Interviewer: Lukas, most people who run an ad agency focus heavily on the "Ads Manager" side of things—the targeting and the bidding. However, your approach emphasizes a holistic, "full-funnel" system. What was the "lightbulb moment" early in your career that made you realize simply being a great media buyer wasn't enough?

Lukas Holschuh: Early on as a freelancer, I was working with clients who had great products. I’d run campaigns, and we would see fantastic engagement on the advertising side—lots of clicks, likes, and comments. But for some reason, conversions were lacking. There was always a drop-off in the funnel.

I realized that I could do whatever I wanted on the advertising side, but if the client's destination pages were poor, the campaigns would fail. Landing pages had confusing sign-up forms, poor copy, or a total disconnect from the ad messaging. Clients often didn't have the internal resources or the Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) expertise to fix this. So, it made sheer business sense to start offering these services myself. By taking ownership of the whole funnel—from the initial click to landing page design, copywriting, email follow-ups, and multivariate A/B testing—we saw significantly better campaign performance and client retention.

Interviewer: That shift essentially turns you from a vendor into a true Growth Partner. But building a funnel that actually converts B2B and SaaS buyers requires deep psychological insight. How do you uncover those deep-seated pain points when you onboard a new client?

Lukas Holschuh: It starts with a comprehensive consultation. Often, clients don't actually know who their true target audience is or what core problem they are solving. Without that, you can't build effective messaging.

I ask clarifying questions about their sales process: Who exactly are you speaking to on sales calls? What are their job titles? Are these users actively searching on Google, or are they unaware a solution even exists? This helps us nail down the firmographics and choose the right ad platform, whether that's LinkedIn, Meta, Google, or TikTok.

We also incorporate detailed questions into our onboarding forms to get the clients thinking critically about their own unique selling points. My team and I then map out different problem-solution angles. Every client receives a uniquely tailored strategy plan that translates this research into targeted ad copy, designs, and landing pages built around proven copywriting frameworks.

Interviewer: Operating as a strategic Growth Partner means you sometimes have to tell a founder that their core offer or pricing is the reason campaigns are failing. How do you navigate those high-stakes conversations regarding positioning and value proposition?

Lukas Holschuh: It is challenging, and you often get resistance. Many founders think "money first, value later," but if prospective buyers don't see enough value, they simply won't pay the asking price. If the positioning is the issue, I usually frame changes as a low-risk test. For instance, my team might rewrite their landing page copy or do a complete redesign as part of our package. It’s hard for a founder to disagree with a test designed to make them more revenue.

Once we establish a new baseline that works, we can tackle harder conversations like pricing or product friction. I’ve helped SaaS clients massively increase trials simply by removing the credit card requirement upfront. For other clients, we completely repackaged their software into highly successful lifetime deals to generate massive upfront demand. Sometimes it’s as simple as adding a demo video or a limited-time launch discount to clearly demonstrate value before asking for the sale.

Interviewer: In B2B, there's often a massive gap between getting a "lead" and closing a deal. You’re dealing with complex products and long sales cycles. How do you ensure you are attracting high-intent buyers with budget authority, rather than just window shoppers?

Lukas Holschuh: That is a persistent challenge in B2B. Targeting only high-intent, "ready-to-buy" prospects at the very bottom of the funnel is incredibly expensive because competition is fierce. Ad platforms also offer limited control; LinkedIn doesn't necessarily know if a business owner currently needs accounting software, only that they've engaged with accounting content.

Instead of relying solely on expensive targeting, we let the ad copy, landing page, and lead form do the heavy lifting. We use strategic "friction." If the product is exclusively for filmmakers, we boldly state that in the copy and use highly specific visuals. We then add qualifying questions to the lead form—such as asking for the business's annual revenue—to ensure the prospect meets a minimum qualification criteria before they ever reach the client's sales team.

Interviewer: Introducing friction often raises the Cost-Per-Lead (CPL). How do you manage the expectations of clients who might be nervous about seeing lower lead volume, even if the quality is ten times better?

Lukas Holschuh: We shift the conversation away from vanity metrics like CPL or CPC, and anchor it in revenue and unit economics. Most of our clients integrate their store or sales CRM with the ad platforms' tracking tools, allowing us to directly attribute revenue to specific campaigns.

During the initial consultation, I do a quick ROI calculation with the client. We work out exactly how much they can afford to pay for a lead based on their historical lead-to-sales conversion rates. Once a client realizes that a higher CPL is still highly profitable because the leads actually close, they are happy to pay it. The focus moves from "how cheap are the leads?" to "how can we further improve lead quality and conversion rates?"

Interviewer: Let's look at this "builder" mindset in action. You have a notable case study with a football startup where you drove over £100,000 in monthly revenue at a 10x ROAS. How did you architect that outcome using marketing automation?

Lukas Holschuh: The client came to us relying solely on organic growth; they had no ad campaigns and no conversion funnels. Their sales team was drowning in unqualified inquiries, spending hours managing low-quality messages from people who weren't ready to buy.

We redesigned their website and built a comprehensive multi-channel strategy across Meta, TikTok, Google Ads, and Apple Ads. To solve the lead quality issue at scale, I leaned heavily into marketing automation. I designed complex, multi-path conversation journeys using Intercom and Instagram chatbot platforms. We integrated video content to pre-qualify leads before they ever reached a human.

If a user passed all the qualification steps, the system automatically captured their data and routed it to the sales team using tools like Zapier, triggering an immediate alert. This "digital triage" saved the client massive amounts of time. Ultimately, we generated over 29,000 conversions, driving app installs for under £1 and marketing qualified leads for under £2.