I am a big promoter of marketing experiments. I’m a big supporter of constant testing in general. But I think I and people like me have contributed to the false assumption that marketing experiments are fast, easy  and, most of all, very cheap.

Let me walk you through an example.

Why marketing experiments take longer than you assume

We recently decided to test a content marketing subscription which we’ve been thinking about for a while now. We agreed on developing a landing page, putting together some creatives, and running some ads on a couple of networks. 

With our processes, expertise, and all the know-how we’ve gathered – this should only take a couple of days of work and we’re done, right?  

One month, tens of working sessions, and a few bucks later…

And we’re still working on the market test. 

Not because things weren’t clear enough or because we were understaffed. But because marketing experiments are quick, easy and cheap only when you compare them with how much would take to build a website or a functional product from scratch. 

When you compare them with other marketing efforts in general, they’re: 

  • Not fast
  • Not easy
  • Not cheap

Why marketing experiments are not fast

It takes a lot of time and optimization to reach the final version. 

People often think it’s about writing the copy and drawing the design, but it’s actually all about that back and forth feedback, all those ideas and strategies that become more clear when you see a landing page live, and you feel the customer experiences. 

That’s what makes experimentation so valuable, but also time consuming.

Why they’re not easy

Every team wishes for a jack-of-all-trades, but few actually have one. That’s why marketing experimentation needs various skills like someone good with copy, someone good with design, someone good with product and strategy, someone good with advertising and measuring ROAS, and finally someone good with analytics. It’s definitely not easy being good at everything.

Why they’re not cheap

Have you seen the amount of people that need to work on a market experiment? That’s one reason. Second: you’ll need a lot of subscriptions. Here’s a simple addition:

  • Landing page development tool (like Getresponse or Instapage) – $50 – $100/month on avg
  • Form tool (like Typeform) – $30/month on avg
  • Other tools (to integrate payments, for example) – let’s say $50/month on avg
  • Running ads – $500 (if you’re a pro and you nail it from the beginning)

And this is the cheapest scenario, for a very basic experiment.  

I’m not here to discourage you, I just want to give you a realistic image of how things actually work. 

Marketing experiments can also be fast, easy and cheap. It’s all about the benchmark you’re comparing to. 

Hope today’s insight helped!

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