It has been a few weeks since I started dabbling in paid marketing again.
I have dabbled before, but truly with no strategy and no real understanding of Meta as a platform. I barely knew how to read the metrics. CPA. ROAS. CTR. CPC. Frequency. Reach. Impressions... There are too many numbers. And the funniest part is that what you are reading is not always congruent to real life. My CTR hovers around 5 to 6%, which in my mind sounds like the tiniest number ever, but in the marketing world those numbers apparently mean the ad is doing great. As a creative person, reading numbers on a screen has never been my forte. The whole thing used to feel completely overwhelming.
I had been taking a course and studying for a while, but was feeling unconfident. Like I had to keep learning and acquiring as much information as possible before I could launch anything. Well, about three weeks ago I said to myself: it's like having a baby. I'll never feel ready, so let's just go!
Without overthinking it, I launched my campaign and it started working almost immediately. Within a few days I identified my winning creative and got so excited, because for the first time I actually knew which direction to lean into. No more blindly poking around in the dark. Something was working.
And then I broke it.
I had three creatives running but two were underperforming, so I turned those off. Apparently I was not supposed to do that, especially because I had no new creatives ready to take their place. The “I'll never feel ready but let’s go anyway” energy meant that I genuinely was not ready, and I had not thought far enough ahead. I thought I was being optimizing and clearing the dead weight, but what actually happened was that things went very quiet, very fast.
I kept watching the numbers, wondering what was going on. With the tiny budget I am working with, you don't get results quickly. You have to wait to gather enough data before a more clear picture emerges. By day seven it was clear that whatever I had done was the wrong move. So I scrambled. I had filmed some content while staying at D’s place during Field + Supply, and I furiously put together new creatives. I uploaded them and increased my spending budget. I was convinced this would be the saving grace.
It was not.Â
If the campaign was underperforming before, what followed was a nose dive. I watched the dissipation of every gain I had made. But apparently it is not abnormal for things to take a turn when you make changes mid-campaign. The algorithm needs time to relearn. So I stuck with it. Day three, numbers down. Day four, numbers down. Day five, numbers down. I went to bed on day six fully determined to turn kick the whole thing to the curve and start over. On the morning of day seven, there was a tiny glimmer. Maybe this was salvageable after all.
I know I am just starting out and I need to be kinder to myself. But WHAT THE HELL, MARIA. Why did you tinker with something that was working just fine? There was nothing wrong with the original campaign. I just got impatient and had to scratch the itch to make it better, more optimal.
We live in a world of instant access and constant dopamine hits. We have been trained to expect fast results and to interpret stillness as failure. But the things that matter most, a business, a relationship, a skill, a campaign that is finally finding its audience, take time. A tree doesn't grow faster because you keep pulling it out of the ground to check the roots. I should know. Earlier this year I attempted to re-root a giant cactus plant. I got impatient and pulled it out several times to check if roots were forming The internet said under no circumstances to do this because it stresses an already stressed plant. The cactus died.
The waiting is part of the process. The staying is part of the work.
My work now is to learn to read the data accurately so I stop making decisions based on feelings and start making them based on the full picture. If this campaign has legs, the most valuable thing I can do is learn how to fix it, or at the very least identify exactly what is not working. That is a skill worth more than any single campaign.
I hope one day I can offer some genuinely solid advice in these letters. Until then, I am learning to leave well enough alone.
With love,
Maria
RIP to the cactus plant that didn't make it :(