Brand Story, Broken Funnels, and Why You’re Still Tired
There’s a quiet kind of heaviness that can settle in during weeks like this.
The inbox stacks up. Slack pings blur into white noise. And somewhere between the morning coffee and the last meeting of the day, the question sneaks in:
Why am I doing this?
Maybe you’ve felt it too.
I used to think the answer was passion.
That work should feel electric. That if I didn’t wake up excited, I must be doing something wrong.
I don’t believe that anymore.
Here’s what I believe now:
Passion isn’t the starting point.
It’s the result.
It comes after you show up.
After the conversations you didn’t want to have.
After the problems you didn’t know how to solve.
After choosing — again and again — to lean in when it would’ve been easier to step back.
Meaning builds in the small, ordinary, unglamorous moments.
Not in spite of them.
Because of them.
And that’s why this week, I found myself back at the drawing board — because I remembered the why.
Behind the scenes, we’ve been building the next phase of the Academy. Not a superficial rebrand. A fundamental shift. A new name. A clearer identity.
And every conversation kept circling back to the same question:
Who are we really? And what story are we here to tell?
Because your brand isn’t your name, or your website, or your logo.
It’s your promise.
It’s the answer people believe about you when you’re not in the room to explain yourself.
And every campaign, every ad, every conversation you have either reinforces that promise… or fundamentally fractures it.
Which brings me to Meta Ad campaigns.
Meta’s algorithm optimizes for the easiest sales when you choose a purchase objective. And once it finds that small pool of buyers? It burns through them fast.
If you want to grow — if you want to scale — you can’t stay trapped in purchase campaigns. You need to move upstream. Run traffic. Run video views. Run engagement.
But here’s the thing...
Expanding your objectives only works if your brand story is right.
Without a clear story — without a real promise people can connect to — your broader campaigns won’t work. You’ll just pay for low-quality traffic that forgets you existed five seconds after seeing your ad.
Brand isn’t just what you say. It’s what people feel when they see you.
And in Meta campaigns, that feeling decides whether they keep scrolling… or whether they search your name.
That’s why every campaign is a brand campaign.
Whether you realize it or not.
But (and this is critical), you must track the right signals to know if it's working:
1. Are they Googling your brand? (Organic Search Lift)
What it tells you:
Did your awareness campaigns make people curious enough to search for you after seeing your ad? This indicates real brand interest, not just empty clicks.
How to track it:
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Go to Google Search Console → Performance tab.
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Look at your Branded Search Queries—terms like your company name or product names.
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Monitor impressions and clicks on those terms over time.
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Run a baseline analysis: What’s your normal branded search volume?
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When you launch a new Meta campaign, track any spike.
Pro tip:
Compare branded search lift to spend during that period. If search interest grows while your reach campaigns are active, your creative is sparking interest.
You can also create a custom column in Meta Ads manager to track Google Organic search actions (cool, right?)
This allows you to track whether your Meta ads indirectly led to visits that later converted via organic search. Meta’s custom columns can show standard events (purchases, leads, add-to-cart), but not directly source-based referrals like “google / organic.” However, there’s a workaround using UTM parameters and pixel-based tracked events tied to your Meta traffic.
Here’s how you can structure it:
Using Custom Conversions Based on URL Referrer (via Pixel Events)
If you set up a custom conversion using your Meta Pixel, you can track when someone lands on your site with a referrer containing google.com (i.e., after searching you on Google).
Steps:
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Go to Events Manager in Meta.
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Click Custom Conversions.
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Create a New Custom Conversion.
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Set up a rule:
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Event: PageView (or ViewContent, depending on your setup).
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Referrer URL contains google.com (this captures when someone arrived via Google organic search).
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Name it something like: Google Organic PageView.
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Save.
Now, this custom conversion will fire anytime someone lands on your site from Google (organic or paid search), assuming your Meta Pixel is installed on the site.
Once your custom conversion is live:
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Go to Ads Manager.
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Click Columns → Customize Columns.
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In the search bar, find your newly created Google Organic PageView conversion event.
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Add it as a column.
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Save the custom column set.
Now, you’ll be able to view, within your Meta reporting, how many times people triggered that custom conversion (i.e., arrived via Google organic search and fired your Pixel event).
Why this helps:
While your Meta campaigns won’t get “credit” for those conversions (since Meta attributes based on last-click or 1-day click/7-day view by default), this metric can serve as a proxy for organic search lift — essentially showing whether your Meta campaigns are prompting people to Google your brand and click through.
Example use case:
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Run a top-of-funnel video views or reach campaign.
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Watch your custom Google Organic PageView metric rise.
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Know that people saw your ad, didn’t click, but Googled you and visited — showing real brand curiosity.
2. Are they spending real time on your site? (On-Site Engagement)
What it tells you:
Are people who clicked genuinely exploring? Or bouncing in two seconds?
How to track it:
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In Google Analytics 4 (GA4):
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Look at Average Engagement Time per session.
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Track Engaged Sessions per User.
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Set up Events for key actions (scroll depth, video plays, etc.).
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Segment your traffic:
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Campaign A (Purchase Objective)
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Campaign B (Awareness/Traffic Objective)
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Compare engaged sessions between them.
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Pro tip:
If you’re getting high volume but low engagement time (<10 seconds), Meta is sending you junk traffic. Pause, rethink, and test a new audience or creative.
3. Are they taking meaningful actions? (Micro-Conversions)
What it tells you:
Not every visitor will buy. But meaningful actions signal buyer intent.
What to track:
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Email signups
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Add-to-cart events
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Downloaded a lead magnet
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Product page views
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Custom events like “Time on Site > X seconds”
How to track it:
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In Meta Ads Manager, optimize for custom conversions or standard events tied to these actions.
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In GA4, track as Conversion Events.
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Calculate your Cost per Micro-Conversion:
Total Spend ÷ Number of Key Actions
Example: If you spent $1,000 and got 200 email signups, your CPA (Cost Per Action) = $5.
Pro tip:
Set a benchmark: What’s your maximum profitable CPA per key action? If Meta is overshooting, pause. If under, scale.
The Goal:
Don’t judge your top-of-funnel campaigns by ROAS. Judge them by signals of real curiosity.
Because traffic isn’t your KPI.
Curiosity is.
If not, stop. Rethink. Redirect.
And the same lesson applies to your purchase-focused creative.
Too many brands (ours included) rely on “pretty” videos. Clean branding. Safe storytelling.
But when your objective is sales, you need ads that sell.
Late-night TV-style ads sell more pans in a year than most brands sell products in a lifetime, and their ads are blunt, direct, conversion-focused.
Not fancy. Just effective.
And with all the resources available out there, there’s no excuse not to get this right.
Because your campaign objective should shape your creative.
Just like your brand objective should shape your story.
So Where Does That Leave You?
Whether you’re running ads or rethinking your business, the questions are the same:
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Who are you really?
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Who are you trying to help?
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What do you want them to know?
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And how clearly are you saying it?
Don’t complicate it.
Pick a direction. Build everything to reinforce it.
Whether you’re naming your company or launching your next campaign, remember:
Your brand is not your product.
Your brand is your story.
And your story is built in the moments when passion feels farthest away.
So if this week feels heavy…
Show up anyway.
Say the simple thing.
And keep going.
Because passion comes to those who choose to keep building.
Even when it’s quiet.
Especially then.
See you next Wednesday.
— Isaac
P.S. There is a free trial to the All Access Pass.
No commitment. No payment. No catch.
Click in, learn what you need, and start building campaigns that actually work. Or don’t.
But if you keep running the same broad-targeting campaigns without a creative strategy… I’ll know. And you’ll be hearing from me again.
Probably with screenshots. And questions you can’t answer.
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