A reality check for startups
Dear startups, marketing does not drive sales overnight, but it creates the conditions for sales to happen. Running an online business without a solid digital marketing strategy is like expecting to win money in a game based purely on luck. Hopes are high, but reality can be harsh.
A strong marketing strategy works more like a system than a lucky break. You may not see massive income immediately, but with consistent effort, progress becomes predictable. Over time, momentum builds. Occasionally, a great idea may accelerate earnings, but until then, the work needs to be done.
This distinction matters more than most startup founders realize, and misunderstanding it can cost a lot of money.
In e-commerce startups, especially, sales depend heavily on the marketing foundation. A smart, well-built marketing strategy can drive sustainable sales over time. A strategy focused only on short-term sales can also work, but only as long as you continue to invest heavily in ads.
Let’s elaborate on this common misconception I see among my clients: “We need marketing to bring sales fast.” It is a fair expectation. You invest time, energy, and budget, so naturally you want results. But here is the part that most startups learn the hard way: marketing is not directly responsible for sales. Marketing supports sales by creating trust, clarity, and consistency. It makes sales possible, repeatable, and scalable.
When this distinction is not understood, startups burn through budgets, lose confidence in marketing, and jump from one tactic to another without building anything solid. Before sharing a real example from a brand I worked with, let’s break this down properly.
How marketing and sales actually work together
For most e-commerce businesses, sales are triggered through ads. A strong creative, a clear offer, and the right call to action can bring people to your website. But what happens after they arrive?
If they can find the same product somewhere else, why should they buy from you?
Can they trust your brand?
Is the buying process clear and easy?
Will they remember you after the purchase?
Will they come back or recommend you to others?
These are not small details. They are the difference between one-time sales and a real business.
This is where marketing does its real work. A good marketing strategist designs the entire customer journey: from first impression to purchase and beyond. They help shape the message, the content, the experience, and the reasons someone chooses you over alternatives.
Ads should absolutely be part of the strategy, but they must be used intelligently and supported by a solid marketing foundation. Without that, ads become the digital equivalent of cold calls.
Marketing warms up the audience. Ads activate demand.
Ads are a sales channel. Marketing is the system that makes that channel efficient.
Ads DO NOT convince. They accelerate.
In e-commerce, ads rarely convince someone from zero to purchase on their own.
What ads actually do:
- Put your product in front of people at scale. When you are just starting and have no audience, ads help you reach potential customers faster. But if people land on a confusing website with no social proof and no clear message, only a few will buy impulsively. Most will research before purchasing.
- Remind people who have already seen you. Maybe they saw your brand before, but did not need the product at that moment. Ads help you stay visible until the timing is right.
- Accelerate decisions that are already forming. With the right message, shown to the right people at the right time, a purchase can happen.
If the brand, message, and experience are unclear, ads can bring traffic, but they cannot force trust.
This is why many startups experience:
- High ad spend with low conversion rates. The average conversion rate across industries is already low, usually around 1.5 to 2.5 percent. Read more about it here. Spending on ads without a solid marketing strategy behind them often leads to losses.
- Traffic without sales. People may like the product, but if the website feels generic, unprofessional, or confusing, they will not convert.
- Short-term spikes followed by drop-offs. This is what happens when ads are not supported by a real marketing foundation.
The problem is not the ads. The problem is where the ads are sending people.
What marketing does to support ads and sales
A strong marketing strategy prepares the ground so ads can actually work.
Marketing for startups should focus on:
- Defining who you should advertise to. Personas are not static. You start with assumptions, then refine them as you learn more about your audience, their questions, needs, and motivations.
- Clarifying which messages resonate. This comes from testing. What makes people click, stay, engage, and remember you.
- Building brand familiarity before conversion. Not just awareness, but recognition. You want people to come back, not just see you once.
- Aligning website user experience with buying intent. Marketers understand the buying journey and design the path so customers do not get lost.
- Creating content that reduces resistance. Educational, valuable content that shows your values and builds credibility. 82% of consumers want to buy from companies that share their values.
- Building organic presence that supports paid traffic. Organic search is the top traffic source for all websites. You can learn more by checking stats here.
When someone clicks an ad, they do not arrive with an empty mind. They arrive with doubts, expectations, and questions. Marketing answers those questions before the “BUY” even happens.
This is how sustainable growth is built.
Startups marketing foundation vs. an ads-only strategy
A real business example
I worked with a US-based startup selling personalized thermoses in Romania. The product itself was solid, but the entire strategy was focused almost exclusively on ads.
The website was poorly translated, the messaging was unclear, and the buying process was confusing. Trust was difficult to build. Although the brand had social media followers, engagement was low and there was almost no organic content. On top of that, competition was strong, offering similar products at lower prices.
Before we started working together, the company was burning budget on ads. The creatives looked professional, but everything beyond the ads was working against them.
After building a proper digital marketing strategy, including a full website redesign, clearer communication, and a stronger brand positioning, results improved quickly.
Within just two weeks of launching the new website, even with technical issues and downtime:
- Traffic remained almost the same
- Conversion rate increased from 0.61 percent to 1.25 percent
- Orders increased by 72 percent
In the following weeks, the brand also saw a strong increase in returning customers, with repeat purchase rates exceeding 30 percent. On peak days, returning customers represented the majority of total orders, a clear sign of growing trust and loyalty.
This made one thing very clear. The previous ads-only approach was not sustainable. The marketing foundation is what unlocked performance.
Why marketing takes time?
Marketing works in layers. This is not theory, it is how people actually make decisions.
First, people discover you.
Then they start to recognize you.
With time, they build trust.
Only then do they seriously consider you.
After that comes the purchase.
And if the experience delivers, they return.
Trying to skip these steps does not speed things up. It usually breaks the system.
This is why marketing for startups often feels slow at the beginning. You are not just chasing sales. You are entering people’s mental space, earning attention, and building credibility. That takes consistency, repetition, and time.
When marketing is treated as a long-term system, results compound. Each campaign becomes more efficient. Each ad converts better. Each customer is more likely to come back. Growth becomes more predictable and less dependent on constant ad spend.
Marketing is not about pushing people to buy. It is about preparing them to buy.
Key takeaways for startups
- Marketing does not replace sales. It supports sales by creating trust, clarity, and consistency.
- Ads are a sales channel, not a strategy. Without marketing behind them, ads become expensive experiments.
- Traffic alone does not convert. People convert when they trust what they see.
- Visibility is not loyalty. Awareness without consistency rarely leads to repeat customers.
- Discounts can create sales, but they do not build brands.
- Sustainable growth comes from systems, not shortcuts.
Marketing for startups is not the fast button. It is the foundation that makes growth possible.
If you are stuck in a cycle of ads, short-term spikes, and constant pressure to sell, the issue is rarely the product. Most of the time, the foundation is missing.
If you want to build a marketing strategy that supports sales instead of chasing them, let’s talk.