Fake Smart Marketing
Breakdown SeriesEvery time Fake Smart Marketing shows up in the wild, it gets stripped down and rewritten. No softening. No mercy. Just the original, what's wrong with it, and what it should say instead.
14 breakdowns published. More added as new examples surface.
What each breakdown shows
Original copy
The actual language from the live site — no paraphrasing
What's wrong
Why it fails — specifically, not generally
The rewrite
What it should say — plain, direct, clear
Why it works
The structural reason the rewrite converts better
Latest Breakdowns
NewProgrammatic Advertising
Six rewrites. No mercy. How a solid product hides behind language that says nothing.
Social Media Management
Six sections. Six rewrites. A scheduling tool that works — buried under copy that doesn't.
Website App Platform
A useful no-code tool with 60+ apps — hidden behind copy that never explains what it actually does.
Published Breakdowns
01 — Programmatic Advertising — Apr 2026
Six rewrites. No mercy. How a solid product hides behind language that says nothing.
02 — Social Media Management — Apr 2026
Six sections. Six rewrites. A scheduling tool that works — buried under copy that doesn't.
03 — Website App Platform — Apr 2026
A useful no-code tool with 60+ apps — hidden behind copy that never explains what it actually does.
04 — Local Service Business — Apr 2026
FSM isn't just a SaaS problem. A composite teardown of real roofing company copy from South Florida GBP listings.
05 — Design SaaS — Apr 2026
A $40B product with genuinely excellent UX — still using mission statements where value propositions should be. Six sections. Six rewrites.
06 — Local Service Business — Apr 2026
FSM isn't just a SaaS problem. A composite teardown of real HVAC company copy from South Florida GBP listings. Comfort slogans, vague credentials, and missing specifics — six sections, six rewrites.
07 — Contract Management SaaS — Apr 2026
Contracts as your "operating system." A polished B2B SaaS product with copy that sounds strategic and says almost nothing. Six sections. Six rewrites.
08 — Professional Services — Legal — Apr 2026
"Committed to Excellence. Dedicated to You." A composite teardown of real law firm homepage copy. FSM spans every industry vertical — professional services firms do it worse than SaaS.
09 — Professional Services — Accounting — Apr 2026
"Trusted advisors committed to your financial success." A composite teardown of real CPA firm homepage copy. The professional services trifecta: law, accounting, consulting — all doing the same thing wrong.
10 — Professional Services — Consulting — Apr 2026
"Transforming Organizations. Delivering Results." The professional services trifecta is complete. Consulting firms charge $300/hour to fix communication problems in other organizations — while ignoring the same problems in their own marketing.
11 — SaaS — AI Executive Assistant — Apr 2026
"Not a tool. A hire." A clever tagline that never gets explained. Viktor is a genuinely useful AI assistant — buried under copy that could describe any productivity tool from 2019 to 2026. Six sections. Six rewrites.
12 — SaaS — Influencer Marketing Platform — Apr 2026
"AI-Powered Influencer Marketing." A platform with 7M+ creators in its database — buried under copy that could belong to any competitor. "Supercharge." "Data-driven insights." "Seamless." Six sections. Six rewrites.
13 — Consumer Goods — National Brand — Apr 2026
"Imitado por muchos. Igualado por ninguno." A strong tagline. A genuinely superior product. Copy that never earns either. Proof that Fake Smart Marketing is not a startup problem — it's a national one. Six sections. Six rewrites.
14 — Consumer Goods — Tallow Skincare — Apr 2026
Over 1,000,000 customers. A bee logo that carries the entire brand philosophy. A four-ingredient formula that beats 30-ingredient moisturizers. And a Shopify site that treats all of it like decoration. Six sections. Six rewrites.
Coming Soon
More breakdowns are added as new examples of Fake Smart Marketing surface. If you've seen copy that belongs here, you know where to find me.
The pattern
Across every breakdown, the same mistakes appear:
Jargon that sounds smart but says nothing
Verbs that describe activity, not outcomes
No specificity — could apply to any business
Written for other marketers, not buyers
Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Related Reading
The full definition — what it is, why people do it, why it fails, and what to do instead.
How page structure and clear language drive conversions.
The structural reasons most websites don't produce results.
How clarity builds trust faster than any credential.
Your website probably has some of this.
Most do. The question is whether you want to fix it.
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