Looking for a Marketing Partner Who Hates Lying?
Meet Clear Performance Ads

Michigan husband-and-wife team brings truth-driven, AI-enhanced digital marketing and advertising strategies to Rochester-area businesses
 

ROCHESTER, MICH. — In January 2025, Lance Johnson reached a breaking point. After years inside the marketing and advertising industry, he had grown angry watching agency after agency tell clients “everything is looking great” when everything was clearly not — hiding behind misleading, platform-reported metrics while real business margins quietly suffered.

He had seen the pattern too many times. One business owner was spending more than $8,000 a month and believed they were earning a strong return, because that was the reporting their ad agency kept showing them. When Johnson looked closer, he found the agency was bidding mostly on the client’s own branded keywords — a known trick that inflates an agency’s reported results while doing little for the company’s actual profit.

The metrics looked great. The business profit didn’t.

“I hit a crossroads,” Johnson said. “I could sacrifice my Christian values and go along with the industry standard to make more money, I could quit the industry altogether, or I could try to change it.

The first two were never options for me and felt called to the third option. So I’m changing the industry.”

That decision became Clear Performance Ads, the Metro Detroit-based digital marketing and advertising agency Johnson founded with his wife, Amber assisting — built on a single idea that sounds almost radical for the industry: tell business owners the truth.

Now the husband-and-wife team is introducing the agency to the Rochester Regional Chamber of Commerce community.

“We became tired of the agency lies, deception, and manipulation that became the norm in the industry,” Johnson said. “So we built something better: an agency fully focused on leveraging AI in service of truth, transparency, and profit — and on open communication with clients instead of deceptive metrics. The question we ask every business owner is simple — are you ready to work with a partner who HATES lying?”

Built on a Different Promise

Most agencies are quick to take credit, and just as quick to overpromise and underdeliver.

Clear Performance Ads is built around the opposite — independent reporting, focused on margin and new-customer lifetime value and enhanced by AI, that reveals what is truly driving incremental profit, not just what looks good in platform dashboards.

Example: instead of stopping at return on investment/ad spend (ROI/ROAS) or cost per lead (CPL), the team tries to work with their clients on understanding into deeper business metrics like gross margin, new customer lifetime value, and new-versus-returning customer splits, so clients can see exactly where their ad dollars create real, lasting measurable growth.

“Many advertisers overestimate their impact and take more credit than they deserve,” Johnson said. “Our job is to cut through that noise — even when the honest answer isn’t the flattering one.

Our client retention rate is higher than the industry average as a result and has led to our clients seeing stronger performance with their budgets.”

Clear Performance Ads works with businesses of every size — from those spending a few hundred dollars a month to those investing six figures a month — across paid advertising (Google Ads, Meta Ads, Amazon, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, ChatGPT, and more), SEO and AI-SEO, local ranking, conversion rate optimization, audience targeting, design, websites, landing pages, email, social media, and beyond. Full services here.

Service options include monthly account management, DIY coaching/consulting, or individual services. 

The agency leans on premium internal AI tools and proprietary strategies to deliver sharper insights, clearer reporting, and faster optimization than traditional, outdated tactics.
 

Real Results, Honestly Reported

The agency’s case studies span industries and budgets:

1. More than $6 million in revenue generated for a luxury e-commerce brand through a full Google Ads restructure
2. A 52% year-over-year increase in qualified leads for a recruitment marketing client at similar cost levels
3. 130+ attendees driven to a local art gallery exhibition on a budget under $1,000 a month.

Clear Performance Ads is a Metro Detroit-based, husband-and-wife digital marketing and advertising agency founded in January 2025 by Lance and Amber Johnson.

They HATE lying — and combine traditional values rooted in honesty with AI-enhanced strategies to help small and mid-sized businesses grow smarter.

They serve clients throughout Metro Detroit and across the United States, and are proud to be part of the Rochester Regional Chamber of Commerce community.

As a fellow Chamber member, Clear Performance Ads is offering Rochester Regional Chamber businesses a free strategy call over your existing marketing/advertising strategies with specific action items to improve your performance and lead/sales ROI. Schedule your session here. 

Media Contact

Lance Johnson, Clear Performance Ads

Phone: (248) 965-1771

Email: lance@clearperformanceads.com

Website: clearperformanceads.com