90%+ of marketers are bad at their job, but since everyone else is, too, it doesn't seem to matter. New/incremental sales (think brand agnostic, high funnel te

90%+ of marketers are bad at their job, but since everyone else is, too, it doesn't seem to matter. New/incremental sales (think brand agnostic, high funnel terms with intent like boston electrician or cleveland mortgages) are out there, but their costs typically approach the lead's intrisnic value. If you are paying $10/click and converting 10% of clicks to leads, you're at $100 for a lead. Of those leads, if you close 25%, you're at $400 acquisition cost. Maybe great for a SaaS or insurance company with a high LTV, but awful for a plumber with an average call of $250. At this point, paid ads are basically a game of trying to out-optimize your click to lead and lead to sale funnels relative to your competitors unless you want to give all of your margin to an ad network.