2 builders who never spoke to each other

Get in early and leave when it saturates

Channels are underpriced when they are new and stop working once everyone crowds in: one company's customers came through a search platform in its early years, when everyone used the engine and the inventory was still cheap. Assume decay and keep measuring after it starts working, pushing the rate down as returns fall rather than trusting audited readership figures. A quarter page ad worked, a full page worked better, then results fell year after year while the salesman quoted growing circulation and the magazine closed a few months later. Ring-fence a standing experiment budget so you can enter new places early and withdraw instead of defending the position.

The method

1. 01

   Get into an advertising channel while it is still new and underpriced, because the same channel stops working once everyone crowds into it.

2. 02

   Ring-fence a standing experiment budget so you can enter new channels early, then withdraw once they saturate instead of defending the position.

3. 03

   Assume any channel decays: keep measuring it after it starts working and push the rate down as returns fall rather than trusting the publisher's audience numbers.

4. 04

   Ignore a publisher's warning that pausing your ads will make buyers think you have gone out of business: that is a sales argument, not a measured effect.

What it returned

• Smart Bear's customers came through Google's ad platform in its early years, when everyone used the search engine but the ad inventory was cheap and not yet full of junk.

• Morning Brew ran paid social experiments across Snapchat, Quora, Reddit, Facebook and Instagram, and found the lessons went stale quickly as the platforms changed.

• A quarter-page Dr. Dobbs ad worked and a full page worked better, then results fell year after year while the salesman cited third-party audited readership growth; the magazine closed a few months later, three years after being one of his best lead sources.

• Said to him by the Dr. Dobbs ad salesman while he was cutting spend on a declining placement.

Sources

• How do I know where to advertise?Jason Cohen · longform.asmartbear.com · How do I know where to advertise? · 2012-06-05
• How much of success is luck?Jason Cohen · longform.asmartbear.com · How much of success is luck? · 2009-03-30
• The Secrets Behind Morning Brew's Growth to 2.5 Million Newsletter SubscribersJenny Rothenberg · sparkloop.app · 7. Experiment & Move on Quickly · undated