Ads are a tool that amplifies the reasons to buy a brand already has. Soulpapa Marketing first checks whether a month’s ROAS rise came from methods that should not have raised it. Sales that came from external sources, such as events or sponsorships, are not treated as the brand’s normal sales. A structure that lets the brand stand on its own is always the top priority, and the monthly Soulpapa Report is essentially a proper proposal and analysis strategy for building that structure. So the most important thing in the report is the balance between philosophy and market, and the report uses data to prove where the CEO and consumers connect.
Soulpapamarketing’s branding & marketing story.
Why Sales Stay the Same Even After Handing Off to a Performance Marketing Agency
Ads are a tool that amplifies, not one that persuades. If there is a reason to buy, ads amplify that reason. If there isn’t, ads amplify the fact that there isn’t. So when a brand with a weak reason to buy raises its budget, it ends up paying more to confirm that the product doesn’t sell.
We don’t just look at a month where ROAS went up. We check whether it rose through a method that shouldn’t have worked. ROAS also rises in months when a few event days pulled up the monthly average, when discounts pulled next month’s sales forward, or when sensational hooks attracted only customers who would buy once and leave. Customers gathered with a hook don’t end with that month’s numbers. Once the ads learn the profile of those people, they keep bringing in similar people the next month, and efficiency never accumulates.
We read sales the same way. Sales that rely on external sources, such as influencers, group buys, sponsorships, or events, are not the brand’s strength. What matters is not the sales of that moment but whether the people who came in then come back to buy again. If you rely on sales earned this way, you will have no choice but to look for events or sponsorships again when sales drop next time. This is fundamentally a vicious cycle: it damages the brand’s identity and ruins its DNA. That’s why Soulpapa Marketing avoids sales driven by other channels. A structure that lets the brand stand on its own is always the top priority.
There are two things to watch over a longer horizon than monthly sales swings. Whether the products that sell change every time the ad lineup changes, and whether sales drop off in months when ad spend is cut. If either is true, sales stop the moment the ads stop. If the products the ads push are the only ones selling and the rest don’t follow, it’s a lineup problem. If customers who bought for the first time don’t come back to buy again around when they finish the product, it’s a repurchase mechanism problem. Of course, this assumes the product itself has no fundamental problem. If it does, we solve that first. Ad settings come after that. The result of reading the business this way, bundled into one volume each month, is the Soulpapa Report.
What the Soulpapa Report Looks At — Philosophy, Ads, Market, Customers, Business
The most important thing in the Soulpapa Report is balance: the balance between philosophy and market. The CEO’s mission has to be conveyed without being damaged, but it also can’t fly off into something unrealistic and empty. We find the point where the CEO and consumers connect, prove it with data, and create sales at that point.
The standard for this balance is the 5P, and all of our work starts there. The 5P are: why the brand must exist (BP), what value to deliver to consumers and how (VP), the situation in which a customer’s pain appears (CEP) and the pain they experience in that situation (PP), and what is special for those people in solving that pain (USP). The report shows the results of executing the 5P and what to develop next, presented across four areas: ads, market, customer behavior, and business (4P: product, price, place, promotion).
So it isn’t short. A brand with only one ad channel still runs past 25 pages. Each channel adds 3 to 4 pages of efficiency analysis, so with three channels it goes well past 30 pages.
That said, the report doesn’t record everything we do. Some things can’t be captured in numbers, and some we confirm directly with the CEO at briefing time. Even so, we write the report, understand the brand, and build strategy based on everything we have actually carried out with the brand.
| Area | Question it answers | Commonly missed point |
|---|---|---|
| 5P (standard for all areas) | Whether the CEO’s mission stays intact across the creative, the product, and every touchpoint where the brand meets customers, and where that mission meets customers’ pain points | Creative with good numbers that has drifted from the mission; an appeal that matches the mission but doesn’t reach customers’ pain points |
| Ads | Which creative and appeals drove sales, and if efficiency changed, at what stage it changed | Monthly average ROAS pulled up by a few event days |
| Market | What customers are searching for now and what they will soon look for; what competing products are saying | Whether the search terms the current creative relies on are shrinking |
| Customer Behavior | Where people who arrived through ads leave the product detail page, and who comes back | People who read to the end and still leave without buying |
| Business (4P) | What sells, at what price and in what bundles, and what people buy again after their first purchase | Average order value excluding event bundles; repurchases that happen only during events |
In customer behavior, we use high-drop-off sections as clues for finding causes. Comparing where people left against the structure of the detail page shows that each section has a different cause and a different fix. Rewriting the entire detail page is rare. We also look at how people who bought again, people who bought for the first time, and people who didn’t buy moved differently. We separately look for pages that get many visits but few purchases.
A one-page summary is attached right after the cover. We write this page last. Once the action items are set, we write the causes and fixes to match those items, and align the conclusion of the summary page, the prescriptions in the analysis pages, and the direction of the 6C around one single thread. The remaining pages are the grounds for the CEO and us to go through together at the briefing.
With this report, brands receive a proper proposal, in-depth consulting, and an analysis strategy every month.
Why We Expanded to 4P — Ad Performance Is Decided First by Product and Price
Efficiency is mostly determined by how complete the product is. If what the market wants and the value the product delivers are misaligned, changing creative or budget can’t close the gap. When ad metrics drop but sales hold up, we split the held-up sales into those that came from repurchases and those that came from purchases made after people found the brand again through search. This number isn’t in the ad account. That’s why we look at 4P.
Plenty of brands say they know the 4P. But open their planning documents and each box has one line: Product, high-quality ingredients; Price, reasonable compared to competitors; Place, own mall and listed marketplaces; Promotion, SNS ads. That’s supposedly how they did the 4P. Each 4P item should have at least ten things filled in. You only get there when you look at everything, from the package design to whether the product sits on the left or the right when a customer walks into a department store. These days people say distribution has become simpler: no stores needed, just open your own mall and ship by parcel. That’s not the case. The paths customers take in and out have actually become more complicated.
Product — What Drives Sales
Everything from the moment a customer first learns about the brand until they use it up and throw it away is Product. We look at design, feel of use, how long the material lasts, the name and the world it creates, and how the customer looks to others when using it. We also check what exact problem the unique function solves, the first impression when the parcel is opened, the hurdles for returns and exchanges, and CS response. We check the lineup by role: an entry product as bait, a hero product that earns the money, and an anchor placed beside it to make the hero look cheaper, confirming that each does its job.
In months when a large product category drops out, we separate regular-price sales from event sales. Then we check whether the lost demand moved to the remaining products. If it didn’t move, the brand’s total sales wobble whenever one product has a problem. We also trace, for each product first bought, who comes back and what they choose next. This is where the brand’s true alpha and omega become clear.
Price — What Price and Bundle It Sold At
Price is set not just by adding margin on top of cost, but by looking at CAC and LTV as well. Whether to start low and enter the market, charge high and then lower, or go premium from the start; and how to move prices depending on inventory, season, and customer segment are also decided on that basis. We also weigh whether to go beyond single units into subscriptions and bundles, and how far to open easy payments and interest-free installments. Discounts are used to raise average order value by attaching conditions, or to pull purchase cycles forward.
A rise in average order value isn’t cause for celebration. If one event set drove the number up, the average for regular orders without the set may be unchanged. So we recalculate excluding orders that include event bundles. If you run discounts often, even customers who used to repurchase start waiting for the next discount. When running a discount, we also plan how to return the price to normal afterward.
Place — Where Sales Come From, and Whether That Channel Will Keep Holding Up
Previously, Place meant only which store to put the product in. Now we look at which path customers enter through to buy, and how they come back. On the way in, we check whether the first screen of the detail page picks up what the ad said, where customers leave, and where the path to cart and checkout breaks.
We also design the path back. Re-entry is the route by which people who left return through search, notifications, or retargeting ads. Retention is whether people who made a first purchase come back for a second and third time. Stickiness is whether there is a reason to stop by before they’ve used up the product, and what they browse when they do. We also check how many days it takes to receive an order after placing it, and how many days until they feel the effect after receiving it.
We also discuss offline events such as pop-up stores, where we meet consumers in person. We talk about what materials are needed to raise conversion and trust on site, and conversely how to re-establish contact after that day with the people met there, especially on the brand’s own online mall. The goal is not to leave a pop-up as a one-off event, but to create a touchpoint for sincere communication with consumers.
Listed marketplaces are a waypoint; the destination is the brand’s own mall. If you run both together, set a deadline for how long. If there’s no plan for the pace at which customers move to your own mall, your own mall’s sales won’t grow. What returning customers looked at is recorded as the brand’s data only on the brand’s own mall, and loyal customers build up there too. So Place now refers to the entire set of touchpoints where we meet customers.
People who enter by searching the brand name directly are usually people who have visited before, and purchases often happen on that second visit. Since this visit doesn’t show up in ad metrics, we count it in the market area.
Promotion — What to Say
Running SNS ads is not even 1% of Promotion. Ads include paid ads, search ads, and influencers; content includes SEO, short-form video, and brand channels. There are also customer management pieces like first-purchase benefits and gifts, and alerts and emails timed to the purchase cycle, plus PR and crisis response. Creative, copy, and events are used across all of these. Influencers are used to send the brand’s message further. We don’t lean on them as a channel that generates sales on our behalf.
Appeals that worked well we keep using for a long time. When creating new creative, we keep the brand’s identity and core appeal intact, and change only parts such as hooks and scenes to fit the season and timing. New appeals are carried in new creative and the detail page.
In the end, Promotion is the work of thinking about how to deliver the brand’s message within the flow of the market.
Repurchase and Cross-Purchase — Where All 4Ps Show Up at Once
Repurchase and cross-purchase bundle together product, price, touchpoints, and message. First we check whether first-time customers and existing customers buy different bundles. If existing customers buy the large discount bundle and first-time customers buy the entry bundle, existing customers may only repurchase when there’s a discount. In that case, rather than expanding bundles, we first fix the mechanism that makes them buy again on a set cycle. Repurchase reminders are timed to when the first purchased product is nearly used up. To keep average order value, we need to link customers to other product lines as well.
If the 4Ps move in separate directions, no matter how much ad spend and effort you put in, there will be leaks. Examples: the price is premium, but opening the box reveals only bubble wrap and the product; or the brand lives on repurchases, but no alert arrives when the product is nearly used up. The brand becomes inconsistent and shabby. Filling in the boxes is homework; weaving those boxes in one direction is planning and strategy. Only then do repeat customers appear without ads. The reason to turn ads on is ultimately so you can turn them off.
How We Find Competitors and What We Compare
Competitors aren’t limited to names the CEO already knows. Gather the products customers actually search for and compare against, and the products that advertise to the same customers, and unexpected rivals appear. Competition sometimes happens outside the same category. If customers start solving the same problem in a completely different way, they weigh the money that approach costs against this product’s monthly price.
Market data is collected fresh every week, because just as we grow each week, so do competitors. The market analysis in the monthly report starts from what customers search for and worry about, and what competing products are saying now and at what price.
Appeals are found in why the brand exists and why the product was made this way. After verifying them against search flow and the words customers actually use, we compare only those facts against competing products and push strengths no one else has. A SWOT analysis done only in words isn’t strategy; we do real work. With the appeals chosen here, we make the next creative ourselves, and for the detail page we plan what to change and how.
Timing matters too. When we find a concern that will grow in the search flow, we release creative showing the scene where that concern arises before the season arrives. When the search terms the current creative relies on begin to shrink, we prepare the next creative around that concern in advance.
Real Case — The Month Sales Fell 25.7% but Ads Weren’t the Problem
A case taken from a report for one brand we operate. The brand and product names are not disclosed.
Problem
Monthly sales fell 25.7% from the previous period. Over the same period, the rate at which ad clicks led to purchases dropped from 4.42% to 3.08%.
The Surface-Level Answer
Looking only at ad metrics, it’s easy to conclude the creative is fatigued and rush to add new creative, or cut ad spend in proportion to the drop in efficiency.
The Real Problem
The problem wasn’t a bad ad month; the comparison month was inflated by an event. Nearly half of the previous month’s sales came from one product sold during the event, and most of this month’s decline came from that product dropping out. So we didn’t read this decline as lower demand. The bigger issue showed up when there were no events: for four days after the promotion ended, daily sales were below 60% of the pre-promotion level.
Additional Metrics Checked
- Ad efficiency: Clicks relative to impressions and cost per click were nearly the same as the previous period, and the ROAS drop came from the rate at which people purchased after arriving. What had pushed that rate up was the previous month’s event period (4 days). Excluding that period, ROAS was the same in the previous and current months.
- Sales by product: The other key product was waiting for restocking, so only one product in the core product group was available to buy, and demand for the dropped product did not shift to it.
- Average order value: Rose 6.4%, but the entire increase came from the promotional set. The average for orders without a set was lower than the previous-period average.
- Repurchase: The previous month’s 30-day repurchase rate was also inflated by the event. 40% of people who bought again within 30 days did so through the event. Compared with January to March of this year, this month’s repurchase rate was equal or higher. Half of the members who repurchased during the promotion were customers who had not bought for more than 120 days.
The Actual Answer
That month’s prescription was mostly outside advertising. First, we decided to introduce a subscription, so that repurchases that used to happen only during events happen on a set cycle. That way, sales stabilize regardless of event schedules, and the brand isn’t pushed around by events. Rather than trying to change existing customers’ habit of stocking up during discounts right away, the direction was to increase new customers so that their share shrinks over time.
What We Lead Outside of Advertising
Just as the report looks for causes outside advertising, much of what we actually touch is outside advertising too. A few recent examples:
- For a brand listed in a department store, we proposed pricing and discount-rate principles that align its own mall with the department store. The moment customers find they paid the same or more than on the brand’s own mall, trust breaks on both sides: with customers and with the department store.
- For a brand that wanted to publish its brand philosophy as the first article in a magazine, we asked them to rebuild the 5P plan before polishing the copy. If the writing runs ahead of the plan, the brand’s message scatters.
- For a brand with room to spend more on ads, we advised postponing any increase by one month. We believed the detail page and product should be refined first so that increased ad spend pays off. Our fee is based on ad spend, so if they increase spend, our share grows immediately. Still, there’s no point if nothing is left for the brand.
- When restocking of a main product was delayed, we proposed a schedule that timed the follow-up product launch to the restock date. The action items also included guiding customers on the detail page to the products they can buy right now in the meantime.
- We directly asked the production crew to shoot product-focused frames for each topic.
- For a brand with heavy drop-off early in the detail page, we proposed a redesign direction that moves the key evidence further up.
Most of these are things we raised before the brand asked.
From Diagnosis to Execution — How a Month Runs
After gathering what happened last month through the report, we move on to 6C analysis. We organize the current state from metrics (Current) and internal capacity and external environment (Condition), find the cause (Cause), prescribe a fix (Cure), and then set the metrics to check (Check) and the first thing to do (Core). In the cause column, we don’t write ad settings, seasonality, or customer habits. Causes are found in things the brand can change, such as supply, product composition, discount structure, the first screen of the detail page, and content. External changes are placed separately in the opportunity and threat columns. The diagnosis that comes out here is organized into action items, and each item states its period and the metric to check.
Briefing the CEO on this report alone takes over two hours every month. Circumstances that don’t show up in the numbers, like the change to the top of the detail page last month or the time inventory ran out, can only be read correctly for next month’s numbers if we ask the CEO directly. It’s a long time, yet we and the CEOs of the brands we work with both look forward to it. Some CEOs even come to our office in person. This time is the core of leading a brand to the front. Usually brands can’t use a marketing agency properly. Here’s how an agency should be used.
Decisions and execution remain the CEO’s responsibility. That doesn’t mean we compromise or settle for other reasons. We don’t change the prescription just because sales are urgent or because that’s how it’s always been done. We keep asking, requesting, proposing, and confirming, however tedious that may be. We lay out the order in which to address the detail page, pricing, and inventory, and next month we check first whether the prescription was right.
Changes to ad settings are batched weekly. Every time creative is turned on or off or budgets change, the ad platform’s learning restarts, so touching it piecemeal only lengthens the time spent in the learning phase. Daily fluctuations mix weekdays, weather, and competitor events, so we group them weekly.
We plan and produce creative ourselves. When the appeal that sold well differs from the one drawing the most response lately, we put both in the same scene in the next creative. We confirm that creative’s performance in next month’s report.
So is a strategy analysis report like this paid? No. Soulpapa Marketing charges nothing beyond markup. Both creative production and the report are included. Why? Because that’s the natural thing to do. We deliver the same level of insight to a brand paying 100,000 won in markup as to one paying 10 million won. That’s the path we walk.
One Question to Ask When Choosing a Marketing Agency
Before signing, you only need to ask one thing: “Besides ads turned off, what should change first for sales to hold up?”
If the answer is only about creative and budget, that agency only sees as far as ads. If the answer also covers product, price, and repurchases, that agency will grow the brand with you.
The Partner Soulpapa Marketing Is Looking For
Once a report goes out, there’s no break for the full month until the next report. Most action items are things the brand has to decide and move on: aligning production schedules with the next restock, finalizing the detail page redesign, and introducing a subscription. The CEO also has to decide when to launch the follow-up product for a discontinued item, which configuration to hold at list price, and whether to hold the next event at all. Often you’ll need to pull out materials only the brand has, such as ingredient lists or test certificates, and the CEO’s story is needed for filming and articles. We check whether you can keep up with the pace of making those decisions within the month, and whether you have the attitude to stay with it to the end and think hard with passion. That’s why Soulpapa Marketing keeps looking for partners who will go through this process to the end. Unfortunately, most don’t.
Brands that can’t keep up just accumulate homework. Then the report stops getting read, not even a single page or word, and in the end only blame is left.
This may sound presumptuous, but we need someone who works harder and is more absorbed than we are, at least. It’s almost obvious, yet such people are rarer than you’d think.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a marketing agency also get involved in product or price?
Yes, but the direction is set. We don’t propose filling a month of lost sales with discounts or bundles, because a month filled with discounts drops by that same amount the following month. Instead, we tell you how to refine the product in the next production run and how many items can sell without events. If a sell-out is expected, we propose planning the next production schedule months ahead together.
What happens if last month’s action items weren’t completed?
Next month’s analysis starts by judging each of last month’s action items one by one. We separate items where metrics moved after execution, items where metrics didn’t move even after execution, and items not yet done. Items not done carry over to next month as is. If metrics didn’t move even though an item was done, we conclude the cause was misdiagnosed, and rather than repeating the same prescription, we look for the cause again from the start.
Does this mean you shouldn’t run events or discounts at all?
No. Events are clearly useful for bringing back customers who have been away for a long time. However, we don’t treat purchases that come back through events as the brand’s normal sales. A brand’s real skill shows in its average daily sales after events end, in periods without events. What supports those sales is regular repurchasing and products that sell even without events.
Do the monthly report or creative production from a marketing agency cost extra?
No, there’s no separate charge. With one markup, we handle the monthly report and briefing, creative planning and production. For the detail page, we provide redesign planning and direction. Production is handled on the brand’s side, though if that’s too hard we sometimes make it ourselves. We don’t sell the report as a separate product, because we consider reading the results and creating the next creative to be part of the basic work of the partner managing the brand.
Can performance marketing and brand marketing be handled together?
Yes. We don’t run them separately. If you strip away sensational hooks and put the brand story up front, the cost per impression may rise. But when it reaches people who will buy, click-through rates rise more, and cost per click can fall. So we check results through clicks and purchases, as well as metrics that build up outside ads, such as brand-name search volume and repurchases.
Related Posts
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→ About Soulpapa Marketing — a performance and growth marketing agency that builds brands with data
Insights from Soulpapa Marketing — Korea’s digital marketing agency.
Original Korean article: https://soulpapa.co.kr/2026/10/29/marketing-agency-soulpapa-report-4p/
