5-Point Marketing Plan — 2026-04-05

Overview

Strategy call between Asymmetric and PaperTube (Parag Agrawal) to address declining Google traffic and define a growth plan. The session covered an SEO and Google Ads audit, ABM program status, LinkedIn Ads early results, and a discussion of whether to split the site into two separate domains. The outcome is a five-point plan to reverse the decline.

Attendees:
- Parag Agrawal — PaperTube (client)
- Mark Hope — Asymmetric
- Karly Oykhman — Asymmetric
- Sebastian Gant — Asymmetric
- Isalia Ramirez — Asymmetric
- Avokerie Onorimuo — Asymmetric

Context: Why This Call Happened

PaperTube has historically relied almost entirely on Google (Ads + SEO) for lead flow. Both channels are declining due to increased competition (including Chinese suppliers) and AI's impact on search results. The business has shifted from a growth posture to a "hold revenue" posture. The goal of this call was to define what comes next.

"We've had a nice growth business. Now we're trying to hang on to stay even." — Parag

Key Decisions

1. Proceed with the 5-point plan as the primary strategic framework.
2. Keep e-commerce on Shopify for now — Parag wants to exhaust Shopify optimization before committing to a platform migration or site split. Team will scope the split and report back.
3. Hand Google Ads management to Asymmetric — Parag confirmed the current external ads manager is not performing; Asymmetric will take over.
4. Add Salesforce automation to prevent sales/marketing overlap — when a contact is marked SQL, ABM emails stop automatically.
5. Install Microsoft Clarity for UX session recording and heatmaps.

The 5-Point Plan

1. Fix Website & SEO

Problem: SEO Health Score is 50 (vs. 98–100 for comparable clients). Google's crawler appears to be partially blocked. The site ranks #1 for low-volume terms (e.g., "paper tube packaging," 350 searches/mo) but has zero ranking for high-volume terms (e.g., "cardboard tubes," 2,400 searches/mo; keyword difficulty: 2).

Approach:
- Diagnose and resolve the crawl block on Shopify
- Shift keyword targeting toward high-volume, low-difficulty terms
- Write a 2,000-word article targeting "cardboard tubes" and related semantic variations
- Amplify the article via a boosted social media post + email blast to drive initial traffic signals to Google
- Address landing page quality (currently flagged as a problem in the ads audit)

Note on Shopify limitations: Shopify's API does not allow bulk programmatic changes to schema or meta descriptions, which slows SEO work compared to WordPress. This is a known constraint the team will work within unless the site split decision changes.

2. Restructure Google Ads

Problem: The account has 38 campaigns, only 4 receiving traffic. Brand terms are consuming ~30% of the DSA budget. No remarketing campaigns exist. Google Search Console is not connected to Google Ads.

Audit findings — what's working:
- Tracking infrastructure is solid
- Negative keywords are well-maintained
- DSA campaign is finding relevant traffic
- Standard Shopping has the best CPA
- Ad copy and sitelink extensions are effective

Planned changes:
- Pause 8 dormant campaigns
- Create a dedicated brand campaign to isolate brand terms from DSA
- Launch remarketing campaigns targeting site visitors
- Connect Google Search Console to Google Ads
- Reallocate budget toward Standard Shopping
- Add call extensions
- Build a campaign targeting "cardboard tubes" to complement SEO content push
- Investigate and potentially restructure the PMAX campaign (CTR at 1.4% is below target)

3. Expand ABM Program

Current status:
- 227 target accounts
- 6–7 email sequence (currently on step 4)
- 17% open rate (estimated 20–25% higher in reality due to Apple device tracking suppression)
- Positive early engagement: Liquid IV, several distilleries showing high click activity
- LinkedIn touchpoints removed from sequence (not scalable to automate)

Growth plan:
- Vertical expansion: Grow from 227 → 500 target accounts
- Horizontal expansion: Extend sequence from 6–7 → 12–15 touches
- Contact strategy: If a contact at an account is engaged, don't add more contacts at that account. If no engagement, move to the next contact.

Process improvement — Salesforce automation:
- Add ABM Contact checkbox field (contact or account level)
- Add Contact Stage field with values: Lead → Marketing Qualified → Sales Qualified → Opportunity
- Build rule: when a contact is marked Sales Qualified Lead, suppress all ABM email activity
- This prevents the sales team and marketing automation from working the same contact simultaneously
- Immediate action: Manually remove Spiceology from the active ABM sequence (sales rep Amy has already engaged this account at a trade show)

4. Launch Nurture Campaign

A traditional email nurture campaign will be built for all contacts in the database who are not currently enrolled in the ABM program. This runs in parallel to ABM and covers the broader contact universe. Karly noted this is already in progress; data expected within a few weeks of launch.

5. Scope Website Split (Decision Pending)

The problem the split solves: PaperTube operates two distinct businesses on one site:
- E-commerce (Shopify): ~10 orders/day, ready-made stock tubes, small buyers, high margin, fast fulfillment
- Custom orders: 3x larger by revenue, B2B, longer sales cycle, requires lead gen not e-commerce UX

These audiences have conflicting needs. The current site is more optimized for the custom buyer, making stock products hard to find. A visitor looking for one offering is likely confused or put off by the other.

Proposed solution: Split into two domains:
- [shopify domain] — e-commerce, stock tubes, stays on Shopify
- [new domain] — custom orders, lead gen, built on WordPress

SEO risk/reward:
- Risk: splitting traffic dilutes domain authority for both sites
- Reward: if each site achieves higher engagement rates (more relevant audience → more clicks, form fills, time on site), Google rewards both sites more than the combined site today
- Mark's framing: "If we can get people to a page they care about and get them to engage, splitting will be more valuable. If engagement doesn't improve, we lose SEO value."

Parag's position: Wants to push on Shopify optimization first. If the team hits real roadblocks, that informs the split decision. Not opposed to the split conceptually — believes the two audiences genuinely don't overlap.

Next step: Karly and Sebastian to scope the effort required and present findings on the next call.

Other Initiatives

LinkedIn Ads (Early Stage)

• 3 campaigns running, ~2 weeks in
• Total spend: $352 | CTR: 0.38% | CPM: ~$30
• Food & Beverage campaign is slightly ahead of the others
• New video ad set significantly outperforming the original
• Current objective: brand awareness (CPM/impressions), not direct response (CPC)
• No changes planned yet; more data needed

Microsoft Clarity

• Free UX tool equivalent to Hotjar
• Records user sessions, generates heatmaps, flags rage clicks
• Will be installed on the PaperTube site
• Intended to inform UX decisions, especially around the e-commerce vs. custom order navigation problem

Trade Show Geo-Targeting

• Sebastian raised the idea; Mark assessed it as low value given PaperTube no longer booths at shows
• Geo-targeting works best when there's a booth CTA ("visit us at booth 254")
• No action planned unless PaperTube returns to exhibiting

Action Items

Related

• ^[1]
• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]