I Thought I was the Problem
A month before I got fired, I had a solid quarterly review.
Overall: 7 out of 10 (“We rarely give 8s,” the CEO said.)
Feedback: I was recognized as a strong technical marketer with a breadth of knowledge, the go-to for all things marketing and analytics, highly collaborative and resourceful, able to “just get stuff done” across the entire marketing stack.
Opportunities: Push creative boundaries, run new channel experiments (which I was already doing), go deeper on creative design (I had just set up a new creative agency workflow), and improve conversion rates (I had a new landing page test scheduled).
The one complaint: Google Ads wasn’t “moving in the right direction” and our 2.7x year-over-year company growth wasn’t hitting the 3x goal.
Less than a month later, I was fired.
The Fallout
For months after, I thought I was a bad marketer.
I replayed every campaign, every test, every meeting. I combed through my notes like they held the secret to why I failed. I convinced myself I wasn’t good enough. That maybe I didn’t know what I was doing. That all the late nights and relentless testing hadn’t amounted to much.
That I was a failure.
But the truth?
I wasn’t failing. The leadership was.
The Outdated Model
The company was operating with a growth playbook stuck in 2015.
Believing clicks = conversions.
Stubbornly clinging to manual CPC.
Distrusting Google’s smart bidding, while demanding a lower CAC.
Obsessing over Google alone, then suddenly asking, “Why aren’t you working on Meta?”
Promising to bring on a Google Ads specialist so I could focus on a new channel then firing me before I could even start.
Meanwhile, the fundamentals of the business were broken:
A bait-and-switch pricing model that eroded customer trust. (One review: “Tried to scam me by quoting a lower price and then switching to a higher price. Be very careful.”)
Venues and supply headwinds that scaled in direct proportion to growth, making the model nearly impossible to expand.
OPEX growth that outpaced contribution margin growth, with hiring bets made on retention curves that hadn’t yet proven out.
A push for subscriptions in categories where most people didn’t want subscriptions (someone taking a lesson in this skill often just wants one or two sessions, not a recurring monthly plan).
A shift toward a new ICP without the supply density or quality to reliably serve that ICP, so demand was being pointed at a network that couldn’t absorb it.
A new site-wide pricing structure update during peak season that tanked conversion rates.
The Kick in the Teeth
The irony? My review had just praised me as:
A strong technical marketer with breadth across the stack.
The go-to person for all things marketing and analytics.
Highly collaborative, resourceful, and execution-oriented.
Creative and action-oriented, able to “just get stuff done.”
The “opportunity areas” they identified? I was already addressing them.
I was building new channel experiments.
I was creating better creative workflows with an agency.
I had a new landing page test on the calendar.
So what changed? Not me.
What changed was leadership realizing their model wasn’t working, then choosing a scapegoat instead of facing the deeper issue. And it wasn’t just me. Within a couple of months, the head of product and head of operations were also gone. Funny enough, by the time they were fired, the company’s performance had actually gotten worse:
January (my last full month): CAC $116, Daily Conversions 26.3
March (when volume usually picks up): CAC $135, Daily Conversions 24.6
In other words, during the time of year when we would normally expect CAC to improve and conversions to climb, the opposite happened. So much for the “marketing was stuck” narrative. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t the marketing team. The truth was the model itself was broken.
The Pattern No One Talks About
Here’s the part no one wants to say out loud.
In 90%+ of cases where leadership demands marketing hit a growth target, then fires the team when it’s missed, the problem has nothing to do with marketing. (Shoutout to Rand Fishkin for putting words to what so many of us have lived.)
The pattern looks like this:
Leadership demands crazy growth acceleration and dumps the pressure on marketing.
When the numbers miss, they fire the CMO or agency and bring in a new team.
A few months later, the new team is also fired.
Leadership throws their hands up and says, “We’ll do it ourselves with AI.”
Eventually, someone admits the problem isn’t marketing at all. It’s product. Or market fit. Or the CEO.
That’s exactly what happened here.
The CAC goal was “struggling,” but we were in manual CPC mode during the slowest season, a structural leadership decision, not an execution failure.
Performance Max was already showing efficiency, but instead of leaning in, they panicked.
They treated 2.7x growth as failure because it wasn’t 3x, as if a fraction of a point was the difference between thriving and collapsing.
They said we were “stuck,” but the truth was the product and pricing model were stuck.
The Lesson I Wish I’d Known
It took me a long time to admit this: getting fired didn’t make me a bad marketer. It just meant I was in the wrong room. And if you’re a marketing leader reading this, here’s the lesson:
Don’t sign up for insane growth targets that the product can’t support.
Push for real product investments before pouring more money into acquisition.
If leadership won’t listen, walk away before you get scapegoated.
Because 90% of the time?
It’s not you. It’s them.