Question 1

We have spent $80K on this channel for 6 months. Do we kill it now or give it more runway?

Accepted Answer

Six months and $80K is enough data to decide if you have measured the right things. Paid search and paid social usually stabilize CAC by month four. If month five and month six show a flat or improving CAC trend, you are pre-payback and runway is justified. If CAC is climbing across both months and conversion rate to a sales call is below your funnel average, you are funding a habit, not a channel. Forrester's research shows ~79% of marketing leads never convert and ~73% are never contacted by a rep, so the channel may be fine and the handoff may be breaking it.

Question 2

How do I tell the difference between a channel problem and an execution problem?

Accepted Answer

Pull three months of channel data and answer four questions. One: is the audience actually on this channel. Two: is the offer matched to the channel intent. Three: does the conversion path do what it claims. Four: is the lead-to-sales handoff alive. If three of four are clean and you still have bad CAC, exit the channel. If two or more are broken, you have an execution problem disguised as a channel problem. TrustRadius's 2023 B2B Buying Disconnect study found only a 38% match rate between vendor self-description and buyer experience, which is where most channel decisions go wrong.

Question 3

Should I cut the budget all at once or taper down?

Accepted Answer

Taper. Cut by half month one. Hold for thirty days. Cut to twenty percent month two. Hold for thirty days. If CAC stays flat or rises further at twenty percent budget, exit cleanly. Tapering exposes secondary benefits you did not measure. Some channels carry brand value or retargeting fuel that only shows up when you remove them. The taper also gives the sales team time to compensate without a pipeline cliff. Hard cuts make the math look worse than it is.

Question 4

What data should I have in front of me before I decide to kill the channel?

Accepted Answer

Four numbers per channel by month. One: cost per acquisition by channel. Two: conversion rate of channel traffic through the funnel stage by stage. Three: retention or LTV of customers acquired from that channel. Four: how many leads the sales team actually contacted versus how many they ignored. Forrester's lead conversion research finds ~73% of marketing-sourced leads are never contacted, which often kills a channel that was actually working.

Question 5

Our podcast sponsorship has zero attributable conversions. Kill it?

Accepted Answer

Maybe. Last-click attribution misses most of what podcast sponsorship does. Run a holdout test. Pause the sponsorship for thirty days in the same audience cohort and compare branded search volume, direct traffic, and demo-form lift. If all three drop, the channel was working and your attribution was wrong. If nothing changes, the channel was decorative. The pause is cheaper than the kill, and it is the only way to separate brand-driven channels from direct-response channels.

Question 6

Can a fractional CMO make this call for us?

Accepted Answer

Yes, eventually. A fractional CMO runs $12,000 to $25,000 a month for the relevant ARR bands per Pavilion's 2024 compensation data, and typically takes thirty to sixty days to build the data view you need. A one-hour marketing review at $500 compresses the same channel review into a single session. If you already need ongoing execution help, hire the CMO. If you need a fast read on the channel before you decide what to hire, take the marketing review first.

Question 7

How is this different from getting our paid agency to grade itself?

Accepted Answer

Your paid agency has a structural reason to keep the channel alive. The marketing review does not. We do not run paid media. We do not run content. We do not run channels at all. The whole point is to give you a clean read from someone with no budget to protect. If the agency is doing good work and the channel is the wrong fit, we say so and path you back to them. If the work is the problem, we say that too.

Question 8

What do I actually walk out with after the call?

Accepted Answer

One page. Three things on it. First: a yes or no on the channel with the specific number that drove the call. Second: the one execution gap that, if fixed, would change the answer. Third: a thirty-day plan to either run the test or run the exit. The summary lands inside 48 hours. If the call surfaces a problem larger than channel exit, we point you to the strategic intervention or the relevant marketing offer. No retainer pressure.

Source	Year	Finding relevant to channel exit
Gartner · Future of B2B Sales	2024	~70% of buying journey is complete before vendor contact. Last-click misses most of what early-funnel channels do.
Forrester / Marketo · Lead Conversion	2023	~79% of marketing leads never convert and ~73% are never contacted by sales. The handoff often kills the channel.
Madison Logic · Pipeline Failure	2024	Lead handoff between marketing and sales is where most pipeline dies, not at the channel.
TrustRadius · B2B Buying Disconnect	2023	38% match rate between vendor self-description and buyer experience. Channel-sourced leads stall at the sales-call stage.
Sync · Why B2B Blogs Fail	2024	Volume is not the problem. Funnel mapping and closed-loop reporting are. Applies one-to-one to paid channels.
Gartner · B2B Pipeline	2024	Most B2B service firms have a pipeline problem, not a marketing problem. Exit decisions made on the wrong layer.
HubSpot · State of Marketing	2024	Top-performing B2B teams publish more specific buyer-question answers, not more channels. Adding channels without offers does not save them.

The channel has burned six months and your gut says kill it. Your CFO wants a number.

We have spent $80K on this channel for six months. Do we kill it or give it more runway?

Channel exit is a four-number decision. Most teams only pull one.

Number one: CAC trend across the last three months

Number two: stage-by-stage conversion rate of channel traffic

Number three: retention or LTV of customers from this channel

Number four: what the sales team did with the leads

What gets watched before a kill decision

What actually drives the right decision

The channel is rarely the channel. It is the handoff, the offer, or the audience.

Pull the data yourself first. The call moves faster when you have done these.

Exercise one: the slope check

Exercise two: the handoff audit

Exercise three: the holdout test for brand-driven channels

Want a yes-or-no on the channel by Friday, with the four numbers pulled and the handoff audit run?

Channel-exit failure is documented. The fix is not new.

What you walk away with after the 60 minutes.

Questions Bay Area founders actually ask us.

How is this different from hiring a fractional CMO?

Do you work outside the Bay Area?

Can I bring my paid agency on the call?

What if the marketing review says keep the channel?

Can you actually run the exit for us?

What evidence does the written summary include?

How fast can we run the call?

What do I bring to the call?

Related pain points and marketing offers.

Sources cited on this page

Name the problem before buying the fix.

One hour. The four numbers pulled. A yes-or-no by Friday.