It’s hard not to be anxious about the macro economy right now.
Unless you’re a brand marketer in a completely recession-proof industry or a marketing agency with a portfolio of clients in recession-proof industries, you’re working against a current of stress and performance pressure.
These emotions can help some marketers achieve hyper-focus. But they are also causing many to make hasty decisions that work against the short- and long-term health of their companies.
In this article, you’ll learn some common mistakes marketers make and more thoughtful alternatives that will position brands to survive and thrive in the long term.
Mistake 1: Cut instead of reduce
Chances are you’ve heard that marketing is a flyer.
What this means, especially with the self-learning capabilities of the platform’s leading algorithms, is that reducing spend involves a hard reset that will have ultimate ramifications far beyond the time it takes to reactivate campaigns.
What to do instead
Whenever possible, keep the lights on for campaigns you know are getting results. If you need to reduce spending:
Understand that you are in good company. Take a deep breath and start by dialing back (but not cutting out completely) where you’ll see less immediate impact.
If you can’t clearly see opportunities within specific campaign segments, you may need more precise targeting:
Top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, or bottom of the funnel at the campaign level. By ad set level goal.
This will help you assess where performance is relatively poor and could benefit from reductions.
Mistake 2: Cut without reference to account history
It’s a particularly difficult time for startups. Without a lot of comparative data, they can’t refer to past account history to cut the budget smarter.
There are fewer excuses for more established brands not to delve deeper into account performance history (especially if the history goes back to other frenetic times, like the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic), but I’ve seen it happen .
What to do instead
If you’re a startup and don’t have a useful archive of performance data, but you do You have an agency that manages your account, rely heavily on them for information from similar accounts they may have had in the past. (Make sure you’re involving your agency in any major decisions, of course.)
If you have a more established set of accounts, go back at least to your 2020 data to analyze:
How did you reallocate the budget back then. What worked in the short and long term. What had lasting effects (good or bad).
This will give you a good strategic starting point for product or service campaigns that remain relevant to your business.
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Mistake 3: Cut without referencing CRM data
I’ve seen this a lot over the years and not just in recessions: marketers who react to surface-level metrics without understanding the real business impact make poor budget decisions.
Examples:
A B2B brand puts more budget into a source of cheap CPLs instead of understanding which source is driving the most qualified leads that evolve into opportunities. An e-commerce brand lowers the budget for its audience with a higher CPA without realizing that the audience in question has an average LTV. 50% higher than the rest of the public.
In times when spending cuts are widespread, targeting your most valuable audiences, segments, or campaigns may meet your immediate budget goals, but will increase your revenue in the long term.
What to do instead
If you haven’t synced your marketing data with your CRM data, it’s time to fix that.
At the very least, make sure you understand (on the B2B side) which channels are driving your most qualified leads (which you can track in a simple Excel sheet if you’re waiting on development resources) so you can prioritize others areas to reduce spending.
Mistake 4: Cutting off new campaigns prematurely
In today’s algorithm-heavy marketing world:
Campaigns take time and data to optimize. Tests need sufficient time to obtain statistically significant results.
Early indicators are not the full picture and should not be all the information you need to make your decisions.
What to do instead
Instead of panicking and cutting back, tweak new messages and creatives as you adjust bid types. Review all the common optimization options you normally have and resist the urge to cut without understanding the true performance ceiling of your campaigns.
In B2B, where data density takes longer to generate, set some higher volume growth indicators that will return information faster.
Even CTR can be a decent proxy metric to start with (as long as you react to high CTR/low conversion scenarios by optimizing the weak point of your funnel).
Mistake 5: Being blind to opportunity
While this may seem like the worst case scenario for many sellers, chances are at least one of your competitors is in worse shape, which means they may be leaving market share and/or lower costs on the table. for you to take them.
(If you work for a recession-proof brand and have a full budget on hand, this is also relevant to you, as you may see lower CPMs and CPCs on your social channels after the election and holidays have passed) .
Yes, many of us are defensive for good reason. But spending all your energy on preservation means you may miss opportunities to expand.
What to do instead
Be sure to pay attention to weekly cost trends so you can quickly identify (and jump on) any softness in the market.
Keep an eye out for industry news, especially on platforms you haven’t tried yet, that indicate any general downward cost trends that make those platforms more viable.
The other thing to consider is emerging trends and market changes that you can address in your campaigns. If your traditional ideal customer profile (ICP) is developing new issues:
Make sure your marketing targets them. Communicate developments to your executive team so they can consider changing offers accordingly.
Above all, do your best to approach your campaigns with a long-term view, which will help you avoid spending all your time and money on survival tactics.
Great marketers come out of recessions
You may notice that all these mistakes should be avoided at all times, not only during the economic upheaval.
There is a reason for the sayings about great salespeople coming out of recessions.
Whether the recession forced you to adopt good new habits or you introduced good habits that helped keep your company ahead of the curve, the fundamentals of great marketing remain.
Keep them in mind as you go through news cycles and tough internal meetings.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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About the author
Laura Schiele, Head of Paid Acquisition at Jordan Digital Marketing, has nearly a decade of experience in paid media strategy and execution on both agency and in-house accounts and uses advanced analytical skills to scale growth within efficiency goals at Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and more. Laura manages a large team of remote payment media experts from her home in Burlington, VT.
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