There’s a trend circulating through TikTok and Instagram, where creators list the handful of splurges and lifestyle upgrades (often expensive and aspirational) that turned out to be “worth every penny”. It works because a price tag makes a recommendation feel more honest and we think marketing budgets deserve the same treatment.
Here’s ROAST’s version: five investments we consistently see pay off and one we think deserves an honest look before you commit more budget to it.
1. A Consistently Reactive Digital PR Programme
1. A Consistently Reactive Digital PR Programme
Invest in Reactive PR by consistently providing timely, newsworthy content to journalists because fresh content matters. More than half of AI citations reference content published within the previous year, with the highest citation rate occurring within the first seven days after publication. Consistently reacting to relevant news and trends will give your brand a stronger chance of earning media coverage, staying relevant and increasing your visibility.
Publishers such as Reach PLC are investing heavily in dedicated video teams, showing the growing demand for video-first stories that can be shared across their platforms. Brands that react to news consistently will earn more coverage and more visibility.
2. Genuinely Good Paid Social Creative, Video Led
2. Genuinely Good Paid Social Creative, Video Led
Meta estimates that roughly half of campaign impact is driven by the creative used, and short form video is now how media attention is spent across every major platform. Good creative doesn’t just lift one channel, it compounds across the whole media strategy, YouTube visibility, SEO performance and LLM visibility.
3. A Structured CRO Testing Programme
3. A Structured CRO Testing Programme
At a time when organic traffic is under pressure industry-wide, making the most of every visitor to your site matters more than ever.
ROAST runs methodical and structured A/B testing programmes to lift your website’s conversion rate.
4. A Proper IA and Content Strategy
4. A Proper IA and Content Strategy
Most businesses are too close to their own internal lingo, ways of thinking, org charts to notice how it alienates web users. Bringing in a proper UX designer to run a business-goal-versus-user-goal exercise usually reveals a gap fast. Tree testing is a genuinely useful way to see how effective your IA is and you get pretty charts from it.
5. An Honest Test on Brand Bidding
5. An Honest Test on Brand Bidding
Bidding on brand navigational keywords, such as [brand], [brand.com] can directly cannibalises your organic traffic without necessarily driving incremental gains. The money worth spending is on the test that tells you whether it’s working or quietly costing you.
