The Decoding Clicks and Cashflow Podcast

What if your marketing is generating clicks, but you don't know whether those clicks are actually turning into customers?

In this episode of Decoding Clicks and Cashflow Podcast, Tanner Holt sits down with Braden Tobler, a digital marketing strategist and agency owner with nearly a decade of experience in Google Ads, SEO, and marketing for service-based businesses.

Braden explains why businesses should focus on search intent, conversion tracking, and ROI instead of relying only on impressions, clicks, or rankings.

The conversation explores:

Why Google remains important in an AI-driven search landscape

How SEO and Google Ads can work together

Why search intent matters when choosing keywords

How negative keywords can reduce wasted ad spend

When businesses should consider paid ads versus SEO

How to test Google Ads using different headlines and ad variations

Why copying competitors should only be a starting point

How to measure leads and assign value to different conversions

Why customer lifetime value matters when calculating marketing ROI

How attribution helps businesses understand multiple customer touchpoints

Why retargeting can bring interested visitors back into the buying journey

How landing pages can make conversion easier

What businesses should know about Google's AI Overviews and AI Max

How AI can be used in marketing while maintaining authentic, useful content

Braden also explains how different leads can have very different values. A general dentistry lead may be worth hundreds of dollars, while cosmetic dentistry, dental implants, or specialized services can be worth significantly more.

The conversation also covers Braden's journey from working at an SEO agency to starting his own consultancy. After an unexpected truck accident at his office, he decided to pursue greater freedom and eventually built a business serving around 20–25 clients at a time.

One key takeaway from the episode is simple:

Clicks and rankings are useful metrics, but businesses ultimately need to understand whether their marketing is generating valuable customers.

🎙️ Watch the full episode to learn how search intent, testing, attribution, and conversion tracking can help turn marketing spend into measurable business results.

About Decoding Clicks and Cashflow Podcast

Hosted by Tanner Holt, Decoding Clicks and Cashflow features conversations with business owners and experts sharing real experiences and practical insights on marketing, conversions, testing, operations, entrepreneurship, and business growth.

👍 Subscribe for more practical marketing and business insights.

#GoogleAds #SEO #DigitalMarketing #SearchIntent #MarketingROI #ConversionTracking #BusinessGrowth #MarketingStrategy #DecodingClicksAndCashflow

What if the marketing message you believe will work is not actually the message your customers care about?

In this episode of Decoding Clicks and Cashflow Podcast, Tanner Holt sits down with Kim Pomares, CEO of Mendability, for a practical conversation about marketing data, customer research, testing, messaging, client acquisition, neurological development, entrepreneurship, and why business owners should pay attention to what customers actually do instead of relying only on assumptions.

Kim explains how data has played an important role in the growth of Mendability. When he joined the family business, the program had evidence behind it and many positive stories, but Kim knew stronger clinical data would be important if the company wanted to move beyond being viewed mainly as a last resort. Over time, Mendability completed clinical studies that gave the company stronger data about its approach.

But having strong research did not automatically solve the marketing problem.

Kim explains that one of the biggest challenges was learning how to communicate Mendability's message in a way that people would understand and respond to. Instead of simply asking customers what they wanted, the company began testing different messages and watching what people actually clicked, viewed, and engaged with.

The conversation explores why business owners can easily fall into the "curse of knowledge." Because they understand their products so well, they may assume customers think about the problem in the same way they do. Kim explains why real customer behavior can reveal something completely different.

In this episode, you'll discover:

Why customer behavior can be more useful than simply asking people what they prefer

How testing can help business owners challenge their own assumptions

Why statistical confidence matters when making marketing decisions

How small changes in words, images, and offers can affect customer response

Why a kitchen renovation test produced an unexpected winning image

How Kim tested different marketing messages for Mendability

Why clinical study results were not always the strongest marketing message

How messaging around time became important in Mendability's marketing

Why "The Six Week Proof" became the title of a Mendability webinar

How businesses can test different parts of the customer journey

Why warm audiences and cold traffic can respond differently

How inexpensive early tests can help identify ideas worth testing further

Why focus groups and hypothetical questions can produce misleading answers

How website behavior and heat maps can reveal what customers actually care about

Why businesses should keep testing even after finding a profitable baseline

Kim also shares an example from a friend who worked on high-end kitchen renovations. His friend believed professional photographs of completed kitchens would perform best in advertising because they showed the quality of his work. But when they tested different images, including finished kitchens, photos of the owner working, and pictures of quotes, the results surprised them.

The strongest group was the pictures of quotes. Kim explains that the quote images received about a 6 percent click-through rate, compared with about 4 percent for the finished kitchens and roughly 2.5 to 3 percent for pictures of the owner. The test became another reminder that what a business owner believes customers want to see may not match what customers actually respond to.

Kim also discusses how Mendability tested its own marketing. The company explored different customer pains, messages, educational formats, webinar titles, offers, and calls to action. One important finding was that messages connected to time strongly resonated with the audience. That testing eventually helped shape a webinar called The Six Week Proof.

Rather than rebuilding everything whenever something stops performing, Kim and Tanner discuss the value of creating a strong baseline and then continuing to test new ideas against it. Kim explains that having tested pieces across the customer journey helped him develop what he describes as a numbers-based client acquisition system.

The conversation also explores Mendability itself and how its approach differs from therapies that focus mainly on skills and drills. Kim explains that Mendability focuses on strengthening neurological function so the brain can become stronger, faster, more adaptable, and more resilient. The company primarily works with parents of children with autism, while Kim also discusses research and possible applications involving other neurological conditions.

Kim also opens up about the path that brought him into the family business. Early in life, he was interested in becoming a doctor or researcher and wanted to make a difference in the world. After spending time in Eastern Europe, his direction changed. He later studied graphic design, started a successful graphic design company, and eventually agreed to help his mother as her clinic grew.

At first, Kim was not convinced that his mother's approach could work as well as she believed. After becoming more involved, however, he saw the need for stronger clinical evidence and helped move the company toward a more data-based approach.

His interest in numbers started much earlier. Kim recalls programming games on his graphing calculator in high school, including a lottery-style game and another game involving angles, force, and hitting a target. Today, that same interest in testing, numbers, and problem-solving continues to influence how he approaches both Mendability and marketing.

Kim also discusses delegation and why outsourcing does not mean business owners should completely remove themselves from the work. His experience taught him that owners still need to understand what is happening and remain involved in protecting the direction of the business.

His message throughout the conversation is clear: business owners should test their assumptions, watch what customers actually do, and use real data to build a marketing system they can improve over time.

If you're a business owner, marketer, service provider, or entrepreneur looking to better understand your customers, improve your messaging, test ideas before making large investments, and build a more reliable client acquisition system, this episode provides practical lessons you can apply.

🎙️ Listen to the full episode and discover how testing customer behavior, challenging your assumptions, and following the data can help you build marketing that connects with the people you want to reach.

#Entrepreneurship #DigitalMarketing #BusinessGrowth #MarketingData #CustomerResearch #MarketingStrategy #ConversionOptimization #ABTesting #ClientAcquisition #Mendability

What if the marketing advice you followed focused less on impressions and engagement and more on whether your business actually made money?

In this introductory episode of Decoding Clicks and Cashflow Podcast, producer Nick sits down with Tanner Holt, Marketing Strategist at Mach 7 Marketing LLC, for a practical conversation about online marketing, cash flow, paid and organic traffic, conversions, testing, customer retention, entrepreneurship, and why business owners should always focus on results.

Tanner explains that Decoding Clicks and Cashflow is built around real stories from business owners who have experienced the challenges of turning their first clicks into positive cash flow. Rather than focusing only on marketing theory, the podcast will explore what business owners actually tried, what worked, what failed, and what they learned along the way.

The conversation also explores why marketing results can change quickly.

Tanner explains how rising advertising costs, poor retention, changing platforms, and weak business strategies can turn something profitable into something that loses money. He also discusses why businesses need to understand the difference between paid and organic visitors, segment their traffic, study their data, and continually test what is working.

In this episode, you'll discover:

Why clicks and traffic mean little if they do not create positive cash flow

How rising advertising costs can change the profitability of a campaign

Why customer retention can have a major impact on lifetime value

How paid and organic website visitors can behave differently

Why segmenting traffic can help businesses better understand their data

How small conversion changes can create meaningful gains or losses

Why advertising can amplify both good and bad business strategies

How testing helps businesses find what actually produces results

Why market signals should come before building and scaling

How the podcast will use real business stories instead of relying only on theory

Why marketing requires different skills across ads, websites, SEO, AI, and other areas

How customer service and operations can affect profitability

Why business owners need to keep up with changing marketing platforms

How Tanner learned to focus on results instead of effort

Why resilience, competition, and early entrepreneurship shaped Tanner's approach to business

Tanner also opens up about growing up in Spanish Fork, working at a call center at 14, and being promoted to a manager and quality supervisor within weeks. By 16, he was working with an entrepreneur who had written a book about starting businesses with high school students, where Tanner began learning SEO and how online marketing worked.

He also shares how struggling with baseball as a child taught him to find another way to get results. Instead of focusing only on hitting the ball, he learned to use his small strike zone to get walked to first base. That early habit of looking for a better approach later became part of how he thought about optimization and business.

Tanner eventually started a lead generation company with friends, bought out their shares, sold the business they had created, and moved into consulting. One early consulting experience reinforced a lesson that continues to shape his approach today. A client did not want to pay his proposed rate, so Tanner agreed to a small monthly payment plus commission. Within two months, the client was generating five times the sales, and Tanner was earning more than he would have under his original fee.

His message is simple but powerful: effort matters, but businesses ultimately need results that turn clicks into positive cash flow.

Decoding Clicks and Cashflow will feature business owners, software partners, and marketing experts discussing topics such as advertising, SEO, conversions, testing, retention, operations, AI, customer service, hiring marketing professionals, and scaling profitable strategies.

If you're a coach, service business owner, e-commerce entrepreneur, or business leader looking to improve your marketing, understand your numbers, test smarter strategies, and turn more of your clicks into cash flow, this podcast is built to provide practical lessons you can apply.

🎙️ Listen to the full episode and discover why understanding your data, testing what works, and focusing on real business results can help you turn clicks into cash flow.

#Entrepreneurship #DigitalMarketing #BusinessGrowth #CashFlow #OnlineMarketing #MarketingStrategy #ConversionOptimization #SEO #PaidAdvertising #SmallBusiness

Welcome to Decoding Clicks and Cashflow—the no-fluff podcast for businesses ready to stop guessing, cut through vanity metrics, and start scaling with repeatable profit.