They say hindsight is 20/20…
I think “they” are wrong.
Over the past month, I’ve been running ppc campaigns all over the place.
Since somewhere around June 27th, I’ve received almost 7,000 clicks to one of my ads on Facebook®…
The CTR is awesome and therefore I’ve been getting clicks dirt cheap…
It’s great.
The campaign is working. (It’s about time.)
And that’s the problem.
Because I don’t learn much when something just works.
This is the second iteration of the ad. The first one generated clicks at a pretty good clip, but when I made some changes (I think all I changed was the graphic) the CTR really took off.
So what did I learn?
Not much.
- I learned it worked.
- I learned that, for some reason, the message to market match was pretty good.
- I learned that my demographic targeting was good “enough” to get some real clicks.
- I learned that something about the copy may have resonated with the viewers.
- I learned a bunch about how the ppc system seems to work (for now) on Facebook®
As you can see, I didn’t learn a whole lot of specific things that I can apply to my next campaign.
I’ve failed way too many times in this business to think that past performance is a guarantee of anything.
Sure it feels good… but I try to stay disciplined and understand that just because campaign A works doesn’t really increase my chances of doing well the next time up at bat.
In fact, the challenge is not to make any assumptions about why something worked.
I think if you start doing that, then you start limiting your thinking and your willingness to try new things the next time around.
And so I try to stay focused on what’s next. Like it’s a brand new ball game.
Each campaign is like a unique puzzle with a unique solution.
You’ve got the offer, the traffic and the creative.
Plus, you’ve got the big question mark… which is: do you have any business offering this “thing” (product, service or freebie for lead gen.) to these “people” at this “time” in this particular “way”…
Lotta questions to answer huh?
Three things seem to be important here in finding the successful “solution” to the puzzle (if there is a solution… and there doesn’t always seem to be).
Speed, patience and the will to simply stick around when everything sucks.
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