A common mistake advertisers make is that they are too quick to make changes. They fire up their campaign and expect to see results flowing. When that doesn’t happen, they just can’t help themselves.
- Day 1: Tweak the targeting
- Day 2: Tweak the optimization
- Day 3: Tweak the copy and creative
Just stop it.
Don’t Take it Personally
Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand. I’ve been there, too. When you published that campaign, you thought it was a killer. You’re disappointed in the early results, and you want to fix it. You’re taking this personally.
But you’re making way too much of these early results. Unless you can spend huge sums of money, you’re reacting to results that are mostly random.
The Learning Phase
Since you haven’t exited the learning phase yet, the algorithm is still figuring it out. Performance will be unstable. One day, you might have terrible results, and the next day, they may be great.
Understand that the combination of instability and small sample sizes can make you do crazy things. Small sample sizes kill advertising dreams, or they make us think we’re gods for a day.
Just let it go.
Allow a Week
Unless you made a terrible mistake, allow that campaign to run for a week. It’s not a magic number, and there are exceptions. But try to get it that far. Assess it then.
Are your results stable? Are they consistently bad?
Then you can make your changes. Or if those results are bad enough, pull the plug.