Most business owners we talk to have a version of the same question: how much should we actually be spending? Not just on ads. On the whole picture, the content, the creative, the paid media, all of it. And usually they're asking because they've tried something before and it didn't work, or because they're about to spend real money for the first time and don't want to get it wrong.
For episode two of Filmed to Convert, we sat down with Nabil Bardouh, who runs performance marketing at Powermove Digital and has been on the other side of this exact question for years. Nabil's agency manages tens of thousands of dollars a month in ad spend across Meta and Google for dozens of clients, and he's seen what separates the campaigns that work from the ones that quietly burn through budget with nothing to show for it.
The conversation covered a lot of ground, from why creative quality is now the deciding factor in ad performance, to a specific framework for splitting your marketing budget, to a simple content structure anyone can use. Here's what stood out.
"I think gone are the days where you can just run ads with basic graphics and just tell people what you do."
Nabil Bardouh, Powermove DigitalWhy Creative Has Become the Deciding Factor
Nabil opened with something that's easy to agree with in theory but harder to act on in practice: the era of running ads with a basic graphic and a product description is over. Audiences have seen too many ads. The bar for what earns attention has moved, and it's moved toward genuine creative, especially video.
This isn't a small point for businesses managing their own paid media. As Nabil put it, you can run the most precise targeting in the world, but if the creative behind the ad doesn't hold attention or build trust, you're paying for impressions that go nowhere. He's seen this play out directly with AM Visuals' own Google Ads account, where the same traffic and the same budget produced a completely different outcome once the landing page used video properly instead of static content. The leads went from two or three a month to thirteen, with a lower cost per acquisition, simply because the page finally matched the quality of the traffic being sent to it.
The "Edutainment" Approach That's Outperforming Hard Sells
One of the clearest insights from the episode was around what content actually works right now, and Nabil pointed to a format he called edutainment: content that teaches something useful while staying genuinely entertaining to watch.
He shared a real example from one of his clients, DeLonghi. A 30-second post about the correct pressure for tamping a coffee shot, filmed for free at an in-office event, ended up generating over 200,000 organic views with zero ad spend behind it. The reason it worked wasn't the production value. It was that the person on camera had genuine, confident expertise and the topic created a bit of tension (people have strong, differing opinions about coffee technique), which made it worth stopping to watch.
The framework Nabil uses to plan this kind of content draws on a book called They Ask, You Answer, which is built around a simple idea: figure out what your customers are actually asking before they buy, and make content that answers those questions directly. Cost questions. Comparison questions. "What's the catch" questions. Nabil said AM Visuals uses this same framework to build content for clients, because once that content exists, it becomes far easier to put paid budget behind it. People already want to know the answer. You're just helping the right audience find it faster.
He also pointed out the two reputations digital marketing agencies tend to have: the cowboy who doesn't really know what they're doing, and the hard-sell agency leading every conversation with "we got this client 50,000 results, we'll do the same for you." Edutainment content sidesteps both. It builds likability and trust first, then makes the ask for contact much easier once that trust exists.
The HIVE Framework for Building Content
For anyone who's ever sat down to script a piece of content and frozen, Nabil shared a structure he uses that's simple enough to apply immediately: HIVE.
Hook
The first few seconds that stop someone scrolling. This is where you earn the rest of the watch time, and it has to happen immediately.
Introduction
A quick frame for what the video is about, so the viewer knows what they're getting and why it's worth staying for.
Value
The actual substance. What does the viewer walk away knowing or understanding that they didn't before? This is the part that matters most.
End Screen
A clear next step. Not always "buy now." Sometimes it's "check out this page" or "come back if you want to know more." Nabil was clear that the goal isn't always the hard sell. It's building a relationship you can nurture over time.
Nabil's bigger point here ties back to something he kept returning to throughout the conversation: give people genuine value before you ask for anything in return. He referenced a classic psychology experiment where people who agreed to a small request (a tiny sign on their lawn) were far more likely to later agree to a much bigger one (a large sign), simply because they'd already said yes once. Content works the same way. A small piece of value earns a little trust. Enough small pieces of value, consistently delivered, earn the trust required for someone to actually buy.
The 60/40 Rule: How to Actually Split Your Marketing Budget
This was probably the single most practical takeaway from the episode. Nabil referenced a framework from Mark Ritson, a marketing professor he studied under during his MBA, for how to think about splitting a marketing budget between branding and lead generation.
The branding 60% covers everything that helps people understand who you are: your values, what differentiates you from competitors, the people behind the business, and the story of how you got here. It's not flashy and it doesn't produce a number you can point to next month. Nabil was upfront about this being the part most businesses underinvest in, precisely because it's slower and harder to measure.
The lead generation 40% is what most businesses think of as "marketing": Google ads, Meta ads, cold calling, anything designed to directly drive an action. Nabil's point was that this part becomes dramatically more efficient once the branding foundation exists. He used his own agency, Powermove Digital, as the example: they spent their first two years almost entirely on content, much of it simple and unpolished, before putting serious paid budget behind anything.
"Focus on developing a good brand and the marketing becomes significantly easier if you're looking to get sales, revenue, and leads out of it."
Nabil Bardouh, Powermove DigitalHe also shared a case study comparing two ad accounts he manages for the same type of business: one with a large library of existing content to draw on, and one without. The account with the content library generated ten times more leads from the same ad spend. Same targeting approach, same budget range, completely different outcome, because one had a foundation of trust to build on and the other was asking for a cold conversion.
Top, Middle, and Bottom of Funnel, Explained Simply
Nabil also walked through how he thinks about the marketing funnel in practical terms, which is genuinely one of the clearer breakdowns we've heard on the topic.
People Who Don't Know You Yet
This is pure brand exposure to people who fit your target audience profile but have never heard of you. Nabil's example was a home builder targeting homeowners aged 25 to 34 in a specific geography who likely have the disposable income to build. The channels here are broad reach platforms: Meta, YouTube, and historically things like billboards and radio.
People Who've Started Looking
Someone who's searched "home builder near me" or "home builder Sydney" but hasn't connected with you yet. This is where retargeting and search-based platforms like Google Ads earn their keep, because the person has shown clear intent but hasn't made contact.
People One Step From Buying
They know who you are, they've visited your contact page, but haven't pulled the trigger. Nabil called this the most valuable 10% of any audience. Retargeting and Google Ads both matter here, because people in buying mode tend to search rather than scroll.
He also flagged a fourth stage that often gets skipped entirely: loyalty, or how you keep existing customers coming back. This became a bigger focus across the industry after COVID, when finding new customers got harder and retaining existing ones became more valuable. A simple example he gave: two weeks after a purchase, message the customer with a referral offer. Keep the relationship active instead of treating the sale as the end of the interaction.
Zero-Based Budgeting: Stop Spending on Autopilot
One of the sharper points Nabil raised was about how most businesses plan their marketing budget, and why it's flawed. The default approach is something like "we spent this much last year, let's spend roughly the same this year, on the same channels." Nabil pushes back on this hard.
He introduced the concept of zero-based budgeting: instead of carrying last year's spending forward by default, you start from zero and justify every single channel and dollar from scratch. What did Google Ads actually deliver? Should that increase or decrease? Did the influencer spend do anything at all? If not, why would you repeat it?
"You have to take one step back and go: okay, we're not spending anything on marketing. What did we do last year that we're going to do again? How much budget should go to each platform, and what is each platform giving us?"
Nabil Bardouh, Powermove DigitalThis isn't something that needs to happen monthly. Nabil suggested every three to six months is a reasonable cadence, paired with revisiting your actual offer to prospects, not just your channels. Sometimes the issue isn't the marketing platform. It's that the offer itself needs testing or refreshing.
What This Means for Your Business
If there's one thread running through everything Nabil shared, it's this: paid ads amplify whatever you give them. Good creative, built on a foundation of genuine value and trust, gets cheaper and more effective the more you invest behind it. Weak creative gets more expensive no matter how well-targeted the campaign is, because the audience simply isn't responding to what they're seeing.
That means the order of operations matters. Build the content and the trust first, even if it feels slow and unglamorous. Use a framework like HIVE so you're not starting from a blank page every time. Think about your budget in terms of branding versus lead generation rather than spending the same way you did last year out of habit. And once that foundation exists, paid media stops being a gamble and starts being an amplifier for something that already works.
It's the same principle we talk about constantly with our own clients: the video and content work isn't separate from the ad spend, it's what makes the ad spend worth anything at all.
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Book a Free 15-Min CallQuestions from this episode
A common benchmark is to invest between 5% and 15% of total revenue into marketing, depending on whether the business is maintaining its current position or actively trying to grow. Within that budget, a useful split popularised by marketing professor Mark Ritson is roughly 60% toward branding and 40% toward lead generation activity.
A general rule of thumb is 90 days. This gives enough time to see what traffic is coming in, which keywords and channels are performing, whether leads are converting, and whether any optimisations are needed before drawing conclusions about a campaign's effectiveness.
HIVE stands for Hook, Introduction, Value, and End screen. It's a simple structure for building short-form video content: hook the viewer in the first few seconds, introduce what the video covers, deliver genuine value, then close with a clear next step or call to action.
Zero-based budgeting means starting your marketing budget from zero each year rather than simply repeating what you spent previously. Every channel has to be justified based on what it actually delivered, rather than continuing a channel just because it was used last year.
Paid ads amplify whatever they're given. Strong, relevant video creative gets more attention, lower cost per result, and better conversion once people land on your website. Weak creative gets more expensive to run and converts at a lower rate, regardless of how well the targeting or budget is managed.
