Got asked this question again last week: “We spend a $100k a month on ads how do we make it count?” Her question wasn’t about media costs.

It was about what separates brands that stall from the ones that scale. My answer was simple: treat advertising like an investment, not a bill. The teams that grow past $10M ARR look at it differently. They track returns, not just spend.

They spread across channels instead of staying in one lane. They build creative and testing into their process, not as afterthoughts.

And they use paid media as a lever for learning and growth. When you treat ads as an expense, you trim. After a while, there’s nothing left to trim, and you have no fuel to grow. When you treat them as capital, you optimize and growth follows.

That’s how the best brands keep compounding.