John Karl, Senior Director, Growth at Wpromote, on why brands diluting spend across five or six channels would be better served mastering one or two first, why SEO remains the most undervalued channel in digital marketing, and why every media budget needs 10% reserved for pure experimentation. Recorded as Head of Client Development and Growth at Catalyst.
"Emerging brands dilute their spend across five or six channels when they should be dominating one or two."
Why strategic channel focus beats broad-front spending and why SEO is still the most undervalued channel
John Karl spent the bulk of his career at Catalyst, the digital performance agency established the same year as Google, before moving to Wpromote as Senior Director, Growth. His philosophy is shaped by watching what happens when brands try to activate too many channels simultaneously before they have mastered any of them: spend dilutes, data fragments, and performance becomes impossible to read.
In this conversation Karl argues that SEO remains chronically undervalued because its returns are slower to materialise than paid channels and therefore harder to attribute in quarterly reporting cycles. He makes the case for the bowtie model over the traditional funnel, dedicating 10% of every media budget to pure experimentation, and building cross-channel strategies that compound rather than cannibalise each other.
"Emerging brands dilute their spend across five or six channels when they would be better served focusing on one or two, growing those, and then testing into new platforms from a position of strength."
Karl has seen this pattern consistently across his career: a new brand or a brand entering a new market tries to be present everywhere simultaneously, spreads its budget too thin to get meaningful signal from any channel, and ends up with mediocre performance across the board. The counter-intuitive advice is to deliberately ignore most channels until you have domination evidence in the ones you have chosen.
"The returns from SEO are slower to materialise than paid channels and therefore harder to attribute in quarterly reporting cycles. That timeline mismatch causes it to be systematically underfunded relative to its actual commercial contribution."
Karl argues that the measurement infrastructure most marketing teams use, which is built around fast attribution and short reporting windows, structurally disadvantages channels with longer compounding returns. SEO is the clearest example. An investment made today might not show meaningful traffic growth for six to twelve months, by which time the attribution link to the original investment is obscured. Brands that understand this and fund SEO accordingly gain a structural advantage that their competitors who are chasing faster-attributable channels cannot easily replicate.
"Think beyond the traditional funnel toward a bowtie model, where post-conversion loyalty and lifetime value receive as much strategic attention as awareness and acquisition."
The funnel ends at conversion. The bowtie continues through the customer relationship, with the right side of the bow representing retention, expansion, and advocacy. In subscription and repeat-purchase businesses, the commercial value in the right side of the bowtie is often larger than the left side, yet most marketing teams allocate the majority of their resource to acquisition. Karl advocates for a rebalancing that treats existing customer relationships as a core marketing asset.
"You want channels that compound rather than cannibalise. Search and social, when done right, should be reinforcing the same messages at different stages of the customer journey rather than competing for attribution of the same conversion."
Cannibalisation happens when channels are optimised independently toward the same conversion event without accounting for how they interact. A customer who was influenced by an organic search result and then converted via a retargeted social ad will typically be attributed entirely to the social ad in last-click models. Karl advocates for understanding the actual role each channel plays in the journey rather than optimising each in isolation.
"Dedicate 10% of every media budget to pure experimentation with no expectations baked into forecasts. That is the only way to achieve meaningful scale. If you only spend money on what you already know works, you will never know what could work even better."
The 10% figure is not arbitrary. It is calibrated to be large enough to generate meaningful data from experiments but small enough that the business can absorb it if experiments fail. The critical discipline is that this budget carries no revenue expectations, which frees teams to test ideas that might look unpromising on paper but have potential that only data can reveal.
"Dedicate 10% of every media budget to experimentation. No expectations baked in. No forecasts. Just learn."
Host Tell me about your background and where you are now.
Karl I spent most of my career at Catalyst, a digital performance agency established the same year as Google. As Head of Client Development and Growth I led conversations across all verticals, drawing on GroupM's global footprint. I have since moved to Wpromote as Senior Director, Growth, where I continue to focus on helping brands build smarter cross-channel performance strategies.
Host What is the biggest strategic mistake you see brands making in digital marketing?
Karl Emerging brands dilute their spend across five or six channels when they would be better served focusing on one or two, growing those, and then testing into new platforms from a position of strength. Complexity is rewarded by strategy. Without the strategy, complexity just fragments your data and your spend.
Host Why is SEO so undervalued?
Karl The returns from SEO are slower to materialise than paid channels and therefore harder to attribute in quarterly reporting cycles. That timeline mismatch causes it to be systematically underfunded relative to its actual commercial contribution. Brands that fund SEO consistently build a structural advantage that competitors chasing fast attribution cannot easily replicate.
Host Tell me about the bowtie model.
Karl Think beyond the traditional funnel toward a bowtie model, where post-conversion loyalty and lifetime value receive as much strategic attention as awareness and acquisition. The funnel ends at conversion. The bowtie continues through the customer relationship. In subscription businesses the right side of the bowtie is often worth more than the left side, yet most marketing resource goes to acquisition.
Host Tell me about your experimentation budget principle.
Karl Dedicate 10% of every media budget to pure experimentation with no expectations baked into forecasts. That is the only way to achieve meaningful scale. If you only spend money on what you already know works, you will never know what could work even better. I am technology agnostic by principle. The right stack should be tailored to each brand rather than defaulting to a single partner.
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