Michelle Mowbray

Michelle Mowbray Helping ambitious consumer brands make better growth decisions as they scale | Multi-Channel Advertising & Growth Strategy | Ex-WPP Lifer

I've tried to distil some of the 'stuff' in my head into a helpful guide - the result: 7 questions every seriously scali...
30/07/2026

I've tried to distil some of the 'stuff' in my head into a helpful guide - the result: 7 questions every seriously scaling founder should be looking to answer before they commit to big-budget changes or add more channels.

Link to download in the comments below (don't worry - it's not an email address grab, it's just there waiting for you 😀)

28/07/2026

It's dawned on me recently that the conversations I'm having with prospective clients have changed.

More often than not, they used to be a variation on the theme of: "What else can we be doing? How can we spend more?"

Now the chats are around: "Why isn't what we're doing working like it used to?"

They're not looking for more tactics. They're looking for fresh eyes, objective thinking, and clarity about what's changed, what's still working... and then where to focus next.

I had a really good discovery call this week with a brand building something genuinely good.A Gorgeous product, great br...
24/07/2026

I had a really good discovery call this week with a brand building something genuinely good.

A Gorgeous product, great brand - it was one of the better conversations I've had in a while.

They went with someone cheaper, who said they could do ads but wasn't their core offering.

I'm not sharing this as a whinge (though I was genuinely gutted). Founders make budget decisions and I respect that.

But I keep coming back to what usually happens next in that situation, not necessarily to this brand - obvs I genuinely hope it goes well, but to the pattern.

Yeah they get activity, a few new ideas, money gets spent... but all too often the thinking and experience isn't there, months later they're still asking the same question - why isn't this working?

I find the clients who come to me most frustrated have usually been through a few shops but are still not sure whether the business has real scalable legs or if they just never gave it a proper shot with the right partner.

Anyway, no sour grapes here, honest. 😀

If you turned off Meta tomorrow do you know what would actually happen to your sales?Not what the dashboard says. What w...
21/07/2026

If you turned off Meta tomorrow do you know what would actually happen to your sales?

Not what the dashboard says. What would actually happen.

It’s one of the harder questions to answer, and honestly, most brands can’t, not because they’re not paying attention, but because the data isn’t set up to tell them.

Worth sitting with before your next budget decision and it’s one of seven questions I think founders should be looking to answer when shifting gear.

The Pressure Test link is in my bio 🔗





These girls. I cannot express how much they mean to me and the impact they have, we have on each other.20 odd years of f...
18/07/2026

These girls. I cannot express how much they mean to me and the impact they have, we have on each other.
20 odd years of friendship career pivots, job moves, kids.
All still hanging on with the very best of advice and love for each other.
Love you all so much x

The CPA at your current spend is unlikely to be the CPA you'll see at three times current spend.Diminishing returns are ...
22/06/2026

The CPA at your current spend is unlikely to be the CPA you'll see at three times current spend.

Diminishing returns are a b* #?h, and often founders find that out the hard way.

Early spend reaches the people most ready to buy. The ones already drifting your way or orbiting the problem you solve. The ones who only needed a click to be persuaded.

That is why the early CPA looks good.

As spend goes up, the audience needs to widen. You start reaching past the most ready and into the harder territory. People who needed more than a click. People who have never heard of you. People who won't be buying this week or next.

Efficiency slips.

Often, the targeting gets called into question. In my experience, it is almost never the bottleneck.

After a point, the bottleneck is that you've already harvested the people most ready to convert, and the next pound has further to travel.

This can be sharper in retail. The sale doesn't land on your site. It lands on the retailer's and at the till. The ad platform can't see it - this is where proxy conversions and signals are used carefully.

Before you double the budget, the question worth answering is at what CPA does the business actually break, and how far are you from that number on the current trajectory?
Not the CPA you're hoping for, the CPA you can live with.

Great day at the AllBright everywoman Entrepreneur Growth Forum today.Got to hangout with Emma Holland (Gage) | Brand St...
16/06/2026

Great day at the AllBright everywoman Entrepreneur Growth Forum today.

Got to hangout with Emma Holland (Gage) | Brand Strategist and listen to a massively impressive group of women founders.

Loved hearing Lemon Fuller Lemonade Dolls talk about the phenomenal success of her brand and how it’s “not just one thing” that drives her sales engine - it’s all the things working together that bring down the costs down, not just the Meta ads, it’s the TV, the creators, the influencers…and being obsessed with the return of everything.

Music to my ears that one.

This post should have taken me about 2 minutes to write, but I can't tell you how much I've been blocked in my own head ...
15/06/2026

This post should have taken me about 2 minutes to write, but I can't tell you how much I've been blocked in my own head about it.

The business is nearly 6, and I've killed it.

When I say killed it, I mean Be Seen Consulting is no more.

Truthfully, it was never the right business name for what I do.

(A note to self - next time you set up a business, be more intentional from the start. It only took me three business names and three websites to get there.)

The big reveal is I'm now simply Michelle Mowbray.

The work isn't changing; I still work with a brilliant network of specialists when clients need them. But the thinking, the relationships and the accountability have always sat with me.

So, after wayyy too much overthinking, it felt like time to make it official.

If you want to take a peep at my new website, it's here: https://michellemowbray.co.uk/

Many founders and brands I speak to don’t really have the marketing problem they think they do...It’s usually more of a ...
08/04/2026

Many founders and brands I speak to don’t really have the marketing problem they think they do...

It’s usually more of a decision problem.

They've got to the point where spend is going up, maybe they've added a new channel or two and things are starting to feel a lot less clear.

What worked before isn’t quite working in the same way and they're no longer sure what's actually driving things at all.

So the instinct is to do more, spend a bit more, try another channel, push things a bit harder, but that’s usually not what fixes it.

More often, it just makes the lack of clarity more expensive.

What tends to help is stepping back and getting really clear on what’s actually driving growth, what isn’t, and where the focus should be.

That’s usually the point where I come in.

Many founders don’t notice when this starts happening.Ad spend goes up, revenue is still growing, and everything looks b...
24/03/2026

Many founders don’t notice when this starts happening.

Ad spend goes up, revenue is still growing, and everything looks broadly fine.

Then, a few months later, costs are higher, growth has slowed, and nobody is quite sure why - it usually gets blamed on the ads. It rarely is.

What’s usually happening is simpler. The business is starting to run out of existing demand.

Early on, performance channels work well because they capture people who are already in market.

As spend increases, you move beyond that group and start paying more to reach people who were less ready to buy in the first place.

So efficiency drops, and growth starts to feel harder.

At that point, most brands try to fix it with better ads - new creatives, more testing, targeting that no longer works...

Sometimes that buys a bit of time, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

Because the advertising is already doing its job. It’s capturing the demand that exists.

The issue is there isn’t enough new demand being created to support the next stage of growth.

That’s the point where growth stops being a media problem and becomes a demand problem.

Performance channels can help create demand, but many brands use them just to capture it.

So the question shifts - not how do we improve the ads, but what is going to drive growth now?

Because real scaling can’t be just about capturing demand, it’s about creating more of it.

Address

Surrey
RH14JH

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5:30pm
Tuesday 9am - 5:30pm
Wednesday 9am - 5:30pm
Thursday 9am - 5:30pm
Friday 9am - 5:30pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Michelle Mowbray posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Michelle Mowbray:

Shortcuts

Share

Category