We burned through over a million crowns on marketing. And for a long time, we didn’t know what we were actually paying for. This isn’t a lecture or a how-to guide. It’s my story — and exactly what I wish someone had told me years ago.
I run an IT business. For years, I thought marketing was something you simply buy: you pay people who understand it, and they take care of it. It turned out to be one of the most expensive lessons I’ve ever received.
I’m not writing this to complain. I’m writing it because I know how many people are sitting exactly where I sat back then — paying every month, hoping, and afraid to admit out loud that they actually have no idea what they’re paying for.
First, an agency. Then the feeling of paying for thin air
It started subtly. I hired an agency. I trusted them — they seemed professional, spoke with confidence, and every month delivered a report full of charts. I paid the invoices and waited for the returns to start coming in.
Nothing came back.
For a while, I convinced myself it needed more time. That I simply didn’t understand and should leave the work to the experts. Every month I paid, hoping that next month would be the breakthrough. The breakthrough never came.
Until one day, that feeling in my gut fully hit me: I’m paying for thin air. For reports I didn’t understand. For activity I couldn’t verify. For promises that never materialized.
The worst part wasn’t even the money. The worst part was the shame. I was handing over significant money for something I didn’t understand, and I was afraid to ask if it was even working — so I wouldn’t look like the guy who doesn’t get it. So I kept paying.
In hindsight, it’s unbelievable. But when you’re in the middle of it, it feels completely normal to give that hope one more chance. And then another one.
A small firm from Brno against the biggest company in the world
I tried a different approach. Pay-per-click campaigns — you pay for everyone who clicks on your ad. It finally seemed like I had at least some control over things.
And then something happened that I refused to believe for a long time. Google stopped showing our data recovery ads. The reasoning? They claimed this industry couldn’t be promoted. But when I opened the search results myself, data recovery ads were running merrily along — a good five companies were advertising as before. Just not us.
I still remember that feeling. It wasn’t a defeat — it was an injustice. If the rules applied to everyone, I’d adapt. But these weren’t rules. On one side, a small company from Brno; on the other, the biggest company in the world — and between them, not a single human being you could call and say, „Wait, something’s not right here." Just a form and an automated reply looping in circles.
Most people would shrug it off. I didn’t — I couldn’t let it go. I filed a complaint with the Office for the Protection of Competition. And then we waited. Two years. Two years without advertising on Google, while our competitors continued.
How did we survive those two years? On the only thing we had left: honest work, experience, and word of mouth. A customer whose disk with family photos or a company’s accounting records you save will recommend you to others. Back then, it felt like a fallback solution. Today, I know it was the most valuable lesson of the whole story — but I’ll get to that.
After two years, Google backed down. In their own way: they blocked data recovery ads for everyone entirely. They didn’t refund us a single crown and didn’t give us anything. They just finally leveled the playing field. At least a level playing field for everyone.
It cost countless evenings, nerves, and paperwork — and there were moments when I didn’t know if it was even worth it. It wasn’t about money. It was about principle. And that feeling that we didn’t back down — no one can ever take that away from me.
And then two more agencies „for SEO"
You’d expect me to have finally learned my lesson. I hadn’t.
Two more agencies came along. This time „for SEO" — to help people find us when they search for something. Once again, confident promises. Once again, invoices. Once again, reports full of jargon I nodded along to, pretending to understand.
Why did I fall for it again? Because you want to believe. You want to believe that this time it will be different, that these guys finally know what they’re doing. Hope is powerful — and it’s exactly what makes it so easy to profit from.
When I tally it all up after all these years — the first agency, the campaigns, the next two agencies — we’re somewhere around a million crowns.
And the result? Almost nothing.
A million crowns and almost nothing.
I was ashamed of this for a long time. Today, I’m writing about it publicly on purpose — because it’s precisely this silence that keeps the whole merry-go-round spinning.
Two things I finally understood
It took me years to admit two things to myself. Neither one is easy to admit.
First: it was my fault too. I don’t want to pin it all on the agencies. I was paying for things I didn’t understand and couldn’t verify. I never once said the single most important thing: „Show me exactly what you’re doing for this money and why." Today, I know that when someone can’t clearly justify their work, it’s a warning sign. Back then, I didn’t want to hear it.
Second: there’s a completely different way to do this. And this realization brought me peace.
Advertising is like a tap. You pay, the water flows. You stop paying — or someone shuts it off, like they did to us — and you’re right back where you started. Good work and a good reputation are a well. Digging it takes more effort and more time, but the water keeps flowing. And it’s yours. No one can shut it off.
After all, we lived through it ourselves: for two years without advertising, referrals kept us afloat. It just didn’t occur to me at the time what life was trying to show me — that you can do exactly this systematically. Content that answers people’s real questions is nothing other than a recommendation that works even while you sleep.
What we built instead
I stopped looking for someone to handle it for me and finally started understanding it myself. We built our own way of doing things. It took time, and it takes work every single day. It’s not an overnight miracle. But it’s honest — and, more importantly, it’s ours.
There’s nothing magical about it. We write content that answers our customers’ real questions — the things people actually search for when they’re dealing with a problem we can help them solve. We track what works and what doesn’t, and we make decisions based on that. No promises of being number one. No reports for the sake of reports. Just work I can justify to myself.
And the main thing — we do it ourselves, in-house, for a fraction of what we used to pay. Money that once disappeared into someone else’s invoices now stays at home. And it has finally started to pay off.
For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m in command — not someone who sends me an invoice and a report at the end of the month that I still don’t understand.
The best proof I have is our own website. I didn’t hire anyone to tell you how good we are. We simply do it ourselves, day after day. Our reference is ourselves.
The one thing I regret
When I look back today, I don’t feel anger. I feel relief. That I finally understand it. That I’m no longer paying for thin air. That I can look at the results and know exactly where they come from.
The one thing I truly regret is not starting sooner. If I had taken things into my own hands a few years earlier, I would have saved myself a lot of money — and, above all, that feeling of helplessness. But maybe it couldn’t have happened any other way. Maybe I had to take that expensive path to truly understand it today.
Check me out — I mean it
I want to build something that makes sense. For the people it helps, and for me.
Maybe you’re thinking, „Aren’t you just another one of those people you’ve been writing about this whole time?" A fair question. The companies I work with now want to check me out thoroughly — and I completely understand that. After what you’ve just read, you’d be careless not to. I vet every partner myself these days too.
That’s why I’m attaching two official documents from that investigation to this article: requests from the Office for the Protection of Competition from February 2021 and April 2022, case reference number ÚOHS-P0359/2020/DP. I’ve redacted the officials’ names — they don’t belong in this story. The rest is exactly as it arrived in our data box. This story isn’t a marketing fairy tale.
The takeaway: create quality content on your own site
If you take away just one thing from my whole story, let it be this: create quality content on your own site — on your own website, under your own name.
No one can take away what you invest in it overnight. An advertising account can be shut down from one day to the next — I know what I’m talking about. The work you put into your own website stays yours. It grows, even when you’re not actively paying.
And there’s something else in it that eluded me for a long time. Quality content that honestly answers real questions isn’t just marketing — it’s help. Someone is searching late at night about what to do with a clicking hard drive full of family photos, and they find a clear, understandable answer. You help people you’ll never meet. That’s the kind of internet we all want and need — and, coincidentally, it’s also the most honest way to build a business today.
If you’re going through something similar right now — paying for marketing and not knowing if it’s doing anything at all — you’re not alone. And you don’t have to figure everything out as expensively as I did.
I won’t push anything on you. But if you’d like to have a relaxed chat about it, get in touch. I’m happy to tell you straight what from my experience could work for you too — and what I’d do differently today.