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The Voltage Research Series
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The Voltage Research Series

How Voltage thinks.

Research, frameworks, and operating principles from two decades of growing consumer brands. Not tips. Not content. The ideas we actually run accounts on.

Marina del Rey. Photo: Alfonso Betancourt / Unsplash.


Latest research

Lighthouse Paper No. 07

You Haven’t Earned the Right to Spend More Yet

Voltage founder Mark R Brown on why scale has to be earned, not declared: what happens when spend outruns what a business has proven it can absorb, why capital finds the next constraint faster, and why restraint is sometimes the most aggressive growth decision.

5 min read
Lighthouse Paper No. 06

Busy Isn’t a Growth Strategy

Voltage founder Mark R Brown on the client whose record growth became the least interesting thing in the meeting, why the real constraint keeps moving, and why AI is about to make judgment the scarce resource.

6 min read
Lighthouse Paper No. 05

If Google and Meta Are Doing the Media Buying, What Exactly Are You Paying Your Agency For?

For a long time, being great at media buying was enough. Voltage founder Mark R Brown on what happens when the platforms automate your competitive advantage, and what you are actually paying an agency for now.

10 min read
Lighthouse Paper No. 04

The Most Dangerous Number in Performance Marketing

ROAS isn't the problem. Believing it without understanding what sits underneath it is. Voltage founder Mark R Brown on how a ROAS target gets set, whose ROAS you are looking at, and the better question to ask on Monday morning.

7 min read
Lighthouse Paper No. 03

Before You Fire Your Agency, Ask Yourself This

Sometimes you have an agency problem. Sometimes you have a business problem. Voltage founder Mark R Brown on the one question to ask before you fire your agency.

8 min read
Lighthouse Paper No. 02

The Day We Stopped Thinking About Google

The biggest breakthroughs we've created over the last twenty years almost never happened inside an advertising platform. Voltage founder Mark R Brown on fiduciary stewardship of growth budgets and solving the right problem.

4 min read
Lighthouse Paper No. 01

Why We Sometimes Tell Companies Not to Hire Us

The most expensive client you'll ever sign is the one you should have never signed. Voltage founder Mark R Brown on client selection, the real cost of turn, and the discipline to walk away.

5 min read
Operator Playbook

Why Most Google Ads Audits Miss the Real Problem

Rising CPA has three causes, demand ceiling, creative fatigue, and audience exhaustion, and the fix for each is the opposite of the others. A field guide to diagnosing CPA before you act.

7 min read
Operator Playbook

Not All ROAS Is Equal: A Field Guide to Attribution Inflation

An 8x ROAS on view-through remarketing is not an 8x on click-only prospecting. How attribution windows inflate ROAS by up to 45 percent, and the one report that tells you which number you actually have.

8 min read
Positioning

Why AI Won't Replace Great Agencies

AI compresses detection, reporting, and synthesis. It does not replace the differential diagnosis, judgment, and taste that decide which move is right.

9 min read

Before you hire another agency

Ask yourself three questions.

  1. 01Is our acquisition engine fundamentally healthy?
  2. 02Do we actually know where growth will come from?
  3. 03Are we optimizing marketing, or building a business?

If you can't confidently answer all three, that's where our Growth Readiness Assessment begins.

Start a Growth Readiness Assessment