More Than Data

Case Study: Learning from an Unsuccessful Engagement with a Small Waste Management Brand

More Than Data
Mar 20, 2025By More Than Data

Introduction

At More Than Data, we pride ourselves on delivering data-driven solutions that help businesses optimize their marketing strategies and achieve growth. However, not every engagement ends in success, and there’s much to learn from the ones that don’t. This article shares the story of an unsuccessful project with a waste management brand, highlighting the challenges we faced, the lessons we learned, and how we’re using this experience to improve our processes and better serve future clients.

The Challenge

The waste management brand was introduced to us by a middle person who had been working with the business for some time. The brand was struggling with declining revenue, high operating costs, and difficulty retaining staff. Their marketing efforts had been inconsistent, and they had cycled through multiple marketing and media agencies without seeing meaningful results. Here’s a breakdown of the challenges we encountered:

  • Financial and Operational Pressure: the brand was under significant financial strain, leading to staff layoffs and a general sense of urgency to cut costs and stabilize revenue. This pressure created a challenging environment for implementing new strategies or investing in marketing optimization.
  • Ineffective Marketing Efforts: despite engaging with several agencies for paid social, paid search, and SEO services, the brand had not seen measurable improvements in customer acquisition or revenue. They were frustrated and skeptical about the value of marketing investments.
  • Poor Data Management: the brand’s data management and governance were disorganized and disconnected. Key performance metrics and marketing data were scattered across different systems, making it difficult to access and analyze.

The Solution: A Free Marketing Mix Modelling Project

Understanding the brand’s financial constraints, we decided to offer a free marketing mix modelling (MMM) project to help them measure the effectiveness of their historical marketing efforts and identify opportunities for optimization. Our approach included:

  • Measuring Historical Marketing Performance We aimed to analyze the brand’s past marketing efforts across four channels: SEM, social media (LinkedIn and Meta), Reddit, and Quora. The goal was to understand how these channels contributed to customer acquisition and ROI.
  • Building a Budget Allocation System We developed a budget allocation tool to help the brand test different scenarios and optimize their marketing spend across channels. 

The Results: Why the Project Failed

Despite our best intentions and efforts, the project had to be terminated after a few weeks due to several critical issues:

  • Slow and Difficult Data Collection The brand took nearly three weeks to collect and provide the necessary marketing data, despite only having four channels to analyze. This delay significantly slowed down the project and highlighted the brand’s lack of readiness for data-driven initiatives.
  • Misalignment with HubSpot Data The brand treated HubSpot as their single source of truth for customer acquisition metrics. When our MMM results didn’t align with HubSpot’s numbers, the brand owner dismissed our findings, creating a fundamental disconnect.
  • Skepticism About the Budget Allocation System While the brand’s marketing manager found our budget allocation tool useful, the owner doubted the underlying math and theory. This lack of trust made it impossible to move forward with recommendations.

Key Learnings and Improvements

While this engagement didn’t achieve the desired outcome, it provided valuable insights that are shaping our approach to future projects:

  • Data Readiness is Critical Data is the foundation of any successful MMM project. We’ve since introduced a lead-qualification step to assess a client’s data readiness before committing to a project. This helps us identify potential challenges early and ensure smoother collaboration.
  • Positioning Ourselves Clearly We learned the importance of clearly positioning ourselves as data-driven marketing strategy partners, not competitors to tools like HubSpot. By setting this expectation upfront, we can avoid confusion and align better with clients’ existing systems.
  • Focusing on Clients with Diverse Marketing Channels Marketing mix modelling (MMM) is most effective for businesses with a rich mix of Above-the-Line (ATL) and Below-the-Line (BTL) channels. Whether a brand is small or large, the key is having a diverse and measurable media mix. We now focus on clients who invest in multiple channels, as this allows us to provide more comprehensive insights and recommendations.
  • Building Trust Through Transparency Trust is essential for any successful partnership. We’ve improved our communication processes to ensure clients understand the methodology behind our recommendations. By being transparent about our approach, we aim to build stronger relationships and foster confidence in our solutions.

Conclusion: Turning Failure into Opportunity

While the engagement with the waste management brand didn’t go as planned, it reinforced the importance of data readiness, clear positioning, and client alignment. By learning from this experience, we’re better equipped to serve future clients and deliver impactful results.

At More Than Data, we believe that every challenge is an opportunity to grow and improve. This experience is a reminder that even the best intentions and efforts can fall short without the right foundation and alignment. Moving forward, we’re committed to applying these lessons to ensure that every engagement—regardless of the client’s size—delivers value and drives success.

Key Takeaways for Businesses

  • Invest in Data Management: Clean, organized data is essential for effective marketing optimization.
  • Align Expectations Early: Clearly define roles, goals, and deliverables at the start of any project.
  • Choose the Right Partners: Select partners who understand your unique needs and challenges and can work with your existing systems.
  • Learn from Failure: Unsuccessful projects can provide valuable insights that drive future success.

By embracing these principles, businesses can build stronger partnerships, optimize their marketing efforts, and achieve sustainable growth.