How to Know if Your Marketing Is Working

Summary

Podcast Summary: EntreLeadership – "How to Know if Your Marketing Is Working"

Date: May 25, 2026
Host: Dave Ramsey
Guests: John Felkins (EntreLeadership Head Coach), Jen Sivertson (Chief Marketing Officer, Ramsey Network)

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Episode Overview

This episode of EntreLeadership tackles the essential question every growing business faces: How do you know if your marketing is genuinely moving the needle? Host Dave Ramsey is joined by EntreLeadership’s John Felkins and Ramsey Network CMO Jen Sivertson to break down practical strategies for measuring marketing effectiveness, choosing where to invest, and making data-informed decisions as your company scales beyond its scrappy startup phase.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Next Phase: Moving Beyond DIY Marketing

[00:05–01:41]

• Many entrepreneurs start with guerilla tactics and personal effort, but growth requires a shift to intentional, scalable marketing strategies.
• The conversation pivots to when and how to build a marketing team—or bring in an agency—for the next chapter.

“You can't market your way to the next level with just your time and duct tape anymore.”
—Dave Ramsey [00:05]

2. What to Expect When Outsourcing or Hiring for Marketing

[01:11–02:52]

• Business owners don’t need to be experts but must understand what’s proposed, how it will be tracked, and what outcomes to watch for.
• Non-negotiables when outsourcing or hiring:
  • A clear, sensible plan.
  • Consistency in execution.
  • Regular, agreed-upon metric reporting.

“You as a business owner need to feel good about those metrics.”
—Jen Sivertson [01:42]

• Warning: If a provider isn’t proactive in presenting plans or metrics, they’re not the right fit.

“You probably shouldn't even have to chase them for those things. ...They should be bringing that to you.”
—John Felkins & Jen Sivertson [02:46–02:52]

3. How Much Should You Spend on Marketing?

[02:52–04:13]

• The recommended rule of thumb for consumer-based retail businesses is 10-12% of revenue.
• B2B and high-ticket industries (like construction) typically require a lower percentage.

“For that type of business ... kind of 10 to 12% of your revenue spent on marketing.”
—Jen Sivertson [03:08]

4. Understanding and Using ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

[04:13–06:14]

• Important metric for paid digital marketing.
• ROAS = Revenue from ads / Ad spend
  • Example: $50 sales from $10 ad spend = 5 ROAS.
  • Ideal levels:
    • 5 is quite good,
    • 1 means losing money,
    • Above 2.5–3 is profitable for most.
• Business owners must grasp their cost structures to interpret ROAS meaningfully.

“A five ROAS... is pretty good. Now, if your ROAS is a one, for sure you're losing money.”
—Jen Sivertson [05:18–05:31]

5. Direct Response vs. Brand Marketing—Where to Invest First

[06:14–09:13]

• Start with direct response marketing. Nail measurable efforts before heavily investing in brand-building ad campaigns.
• Brand marketing can include lower-cost strategies like content marketing or local sponsorships, not just expensive TV commercials.

"Your direct response should be humming pretty well before you're getting into that brand advertising."
—Jen Sivertson [07:46]

• Brand strategies should match your stage and budget.

6. Leading Indicators vs. Lagging Metrics in Marketing

[09:13–10:35]

• ROAS is a lagging indicator: you see results after the fact.
• Leading indicators are activity-based metrics predictive of future sales (e.g., number of quotes, leads generated).
• It's critical to identify these for your unique business.

“You want to know how many quotes you've got in your pipeline. That would be a leading indicator ... to sales.”
—Jen Sivertson [09:48]

7. Action Steps for Business Owners

[10:35–11:09]

• Don’t be intimidated; ask lots of questions.
• If the reporting doesn’t make sense or crucial figures (like ROAS) aren’t disclosed, be cautious.
• Stay curious and seek to understand.

“Just start asking the questions ... and make sure that then the answers feel like they make sense to you.”
—Jen Sivertson [10:44]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you're not measuring results, you're not marketing. You're just spending.” —Dave Ramsey [11:26]
• “Regular reporting. Marketing should always have metrics that are being reported on to you.” —Jen Sivertson [02:14]
• “Hustle alone isn’t enough to keep you growing. You need systems, you need strategy, and that includes investing more in your marketing.” —Dave Ramsey [11:26]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:05 – The passage from scrappy marketing to professional investment.
• 01:42 – What to require from marketing hires or agencies.
• 03:08 – Marketing budget guidelines by business type.
• 04:35 – ROAS explained and benchmarked.
• 07:46 – When to focus on direct response vs. brand marketing.
• 09:26 – The role of leading indicators in measuring effectiveness.
• 10:44 – Key advice for business owners new to marketing metrics.
• 11:26 – Dave Ramsey’s closing emphasis on measurement and mindset.

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Summary in Closing

This episode arms business owners with practical frameworks to ensure their marketing spend fuels real business growth, rather than becoming a black hole. By understanding the basics of marketing metrics, demanding consistent updates, and starting with actionable, measurable marketing efforts, leaders can grow with confidence—and avoid the trap of guesswork as they scale.

Key takeaway: "Have a plan, demand metrics, and make every marketing dollar count."

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

At some point you hit a ceiling. You've hustled, bootstrapped, been scrappy, built something real. But then you realize you can't market your way to the next level with just your time and duct tape anymore. So the question is, when you're finally ready to invest real dollars into marketing, where the heck should that money go? Today, Entree Leadership's John Felkins and Ramsey's chief marketing officer, our CMO Jen Sivertson will walk you through how smart business owners make intentional and effective marketing investments. From hiring the right person to knowing if you're actually getting your money's worth. Let's get into it.

[John Felkins]

All right, Jen, so we've already talked a little bit about kind of how to get started with marketing. What are some low cost ways to do that? So let's talk about kind of the next season when things are really starting to roll and maybe you're wanting to build a team to do the marketing for you or maybe even hire an agency. What advice? What comes to mind for you around that season of business for somebody?

[Jen Sivertson]

Yeah. So whether you're hiring somebody in or talking to an agency and wanting to hire and outsource your marketing, it's really important. You know, I've said before, this isn't rocket science. And while it may not be your expertise, you very capable as the business owner to fully understand everything that's being proposed and how it's going to be tracked in over time. Right. Okay. And so those are the things you should be looking for. A plan that makes sense.

[John Felkins]

Right.

[Jen Sivertson]

Does the things we were talking about before like is very consistent. It's going to be in the market on a regular basis and has clear metrics that are being tracked and reported on that you both agree to. Right. Like you as a business owner need to feel good about those metrics.

[John Felkins]

Okay. So you gotta be really clear on what you're gonna get and what the plan is and everything. What are some other non negotiables that you're looking for or you're advising small business owners to look for when they're working with somebody, whether it be in house or somebody they're hiring from outside.

[Jen Sivertson]

Yeah, yeah. The plan and the consistency to execute on that plan are probably the number one. And number two is regular reporting. Marketing should always have metrics that are being reported on to you. And if those two things aren't in place, you should not move forward. And if you're not hearing the agency or the person that you're looking to hire, bring those things up. And have a good explanation for how they would go about doing those things, then you should not hire them.

[John Felkins]

Yeah. You probably shouldn't even have to chase them for those things.

[Jen Sivertson]

That's right.

[John Felkins]

They should be bringing that to you, right?

[Jen Sivertson]

That's right.

[John Felkins]

So let's say that's how. And let's say that's in a good place and you're obviously spending some money on payroll for this person or paying for the agency. What's the advice around how much to spend on marketing? Right. Because I mean, it seems like you, I mean we hear crazy budgets that people spend on marketing.

[Jen Sivertson]

So it depends on the type of business you're in. But say you were in a consumer based retail business, either storefront or online store selling products. The rule of thumb is kind of 10 to 12% of your revenue spent on marketing.

[John Felkins]

Okay.

[Jen Sivertson]

For that type of business. Now it would be different if you're in a B2B type of business. It's probably going to be a little bit lower and your marketing will be more niche and targeted. Right. So the reason I say kind of retail consumer based is that's typically a little broader.

[John Felkins]

Yeah.

[Jen Sivertson]

And so kind of 10 to 12% of revenue as a rule of thumb.

[John Felkins]

One of the industries that we serve the most is like construction. Right. That would be more. Even if you're building residential homes, do you feel like it's still going to be more in that B2B model or where's that going?

[Jen Sivertson]

I think it's lower as a percentage because you're talking about a very high cost kind of endeavor. And so it's probably as a relative percentage, it's probably less.

[John Felkins]

Okay. Okay, that's good to know.

[Jen Sivertson]

It's probably less. Another thing, as we were talking about the idea of outsourcing with paid media, which is where digital paid media, so social media ads or AdWords on Google kind of search, the term roas comes up a lot. And you should really know what that means going into it.

[John Felkins]

What does that mean?

[Jen Sivertson]

So roas is a way that paid media, paid digital media is measured and it means return on ad spend.

[John Felkins]

Okay.

[Jen Sivertson]

So return on ad spend is like say that for every $10 you spend in ads, you sell $50 of your widgets via your online store. And so 50 over 10 equals 5, that's 5 row assets. Now as long as that $50 minus the $10, so $40 you've got kind of, you know, and then say your cost of goods is another $10, you're at $30 and your overhead and fulfillment, whatever is another $10 leaves. You do money. Presumably, you know, you as a business owner need to understand your business model to be able to follow that through. But a five roas for that probably is, you know, five is a pretty good roas. Now if your ROAs is a one or a two, a one for sure, you're losing money. A two, you're probably losing money in most businesses. And above two, you know and a half to three, most businesses are going to be making money on that. But again, it depends on your cost structure. And you as a business owner need to really have an awareness of that and an awareness of what it takes to make money on whatever the roas is so that you're holding your marketing team or agency person, whoever that is, accountable to making sure we're keeping it above a certain level.

[John Felkins]

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[Jen Sivertson]

First, I would say that your direct response should be humming pretty well before you're getting into that brand advertising, because that is a different level and there's different ways to do brand advertising. Right. We hit on when we talked earlier a little bit about content marketing. And kind of putting content out there. That's a form of brand marketing. Right. Because you can put out there tips and tricks. You can be known as the person that gives people tons, tons of information, really helpful information that it helps to brand you as the expert in your field. And so there's different ways to do brand advertising that doesn't always mean you've got like I think the classic brand ad is the car. Companies do this really well, right. They have these beautiful shots in the mountains of, you know, of the car and going down, you know, that is brand advertising. Right. But that's not the only way to do it. That's a very expensive way to do brand advertising. But getting your name out in your local market can be sponsoring local teams can be, yes, TV ads or maybe digital ads that are really more, you know, kind of getting your name out there and becoming the top of mind as the expert in your space.

[John Felkins]

I've heard you talk about leading indicators. It feels like the ROAS is kind of, you're seeing that at the end of the day and that you know that that's what you're getting. But what about the upstream of that? Can you talk a little bit about leading indicators?

[Jen Sivertson]

Well, leading indicators are very business specific and it doesn't mean they're not important, but it does mean that you need to know for your business or your marketing person needs to know for the business, what are the things that are highly correlated with us getting a sale on the back end. So if you're a lead based business, say, and every time that you can actually give somebody a quote for a business that out of that every one out of every two, 50% of them ends up resulting in a closed sale. Right. Then you want to know how many quotes you've got in your pipeline. Right. That would be a leading indicator is how many quotes. Or maybe it's for every quote. 10 people that fill out a lead form or contact us digitally or via the phone, eight of them end up getting a quote. Well then that number of leads, kind of the number that you're getting in is your leading indicator to quotes, which is the leading indicator to sales. Right. Like understanding your pipeline. But it's going to be very business specific.

[John Felkins]

Yeah, everybody's going to be different. Huh? What would your advice be to folks if they're just hearing this today? What would you have them do first to get a sense of what's going on?

[Jen Sivertson]

I would just ask the questions. Ask all the questions. If you are paying for digital advertising and you're not hearing what your ROAS is and what the target is and what the actual is, that should be a warning sign. Just start asking the questions and lots of curiosity, lots of questions and make sure that then the answers feel like they make sense to you.

[John Felkins]

I love that. That's fantastic. Thanks, Jen.

[Jen Sivertson]

You're welcome.

[John Felkins]

If you're realizing that maybe you're not quite ready to invest real dollars into your marketing yet, you can go back and watch the first con that we had with Jen about the low cost marketing efforts for when you're just getting started. So we'll link that video in the show notes for you to check out

[Dave Ramsey]

at some point in your business journey. Hustle alone isn't enough to keep you growing. You need systems, you need strategy, and that includes investing more in your marketing. But don't just throw money at something because you're desperate. Have a plan and do what's best for the business. Right now, that might mean hiring someone to help, testing small or learning how to track the right numbers before you dump a bunch of money into some fancy campaign. Because if you're not measuring results, you're not marketing. You're just spending. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, share and subscribe for more great leadership content. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey, and this is Entree Leadership.