Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with two different companies both struggling to answer the same question: is our softness just seasonality, or is something structurally off? When we’ve raised this with Google and Meta, their teams admit they’re fielding this exact question from many advertisers right now.
The trend: Diagnosing softness has become more complex. What used to be explained by summer slowdowns now often masks deeper issues like channel fatigue, macro headwinds, or even hidden funnel problems like add-to-cart drop-offs that only surface with paid traffic. The best operators are doing deeper analyses like new vs. repeat customer splits, channel contribution analysis, and funnel audits to separate seasonality from real performance problems.
Investor takeaway: This is where the right outside perspective can help. We’re increasingly stepping in to audit portfolio companies’ marketing programs, surfacing whether softness is seasonal, macro, or marketing-driven, and helping teams redirect spend quickly before capital is wasted.
