Skill Lab Recap: Are Your Ads Working or Just Burning Cash? with Kris Skavish
On August 28, Athena hosted a Skill Lab with Kris Skavish, Co-CEO of Two Octobers, a Denver-based B Corp digital marketing agency. The theme was one nearly every business owner wrestles with: Are Google Ads worth it, or are they just burning cash?
Kris is known for cutting through the hype. In this session, she broke down the realities of paid advertising: when it works, when it fails, and how to avoid being the business that spends thousands only to wonder where the money went.
Paid Media Is an Amplifier, Not a Fix
Kris started with a blunt truth: ads are not a magic faucet. They don’t create demand out of thin air. Instead, they amplify what is already working in your marketing and sales engine.
If your website does not generate leads or sales today, paid ads will not change that. If your sales team does not consistently follow up, ads will not fix that either. Paid media accelerates results only when you already have product-market fit and a working funnel.
Think of it like fuel: if you have a running engine, gas makes you go faster. If the engine is broken, gas just spills out and burns.
The Buyer Journey Is Messy
Many business owners picture the marketing funnel as a neat triangle: awareness at the top, consideration in the middle, decision at the bottom. Kris reframed it: the buyer journey is more like a pinball machine.
People bounce around between researching, evaluating, ignoring, coming back, and finally deciding. Ads work differently depending on where a potential buyer is in that journey:
Awareness – Display ads, video, and paid social are good for planting seeds.
Consideration – Paid search captures people already signaling intent by typing in keywords.
Decision – Remarketing reminds visitors who left without converting and nudges them back.
This framework helps business owners stop expecting one ad campaign to “do it all.” Instead, different ad types serve different roles.
Budgets: Why $500 Won’t Cut It
Kris addressed the elephant in the room: cost. Many businesses think they can “test” ads with $500. Her advice was clear—don’t bother.
Paid media requires runway and commitment:
Businesses typically spend 3–11% of total revenue on digital marketing.
Minimum spend is $1,000 per month per channel just to generate usable data.
A healthier budget is closer to $4,000 per month per channel.
Plan for at least three months of testing before you’ll know whether your cost per acquisition is realistic. Full optimization usually takes six months.
This was eye-opening for attendees. One business owner compared it to buying equipment for her fitness studio: you don’t expect a $500 piece of gear to transform your business, you make a meaningful investment and work to pay it off.
Metrics That Matter
One of the most practical parts of the session was the focus on numbers. Kris explained that the only way to know if ads are “worth it” is to measure against the right metrics. Attendees even worked through formulas in the chat:
Average Order Value (AOV): Total revenue ÷ number of orders.
Example: $50,000 ÷ 1,000 = $50.Lifetime Customer Value (LCV): AOV × purchase frequency × customer lifespan.
Example: $50 × 5 × 3 years = $750.Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue from ads ÷ cost of ads.
Example: $20,000 ÷ $5,000 = 4x.Cost per Lead (CPL): Total spend ÷ number of leads.
Example: $5,000 ÷ 500 leads = $10.Conversion Rates: Leads to sales-qualified leads, or clicks to leads.
These formulas give business owners the ability to define success on their own terms, rather than chasing vague promises from ad platforms or agencies.
Choosing the Right Platforms
Not every channel is right for every business. Kris broke down the differences:
Google Ads – Best for capturing intent when people are actively searching.
Meta (Facebook/Instagram) – Strong for demographic and interest targeting, especially when boosting your best organic posts.
LinkedIn – Gold for B2B targeting by industry, title, or seniority, but expensive and creative-intensive.
Programmatic Display – Broad reach for awareness campaigns.
Niche Sites – For industries like healthcare, fitness, or local services, advertising on specialized review platforms or community networks like Nextdoor may outperform broad platforms.
One participant in the mental health field shared that Google Ads are their primary strategy, while another in fitness was wary of high costs given razor-thin margins. The conversation reinforced that platform choice depends heavily on industry and audience.
Creative and Landing Pages: Where Campaigns Succeed or Fail
Even with the right budget and targeting, ads fail without the right creative. Kris emphasized three essentials:
The Offer – Ads need a clear reason for someone to click, whether that’s a discount, a resource, or a tool.
Creative Assets – Ads fatigue quickly. Plan to refresh images and videos every few weeks or months. Simple Canva templates can work just fine.
Landing Pages – Sending ad traffic to your homepage is rarely effective. Dedicated pages that match the ad’s promise dramatically improve conversions.
She also noted that as campaigns mature, businesses may need dozens of landing pages tailored to different offers and audiences. This level of testing—down to the placement of buttons and images—can be the difference between wasted spend and profitable campaigns.
Tracking and Organizational Discipline
Tracking is not optional. Ad platforms rely on accurate conversion data to optimize campaigns. Businesses should not only track leads, but also feed back which of those leads become sales-qualified. This allows platforms to send better traffic over time.
But tracking is not just technical. Kris warned that many campaigns fail because sales teams don’t follow up on leads. Without a process for fast response, nurturing, and feedback, even the best campaigns fall flat.
Timelines and Expectations
Kris was clear about expectations:
Month 1–3: Testing, learning, higher costs.
Month 4–6: Refinement, movement toward your target cost per acquisition.
Beyond 6 months: Ongoing optimization, seasonality adjustments, and channel expansion.
For business owners used to quick results, this timeline was a reality check. Paid media requires patience and sustained effort, not instant wins.
Audience Concerns and Takeaways
The Q&A and chat made the session especially rich:
LinkedIn skepticism: Several attendees expressed frustration with sponsored InMail. Kris agreed, calling it a “brute force strategy” that often fails without strong targeting and personal presence.
Agency costs: Business owners shared experiences ranging from low-cost, hands-off consultants to expensive, overly technical freelancers. Kris noted that most agencies charge either a flat monthly fee (starting around $1,000) or a percentage of spend. The real value comes from communication and collaboration, not just technical execution.
Industry nuance: Mental health and fitness businesses noted that ROI can feel different when margins are thin or services are hyper-local.
One takeaway summed it up: don’t spray and pray. Success comes from deliberate targeting, clear measurement, and consistent follow-up.
Final Lessons
Kris left the group with a practical roadmap:
Confirm product-market fit and a working sales funnel.
Set a budget big enough to sustain real testing and optimization.
Design strong offers, creative, and landing pages.
Track beyond clicks—measure lead quality and sales outcomes.
Give it time: three months to test, six months to optimize.
For business owners, the message was clear. Paid ads are not a shortcut. They are an amplifier. With the right foundations, they can accelerate growth. Without them, they are just burning cash.
