-market fit is shaky and your onboarding sucks, paid traffic just exposes your weaknesses faster.
Before you scale, your agency should help you:
Identify your most valuable acquisition channels (based on data, not guesses)
Optimize your onboarding flow to get users to the “aha” moment ASAP
Run conversion tests on your MVP or freemium tier
If your agency's pushing media spend before you’ve validated LTV, you’re not scaling — you’re just bleeding more expensively.
2. Pre-seed and Series A require different marketing plays. Your messaging for early adopters (who tolerate friction and love novelty) will completely fail with mainstream users. But most agencies don’t know how to evolve the narrative.
You need to shift from:
“Look at this cool thing we built”→ to
“Here’s the proven outcome we deliver — and why it’s better than your current workaround”
That evolution is critical. Miss it, and churn spikes while trust craters.
What You Should Be Doing Instead:
→ Build a product-led marketing engine. Let the product do the selling. That means:
Clear in-app prompts to upgrade or refer
“Freemium with friction” models that push users to paid value
Usage-based case studies to show real-world outcomes
Let users get hooked before they ever talk to sales. PLG isn’t a trend — it’s how the best SaaS startups are reducing CAC and driving growth loops.
→ Launch narrow, scale wide. Pick a vertical. A niche audience. A single use case. Own it. Once you’ve proven stickiness there, then expand.
Your agency should help you dominate a sliver of the market first — not try to make you everything to everyone out of the gate. That’s not positioning. That’s startup suicide.
→ Use founder-led marketing — strategically. Yes, people want to hear from the founder. But that doesn’t mean tweeting random hot takes. It means:
Creating origin-story content that builds trust
Engaging in real communities (not just blasting on LinkedIn)
Using your unique voice to cut through jargon-heavy competitors
Founder energy works — when it’s guided by brand and backed by value.
Bottom Line:
Startups don’t die from lack of ambition. They die from bad focus.Hype fades. Attention drifts. And if your agency is chasing metrics that don’t lead to retention or revenue, they’re not helping you grow — they’re just helping you look busy.
You don’t need more buzz. You need better decisions.
Final Thought: Your Agency Isn’t Lying — They’re Just Playing It Safe
Let’s be real: most agencies aren’t malicious. They’re just risk-averse. They default to templates, rinse-and-repeat strategies, and “best practices” because they don’t know your industry well enough to push boundaries — or they’re afraid to challenge the status quo.
But you’re not hiring an agency to play it safe. You’re hiring them to grow.
If your current or former agency didn’t dig deep into the nuances of your vertical… if they handed you the same roadmap they gave to five other clients… if they never asked about your sales cycle, your margins, or your audience’s behavior…You didn’t get strategy. You got process.
You deserve better than that.
Here’s what to do next:
If this post hit a nerve — good. That means you're ready to move past the surface-level stuff.
👉 Book a free, no-BS 15-minute strategy session with our team.We’ll walk through what your industry actually needs, show you where your funnel is leaking, and tell you exactly what we’d do differently — even if you don’t hire us.
This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s your unfair advantage.
Let’s make your marketing as sharp as your business.
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