7 Proven Steps from a Marketing Expert to Double Your ROAS

In this guide, produced alongside DoneMaker, you get the exact framework a seasoned Marketing Expert uses to turn website traffic into measurable revenue. If you’re building or scaling a business online, you’ll learn why the foundation matters, where to invest first, and how a Marketing Expert sequences SEO, web design, PPC and social ads to drive results without wasting ad spend.

Throughout this article you’ll see practical examples, platform recommendations, and tactical checklists you can apply immediately. This is the playbook a Marketing Expert would give you in a strategy session, but written so you can follow every step on your own timeline.

1. Start With a Rock-Solid Website: Why the Technical Foundation Matters

Before you splash cash on ads, you need to accept a central truth: a Marketing Expert always starts with the website. It sounds boring, but when your site architecture, heading tags, schema, and CTAs are wrong, you waste every dollar you spend on traffic.

Here’s what to audit or fix immediately:

• Heading structure (H1/H2): Ensure every page has one H1 and logical H2s. Missing H1s or duplicated H1s are common mistakes that hurt indexing and clarity.
• Schema & structured data: Add relevant schema to improve how search engines interpret your pages (products, services, FAQs, local business data).
• Page speed & bloat: Remove heavy page builders or plugins that add unnecessary code. A Marketing Expert prefers concise, maintainable output so Google crawls more pages and faster.
• Clear conversion flows: CTA placement, minimal friction in forms, and visible contact info. If conversions can’t complete, it doesn’t matter how much traffic you get.

Practical tip: view page source on a variety of pages. If you see tens of thousands of lines from a builder or redundant markup, you’ve got a maintenance/time-to-scale problem. Keep it lean so you can scale PPC and SEO without technical debt.

2. Choose the Right Platform for Your Stage

You need to pick a platform that matches your growth stage. A Marketing Expert doesn’t default to what’s trendy — they pick what reduces future friction.

1. Bootstrap / very small-business: Squarespace — Fast to launch, inexpensive, easy appointment integrations (Acuity), acceptable SEO for first steps. Good for service businesses that need to validate an idea.
2. Growing / medium: Webflow — The sweet spot for many small agencies and startups. Webflow balances design freedom with cleaner output. A Marketing Expert favors Webflow for scalability and fewer future migrations.
3. Large / enterprise-level: Custom build — For sites with massive content, complex e-commerce, or atypical security needs. Custom builds (React/Next, custom JS frameworks) minimize bloat and maximize performance.

A note on WordPress, Wix and Shopify:

• WordPress: Still powerful, but often brings C-panel complexity, plugin vulnerability and maintenance overhead. If your team is highly experienced with it, it’s okay — otherwise consider alternatives.
• Wix: Too bloated for modern growth; avoid as a long-term choice.
• Shopify: Ideal for standard e-commerce. Easy to use but costs scale quickly with apps and third-party tools.

Remember: the platform sets the tone for how you’ll do SEO, track conversions, and scale creative testing. A Marketing Expert makes this choice deliberately based on budget, traffic expectations, and content volume.

3. Build SEO as the Long-Term Engine (Start Here, But Be Patient)

SEO is the engine that brings high-intent traffic. A Marketing Expert will always tell you to start with SEO as the core long-term strategy, but keep expectations realistic: SEO takes time and disciplined execution.

Core SEO playbook the expert follows:

• EEAT foundation: Focus on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust. That’s how Google evaluates helpful content. You must cover both content quality and the signals that prove authority.
• Keyword & competitor analysis: Find viable volume keywords that match business outcomes. Don’t write content no one searches for.
• Technical audit: Fix crawlability, sitemaps, structured data, canonical tags, and page speed. The Marketing Expert treats technical fixes as non-negotiable.
• Content scale and internal linking: Publish consistently — dozens of well-structured pieces per month can compound into topical authority.
• Local & commercial intent targeting: For service businesses, target city + service keywords and leverage local schema/GMB optimizations.

Practical example: nest topical articles under the service URL rather than under /blog. Instead of /blog/long-title, use /seo/long-tail-question. This creates topical signals to Google and helps breadcrumb relevance — a small architectural change that a Marketing Expert leverages to build authority faster.

4. Use a Topical Map & URL Structure to Control Your Funnel

A topical map is not optional; it’s the blueprint. Think of it as a content architecture that matches the buyer journey and search patterns. A Marketing Expert builds one for every client and uses it to:

• Define pillar pages (services/products) and supporting articles
• Organize URLs so intent is obvious (category/subcategory/page)
• Ensure minimal clicks to money pages (one-click access preferred)
• Plan internal linking to pass authority from informational to commercial pages

Example: If you sell marketing services, your site should have /seo/ as the pillar. Under that pillar, nest articles like /seo/technical-seo-checklist and /seo/ppc-vs-seo. That structure helps Google see you as the topical authority and creates natural pathways to convert.

5. Layer in PPC for Immediate Results — But Don’t Treat It as Magic

When you need leads quickly, PPC is the lever. A Marketing Expert uses paid media to front-load traffic while SEO does its long-term work. But running ads effectively is an experiment: you must plan R&D, attribution, and tracking.

Key strategic rules:

• Measure the right conversions: Track micro-conversions and macro-conversions (form start, form submit, phone call, purchase).
• Use proper attribution tools: Use platforms like SegMetrics, Triple Whale, or Northbeam to map a visitor’s journey and truly understand which campaign drove the outcome.
• Avoid sloppy automation (Pmax caution): Performance Max hides placements and can waste budget on non-performing inventory. For most clients, a Marketing Expert concentrates on Search, Shopping and YouTube first, with display used strategically.
• Bid & budget strategy: Use target impression share for branded defense, set realistic target ROAS ranges, and accept that you’ll iterate.

Practical tip: don’t rely on default campaign settings. Turn off the search network extensions if they’re irrelevant, set negative keyword lists (they will grow), and consider single keyword ad groups for high-value terms if you have the bandwidth to manage them.

6. Master Tracking: GTM, User-Provided Data & Attribution

Tracking is where strategy becomes science. If you don’t track the right events, you’re guessing. A Marketing Expert sets up robust tracking to answer the critical question: which channel and keyword produce the best customers, not just the most leads?

Tracking checklist:

• Google Tag Manager Pro: Use GTM to capture form starts, form completions, phone clicks, purchases, scroll depth, and video interactions.
• User-provided data: Pass hashed emails/phones to Google Ads (consent-permitted) to allow Google to build more accurate audiences.
• Attribution tools: Integrate SegMetrics, Triple Whale, or Northbeam so you can connect first-touch keywords to eventual purchases.
• Search term analysis & negative keywords: Review search terms weekly and add negatives to remove irrelevant traffic (Reddit posts, Amazon scams, etc.).

Why this matters: You must know not just that you had a conversion, but which keyword and campaign helped produce a high-LTV customer. That level of granularity is how a Marketing Expert scales profitable campaigns and cuts waste.

7. Social Ads & Creative: Test Widely, but Respect the Funnel

Social ads behave differently than search. Users are in discovery mode, not intent mode. A Marketing Expert approaches social with two rules: build organic credibility first and test creative like a scientist.

Social ads playbook:

• Start with organic content: Ads work better when you already have some organic traction. Organic helps you understand messaging and audience reactions.
• Test across formats: Video, static, carousel, and lead-gen forms each perform differently. Start with engagement or max clicks to collect cheap data, then optimize toward conversions.
• Native lead forms vs. landing pages: Native lead forms (Facebook/Instagram/TikTok) can increase lead volume and reduce friction. For e-commerce, sending to the checkout often works best.
• Expect fake / low-quality traffic: Social channels can produce low time-on-site results; mix native collection and site traffic tests to determine what produces real value for you.

Budget guidance: for meaningful tests, a Marketing Expert recommends starting social budgets at $3k–$4k per month. Smaller budgets make statistical decisions hard and slow learning.

8. Test, Iterate, and Treat Everything as R&D

There’s no single set-and-forget sequence that always wins. A Marketing Expert treats digital marketing as continuous R&D. That means:

• Running controlled A/B tests on ad copy, landing pages, and creatives
• Using data to shift budget to highest LTV audiences
• Periodically auditing site architecture and removing bloat
• Reviewing keyword-level profitability instead of raw conversion counts

Example experiments to run in the first six months:

1. SEO push for 3-6 targeted commercial keywords + PPC test for same keywords and compare conversion quality.
2. Search-only campaign vs. Performance Max for a single product to see where budgets are wasted.
3. Native lead form vs. landing page for a specific social creative to determine true CPL and LTV.
4. Negative keyword expansion to reduce irrelevant traffic and improve conversion rates.

9. Optimize Leads into Revenue: Attribution, Nurture & CRM

Getting leads isn’t the finish line — turning them into customers is. A Marketing Expert helps you close the loop by:

• Connecting ads to CRM: Zap or native integrations push leads into your sales motion instantly.
• Nurture sequences: A mix of SMS and email can convert more of the top-of-funnel leads you paid to acquire.
• Analyze lead quality by cohort: Use your attribution tool to determine which campaigns produce long-term customers.

When you can say “this campaign delivers X customers who pay Y over lifetime,” you’ve graduated from marketing vanity metrics to growth economics. That’s when a Marketing Expert starts scaling confidently.

10. How to Work With an Agency (and What to Expect)

If you decide to hire an agency, look for one that offers enterprise-grade solutions but behaves like a hands-on partner. The right firm will:

• Start with a technical and brand onboarding
• Be transparent about timelines (SEO = 8–12 months typically)
• Run paid for immediate validation while they build SEO authority
• Provide weekly reports, but also be tactical in meetings — not just high-level metrics

Expect a partnership where the agency is in the trenches with you, not handing off to ops teams. That close collaboration shortens learning cycles and improves performance.

Conclusion: Your Next 90-Day Action Plan from a Marketing Expert

Here’s a tight 90-day checklist you can follow now:

1. Run a technical audit (H1s, schema, page speed, sitemap) and fix critical issues.
2. Decide on your platform based on stage: Squarespace for validation, Webflow for scale, custom for enterprise.
3. Map your topical architecture and create a content calendar for 3–6 commercial and informational pieces per month.
4. Launch search-only PPC campaigns for core commercial keywords with proper conversion tracking via GTM.
5. Set up an attribution tool (SegMetrics, Triple Whale or Northbeam) and connect CRM to ads for closed-loop data.
6. Begin creative testing on social with a $3k+ monthly budget if possible; test native lead forms vs. site conversions.
7. Iterate weekly on search terms, negative keywords, and landing page conversions.

If you follow this framework, you’ll be thinking like a Marketing Expert: foundation-first, data-driven, and willing to experiment until you find the scalable levers that double ROAS or better. Start with structure, instrument your funnels, and optimize aggressively.

For ongoing help, you can contact Vix Media Group or visit DoneMaker for resources and consultation links. Treat growth as a combination of engineering and marketing craft — your results will follow.

Watch the full podcast here: Top Marketing Expert Reveals Secret to 200% ROAS with PPC

11. FAQ from a Marketing Expert