You’ve found your perfect customer. You’ve crafted what you think is the perfect message. You cast your line into the digital waters with confidence, but week after week, you’re coming back with little to show for the effort … and the investment.
Sound familiar?
Here’s what I’ve learned after lighting enough ad dollars on fire to make a big play in the meme coin market: most solo ecommerce operators are fishing where the fish were, not where they are right now.
The expensive lesson that opened my eyes
I learned this the hard way with a dog feeder client. We had a brilliant Facebook ads campaign that absolutely crushed it for months. It pulled in consistent sales, great ROI, everything you’d want from a campaign. Then, without warning, sales dropped off a cliff.
Same target audience. Same budget. Same creative that had been working beautifully. But suddenly, nothing … or, at least, much less.
Here’s what our analysis revealed: we’d been laser-focused on ads targeting dog owners who just became aware of a problem (aka top-of-funnel or TOF) because activity on the surface looked amazing: high click rates, incredible engagement, strong video views, solid cart additions. But we were missing out on the serious revenue swimming around in deeper waters.
Those early ads were great at getting people’s attention and initial interest, but the real money and bigger orders were coming from customers deeper in their journey … people who were ready to make larger, more confident purchases.
By focusing too heavily on TOF ads just because they drew big engagement numbers, we were fishing only in the shallows while the biggest fish (who were ready to buy) were swimming in deeper waters. We had a tool that could help us see where the profitable fish were: we just weren’t using it properly.
Why your customers aren’t standing still
Most operators think about their audience like they’re sitting in a waiting room: static, predictable, ready to hear your message whenever you’re ready to deliver it. But that’s not how consumer psychology works.
Your customers are moving through what I call the “T.E.E.P.” customer journey: Trigger, Explore, Evaluate, Purchase. They’re bouncing between these stages like fish in an aquarium: darting around unpredictably, changing direction without warning, sometimes circling back to where they started.
Here’s the thing that most agencies won’t tell you (because frankly, most don’t understand it themselves): customers don’t move through these stages in order. Google’s research involving over 310,000 purchase scenarios proved that buyers loop back and forth between the explore and evaluate phases dozens of times before making decisions.
Think about the last time you bought something important. You probably:
- Had a trigger moment (“I need to solve this problem”)
- Started exploring options (“What solutions exist?”)
- Began evaluating specific products (“Which one is best for me?”)
- Then … went back to exploring when you found new information
- Evaluated again with different criteria
- Maybe even questioned whether you needed the product at all
That’s not a linear funnel: that’s fish swimming in circles, changing depths, sometimes hiding behind the coral before darting out again.
The psychology that orders the chaos
Why do customers behave this way? It comes down to how our brains make decisions.
We operate with two mental systems: System 1 (fast, emotional, pattern-seeking) and System 2 (slow, analytical, deliberate). Your customers constantly switch between these modes as they encounter new information, which creates the unpredictable movement between T.E.E.P. stages.
When someone’s in System 1 mode while researching, they’re scanning quickly, looking for familiar patterns and social proof. Show them a testimonial from someone who reminds them of themselves, and they might skip straight to purchase. But trigger their System 2 thinking (maybe they spot a detail that seems too good to be true) and they’ll loop back into intensive comparison mode.
Add in loss aversion (we hate losing things twice as much as we like gaining them), social proof bias (we follow what others do when uncertain), and authority bias (we trust experts), and you’ve got customers darting around their decision process like fish in a tank: sudden direction changes, circling back, sometimes hiding in the coral before emerging again completely focused on something new.
Finding the deep waters where customers actually swim
T.E.E.P. gives you tracking radar for these moving customers. Instead of dropping your line blindly and hoping something connects, you can actually know which stage your customers are in when your message hits them.
Trigger stage: These fish just realized they have a problem. They’re actively looking for someone to acknowledge their pain point and show them there’s a solution. Your bait needs to name their specific problem and offer hope.
Explore stage: Now they’re swimming around, checking out all the different solutions available. They want education, comparison content, and proof that your category of solution actually works. They’re not ready for product pitches. They’re still figuring out what type of solution they need.
Evaluate stage: These customers have narrowed down to specific products or brands. They’re comparing features, reading reviews, checking prices. They want detailed information, social proof, and reasons to choose you over competitors.
Purchase stage: They’ve decided what they want. Now they’re just looking for the right time, price, or offer to pull the trigger. These fish respond to urgency, discounts, guarantees, and friction removal.
Here’s where many get it wrong: they create one message and blast it to everyone, regardless of what stage customers are in. It’s like using the same bait whether you’re fishing for surface feeders at dawn or bottom dwellers at midnight.
The dog feeder lesson
Back to that client story. Once we realized what was happening, everything clicked into place. The issue wasn’t that we’d exhausted our audience – it was that we were only fishing in one part of the lake.
Our research revealed the full picture: trigger ads were generating awareness and initial interest, but customers deeper in their journey (Explore and Evaluate stages) were driving the majority of revenue and had much higher lifetime values.
So we systematically built out our T.E.E.P. approach. We kept the trigger ads that were working but added exploration-stage content: “Here’s what actually works for dogs who eat too fast.” We created educational content about different slow feeding methods, compared bowl types versus puzzle feeders, and positioned our client’s product as the advanced solution for dog owners who’d already tried basic approaches
Then we added evaluate-stage messaging: detailed comparison content, specific use cases for different dog sizes and eating behaviors, and extensive social proof from customers with similar dogs.
Sales didn’t just recover: they exploded. We’d found the deeper waters where the bigger fish were swimming, and now we had the right bait for each depth.
Go where the fish are … and others aren’t
Most of your competitors are still casting blindly, using the same tired messages everyone else in your space is using. They’re like weekend anglers who spot another boat in the distance, motor right over, and drop their lines in the exact same spot. It’s not just rude: it’s counterproductive. All that activity scares the fish away.
Yet that’s exactly what happens in digital marketing. Someone sees a competitor’s successful ad, copies the message, and wonders why it doesn’t work. They’re fishing in overcrowded waters where customers have learned to ignore and avoid the noise.
You can get a massive advantage by simply paying attention to where your customers actually are in their decision process, then crafting messages that meet them there. Most operators are fishing only in the shallows because those metrics look good, while missing the deeper waters where the real scale lives.
The beauty of the T.E.E.P. system isn’t just that it helps you fish where the fish are … it’s that you can see the full lake and systematically work every depth. Instead of getting distracted by vanity metrics from shallow-water fishing, you can build a complete system that captures customers at every stage of their journey.
This is what separates skilled operators from lottery winners. When you understand customer psychology and track customer journey stages, marketing becomes less about luck and more about methodical precision.
Three ways to start fishing smarter today
Before you cast another dollar into the digital waters, ask yourself these three questions:
- Where are my customers right now? Look at your recent customer conversations and social media comments. Are people asking “What is [your product category]?” (research phase) or “Which brand should I choose?” (comparison phase) or “Are they offering any discounts?” (ready-to-buy phase)?
- What stage is my current messaging targeting? Review your ad copy, social posts, and email campaigns. Are you speaking to people who just discovered their problem, or those already comparing solutions? Most operators accidentally mix stage-specific messages, which confuses everyone.
- How can I test different waters? Create simple variations of your main message targeting different T.E.E.P. stages. Run them as separate ad sets for one week and see which waters have the most fish right now.
Take these three steps, and you’ll immediately start fishing more strategically than 90% of your competitors.
Tired of disappointing fishing trips with your marketing? I’ve spent more than a decade building systematic approaches that help health and wellness brands fish where their customers actually are. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start tracking, I’d be happy to show you exactly how the T.E.E.P. system works for brands like yours. Book a complimentary strategy session. No sales pitch, just a simple conversation about where your customers are swimming and how to reach them there.
