In today’s fast-changing digital world, businesses don’t just need more leads or flashy ad campaigns—they need consistent marketing results they can rely on. That’s where Marketing Systems Engineering (MSE) comes in, ATRIUM Digital’s proprietary approach to solving one of the biggest challenges in marketing: unpredictability.

Why Traditional Marketing Falls Short

For decades, most agencies have followed a “big idea” model. A creative team pitches a concept, launches a campaign, and hopes it resonates. Sometimes it works. Other times, it doesn’t. Even when it does, the success often fades, leaving businesses stuck chasing the next big idea.

The problem? Creativity alone can’t guarantee consistent, measurable outcomes and secure a scalable marketing strategy. Businesses need more than inspiration—they need a reliable system that drives results month after month, year after year.

What Is Marketing Systems Engineering?

MSE applies an engineering mindset in marketing campaigns. Instead of focusing only on creatives and campaigns, MSE looks at the entire marketing engine vs strategy—from data and strategy down to daily execution. Every piece of the system is connected, measured, and improved over time.

Think of it this way: your marketing strategy is one gear in the engine, whereas MSE is the engine itself.

By optimizing the entire system, businesses get marketing that doesn’t just spark results once but keeps delivering consistently.

Why Consistency Matters

Consistency in marketing isn’t just about steady growth—it impacts the entire business. Predictable results allow leaders to make confident decisions about staffing, scaling, and even long-term planning, such as dividends or exit strategies.

Instead of wondering whether a campaign “worked,” MSE clarifies what’s succeeding, what needs adjusting, and how to scale results further. With precise data and connected systems, businesses avoid the guesswork and enjoy measurable, dependable progress.

The Role of Data in MSE

Data is at the heart of the MSE marketing approach. Unlike traditional marketing, where results are often based on impressions or estimates, MSE gives businesses black-and-white insights into what’s driving outcomes. If something works, you’ll see it. If it doesn’t, you’ll know where to pivot.

This transparency not only helps businesses grow but also builds stronger client-agency relationships. When results are consistent and measurable, built within a data-driven marketing system, trust naturally follows.

How ATRIUM Implements MSE

At ATRIUM, we’ve built our teams around this systems-first approach. Our specialists—whether in online advertising, content creation, social media, or analytics—optimize the details every day. Meanwhile, our strategists oversee the full system, aligning day-to-day execution with big-picture goals.

This dual focus ensures that every adjustment, campaign, and decision contributes to the larger goal of consistent, scalable marketing strategies and results.

The Future of Marketing

Marketing Systems Engineering isn’t just a method; it’s a mindset. As digital tools evolve—whether through AI, new platforms, or changing customer behaviors—MSE adapts. The engine continues to grow stronger, helping businesses face new challenges with confidence.

At ATRIUM Digital Marketing, we’re proud to pioneer this approach, helping organizations of all sizes—from startups to non-profits to established enterprises—find clarity, consistency, and sustainable growth.

Ready to see how MSE can transform your marketing? Contact our Initial Strategies team to learn more and become a part of the future of digital marketing.

MSE Video Transcript

[00:00:00] Interviewer: Why do digital marketing agencies need to change? 

[00:00:15] Chris Lawson: We’ve been around a long time, and we’ve learned over the years that marketing agencies typically lead with creative ideas they’ve had, but ultimately, those ideas, including the creativity that they have, will eventually run out. The results won’t consistently happen, and because of that.

We’ve learned that consistency is actually the thing that most organizations are after. The consistency of your marketing results is what helps you get to the place of predictive revenue, scalability, make confident decisions about your staffing, let alone things like dividend planning, exit strategies, so on and so forth.

[00:00:53] Jordan Woolf: When we look at how the industry though, has evolved, it’s kind of followed that same agency model that was more of the traditional agencies where you had, you know, advertising executives coming up with brilliant ideas that then get pitched that then become a campaign. That gets rolled out, and maybe you’re really successful.

Maybe you’ve got a very creative team that had the right idea and the right place, and you get a lot of success. Uh, maybe you get a whole bunch of people seeing that commercial, or in the digital realm, maybe a bunch of people get those views. You get the subscribers, it works out. That’s what the business hired you for.

As their agency, and that’s how they get their value out of it. But the trick is they’re not really taking advantage of the actual environment they’re in, in the digital realm. The main problem that they’re going to run into is traditionally, attrition rates and agencies are really high, kind of embarrassingly high compared to other business models.

[00:01:48] Chris Lawson: At the end of the day, by building out proper, effective data-driven engines that are aligned for marketing consistency, we can solve operational challenges that traditional marketing routines can’t solve. 

[00:02:02] Jordan Woolf: Delivering on consistency is a completely different outcome than what you’d expect a creative agency to work on. Creativity is a fantastic thing, and it’s certainly a part of a lot of what we do at ATRIUM, but it’s not the goal.

It’s not the focus of our model. It’s not the main thing we’re selling, even to a customer. It’s just a step in the process. You have to be creative, but if that’s your focus, then that’s your outcome.

[00:02:29] Interviewer: What role does engineering have in marketing? 

[00:02:32] Jordan Woolf: The engineering mindset is- I’m using very deliberately the word mindset. Having that mindset is just really being able to look at things and their connection. So if you look up a definition for engineering, you might get slightly different versions of it, but it is mostly the ability to look at the real external world and have changes that you can produce that change the result of that outside world.

There’s things you can affect and adjust or build or produce that change the outcome. But you know, I guess my challenge to the industry is I think that, given the fact that digital is so measurable and you can look at these things that used to be very abstract and kind of go like, well, I think our campaign worked really well ’cause I think a lot of people probably saw our billboard today.

You can really say, yeah, this campaign failed, this strategy didn’t work. We didn’t get enough followers. Or maybe we did, maybe we exceeded our sales expectations, ’cause we know that the things that we did directly delivered on that.

[00:03:25] Chris Lawson: When you view marketing from the lens of an engineer, the entire system is very different. A marketer, for example, will look at it from the lens of creativity or ‘how do I craft a message a certain way,’ but it’s not based on data analysis. It’s not based on how the entire engine needs to function from tip to toe.

So when you come in, as a marketing engineer, ultimately what you’re doing is you’re looking at every single component from tip to toe and trying to make sure that each of those components is functioning at optimal performance. 

[00:04:04] Interviewer:  We talked about engineering, I think that leads us into marketing systems engineering, which obviously, ATRIUM has been the pioneering figure behind— what is marketing systems engineering?

[00:04:16] Jordan Woolf: When we look at marketing for our clients, again, trying to solve that consistency. As the outcome, that’s the north star. If we can deliver consistency, then our clients are going to stay with us. That’s kind of the selfish side of it, as an agency owner, we want our clients to be happy. We want them to get the results, and we want them to stay with us until the point where maybe we’ve just grown them out of that need altogether, but we don’t want them to leave because the results were not achieved. 

[00:04:39] Chris Lawson: Marketing systems engineering is a holistic approach on how an entire marketing engine functions and is integrated together.

[00:04:47] Interviewer: From a business owner’s perspective, as my business grows and as I have this vision for where I want to take it, can MSE adapt with my business as we take a new leap?

[00:04:57] Chris Lawson: One of the best parts of my job is talking to organizations. Could be a not-for-profit, could be a startup. And I could help them get from the problem that they have to the solution that they require simply by popping the hood and looking at things constructively.

[00:05:17] Interviewer: How do you use data and MSE to scale your business? 

[00:05:21] Jordan Woolf: So, data is an unavoidable double-edged sword of this industry. It is both the savior and also it’s the consequence. If you do a good job, it’s going to show you you’re doing that good job, and that’s the thing that you can build your career around, make the money, and open up your dreams. On the other side, if you’re not doing a good job, it is black and white. You did not get the results you wanted.

[00:05:43] Chris Lawson: The difference between a marketing system versus a marketing strategy is pretty simple. A marketing strategy is often the way that you’re implementing a specific program or cog within the engine. MSE is the entire engine itself. So if you’re a marketer and you’re sitting here going, “Hmm, the operations of my organization are having a problem”, that might be an MSE challenge.

Now you can still go into that marketing strategy with the lens of how you view that entire engine and make iterative changes. But an actual marketing engine is going to have a ton of different strategies within it, as well as holistically. So a strategy should be something that you are looking at and tweaking and evolving over the course of your quarter, the year, the season that you’re in— but you’re also gonna be making iterative changes within the overall engine from the lens of an engineer, which is what MSE is all about 

[00:06:45] Jordan Woolf: When we’re talking with clients for the first time, I think there’s a point where nobody really comes in asking for MSE or marketing systems engineering.

They’re coming in, going, “I’ve got a business, I’ve got a problem, I’ve got a challenge I’m facing.” And you’re coming from that perspective, you don’t really know that this discipline even exists. To be honest, there are very few people in the world that know about MSE or that are applying in any real sense.

It’s fairly new ground. At the same time, it’s broadly applicable to solve a lot of those challenges. The objective they’re trying to achieve is really the most important thing we need to clarify before we can move forward and decide whether our approach or MSE, broadly speaking, is something that can solve that for them.

[00:07:26] Interviewer: So obviously, ATRIUM, as an agency, implements marketing systems engineering within its client work. For you, as one of ATRIUM’s principals, what excites you about MSE? 

[00:07:38] Jordan Woolf: I think this gets to the root of me as an individual. I’m a little bit weird. Most marketing people are very creative and expressive.

I’m that logical, kind of Spock-like person. I tend to use logic first, and so for me, MSE is very linear. It’s something that has right and wrong answers. It’s something that can be measured and has outcomes and processes, and things that you can dial and improve on over time. That view in the world is something that works really well for me.

But the more we talk to clients, the more it resonates with so many other people. So, actually, even though it’s something that’s really well-suited for myself, and that in itself is exciting as something that’s just attuned to the way I view the world personally. Those people that might have come from that creative background or those new clients that had no exposure to this way of thinking, who then get excited, that’s even more exciting, and that happens more often than not.

[00:08:36] Chris Lawson: ATRIUM implements MSE in two ways. The first is at the ground level. We have implementers. We have individual staff members, online advertising specialists, data scientists, content writers, social media staff, so on and so forth that are there every single day to turn those knobs, move those levers, and iteratively get better and better and better performance with the goal of having consistency throughout the marketing mix.

We also operate at the strategy level where we have marketing systems, engineers, initial strategists, overarching strategists who oversee the entire marketing mix, where their job is not just to look at the data, but also look at operational goals and pass all that information down to the people who are implementing so that we’re equipped, aligned, and moving all in the same direction ultimately, like I said earlier, for that marketing consistency.

[00:09:26] Jordan Woolf: So one way that we see marketing systems engineering long-term is not only the improvement of the consistency quotient, which is our North Star. The other thing that you’re able to do is once you’ve got those consistent results, you look at the next challenge, the next scale, the next thing that you want to build into the system, that adds to it, that contributes to it in a new way.

So, working with a client long-term in MSE is something we really enjoy ’cause we get to evolve and see that scale go up, see that consistency and improve in new ways, at different scale levels and building that machine or that engineered machine into a lot more of a robust, multifaceted monster, which is kind of fun.

[00:10:03] Chris Lawson: No business is the same, which means no marketing mix is the same; depending on the objective you’re trying to achieve, you know, revenue goals, could be geographical goals. Maybe you’re a not-for-profit and you need more donors or more volunteers. That marketing mix is gonna be very different, so we have to make sure that we’re actually aligning the program and its measurement with real KPIs that enable us to pivot accordingly.

[00:10:29] Jordan Woolf: I’m a problem solver at heart. Like, making difficult problems for people go away is the most rewarding thing I can do, and being at ATRIUM is like having this superpowered engine that allows me to do that really efficiently for a lot more people. That’s a really exciting thing. The other part, as being one of the principles of the agencies, I also get to be on the forefront of when there is some big shifts happening.

Also, solving our own problem to go like, how do we incorporate this? What does this mean for our methods? When, you know, AI content becomes a bigger thing, what does that do? How do we take advantage of that? How do we make the most of it? How do we respond to other people and the way that they might be using or perceiving it in the marketplace?

Those are great fundamental questions that do have right and wrong answers that we can implement, we can make the most of, and being part of that… you know, seeing it happen for our customers as well as being the one able to implement that on our side to then ultimately drive that as a benefit to our customers is, is a super rewarding place to be.

[00:11:29] Chris Lawson: When I first came into agency life, I thought that when a client asked us for something, we had to pivot and give it to them. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that most clients don’t actually know what they want. They ask for leads, they ask for geographical growth. They ask for more subscriptions or more sales, but ultimately, what they’re asking for is consistency of that specific KPI.