The bakery that bought reach instead of orders
Anna runs a family bakery with a six-year-old shop and a 9,800-follower Instagram account. Her monthly marketing budget is €1,200, split as €700 on Instagram boosted posts targeted at everyone aged 18–65 within 30 km, €300 on Google Search for the single keyword 'bakery', and €200 on display ads. The website receives 4,000 visits a month and converts at 0.6%, with an average order of €18. Instagram engagement has fallen to 0.4%. Roughly 70% of revenue comes from repeat customers who phone in orders; almost none comes from the website. Anna wants to cut Google Search entirely and move that money to TikTok because that is where the young people are.
1. Rank the three problems in this marketing mix by financial impact, and justify the ranking.
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Work the funnel rather than the channels:
- Website conversion: 4,000 visits × 0.6% = about 24 orders a month, roughly €432 of revenue. Spending €1,200 to make €432 is negative return - cost per order is about €50 against an average order of €18. This is the biggest leak, because the traffic already exists and is being wasted.
- The €700 boosted posts: an audience of 18–65 within 30 km is almost the whole town. A bakery buys on proximity and impulse, so most of that reach cannot buy from her. 0.4% engagement confirms the content is not landing.
- The €200 display: no clear intent, no stated conversion mechanism, hardest to measure. Likely the purest waste in the mix, but the smallest line.
Ranking by money lost: (1) conversion path (24 orders when 2% would give 80), (2) the €700 broad boost, (3) the €200 display. Note that the line Anna wants to cut - €300 on 'bakery' search - is probably the least wasteful, because that query carries local buying intent. The reasoning test here is that budget size does not equal waste; return per euro does.
2. Anna wants to move the €300 Search budget to TikTok. Give a reasoned recommendation and state what evidence you would require before agreeing.
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Recommendation: do not cut Search to fund TikTok yet.
- 'Bakery' is a small, high-intent, cheap local keyword. Cutting it removes the only line in the mix where the user is already looking to buy.
- TikTok is a discovery channel that needs 3–5 pieces of native video a week to work. Anna is a working baker with no content production capacity, so the €300 would be spent on ads with nothing credible to run them against.
- The TikTok audience skews younger than her actual buyer, and her real strength is repeat local custom (70% of revenue), which TikTok does not address.
- Most importantly, she has no conversion tracking, so she could not tell whether TikTok worked even if it did.
Evidence I would want first: conversion tracking live (form submissions and calls), a baseline cost per order for Search, and a defined success threshold - for example cost per order of €6 or less, i.e. one third of the €18 average order. Then a four-week test at €5–10/day with at least three videos a week, judged on cost per order, not views. If the threshold is missed, the money returns to Search and conversion work.
3. Which single metric should sit at the top of her dashboard next month, and why is it not follower growth?
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Cost per order, with orders per month beside it.
- Follower count answers 'how many people could see us', not 'did anyone buy'. Her 9,800 followers and 0.4% engagement show the audience is already large enough - adding more of the same adds no revenue.
- The business problem is that €1,200 produces roughly €432 of web revenue. Only a ratio of spend to orders makes that visible; a follower number cannot move a decision.
- The secondary metric should be repeat order rate, because 70% of revenue comes from regulars and that is the asset most at risk if she redirects attention to a new channel.
- Useful guardrail on the boosted posts: reach within 3 km, not reach overall - it separates 'seen by people who can walk in' from 'seen'.