In this episode, Carolyn sits down with Liam MacCormack, a fractional head of growth who's spent years in the weeds of B2B paid search, to unpack why the channel keeps burning B2B budgets and what to do about it.
They get into the market forces making paid search harder than ever: rising CPCs, zero-click search, and agencies still optimizing like it's 2015. Then they go tactical on a real client scenario — a high-ACV company that's switched agencies multiple times and still can't make it work — and what that reveals about when a channel is worth fixing versus when it's just draining spend.
Topics covered:
- Why "you need to spend more on impression share" is the most seductive upsell in paid search, and the one metric that actually tells you if it's true
- The profile of a company paid search works for, and the profile where it's a waste of money
- Why paid search is a demand-capture channel, and what that means for how you budget it
- How to know when to cut the channel, cut the budget in half, or let it run as a tertiary source
- Why branded search is propping up most agency reporting, and the one question to ask to find out
If your paid search has been underperforming for quarters and the answer is always "give it more time," this one's worth your attention.
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🔗 LINKS + RESOURCES
📹 How to Survive B2B Marketing in 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlEqVWVuwdo
📹 How to Build a Killer GTM Strategy for B2B SaaS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFK9LvMslOc
📹 Ultimate Guide to Marketing Measurement in 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9yfdYi0X4I
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