Recently, I had an interesting chat with a client. They wanted to try an AI-powered cold outreach tool to prospect for clients.
Don’t get me wrong. I like experiments; they’re important for sometimes finding marketing channels with surprising returns.
But there is a “but.”
I told them what I’m telling you:
“I like experiments. But let’s stay with the core campaigns on Google Ads and Meta Ads for a few months, and have these experiments on top, not as a substitute.”
Why?
There’s this thing called “the grass is always greener on the other side.”
We humans tend to idealize and try new things when we don’t get instant results with what we’ve been doing longer.
This can lead to all kinds of biases.
You might idealize competitor strategies without considering the statistical data behind claimed successes.
Or when you see competitors thrive on certain platforms, you may get the illusion of simplicity, expecting similar results without understanding the metrics behind those campaigns.
And there’s a magic number that can protect you from this enticing green grass on the other side…
Let me explain.
When you flip a coin just a few times, say 5 or 10 flips, it’s possible to get results suggesting a bias, like 4 heads and 1 tail.
But with 68 flips, you’ll see it evens out to 50/50, giving you a 90% confidence level.
Now, there’s also a magic number in Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Here we don’t flip coins, but we show ads to potential clients.
To have a high confidence level when making decisions, the magic number is 1,000 impressions.
This applies to both Google and Facebook/Meta Ads.
Why so high?
It’s not as simple as a coin flip. You’re dealing with variable factors:
- Click-through rates
- Conversion rates
- Audience behavior
- Competition
- Time of day
- Ad creatives
Depending on your monthly budget, you might reach 1,000 impressions in days or weeks.
When working with a lower budget and not seeing instant results, you might want to switch channels too early.
Or you might start strong with luck, getting great leads after just 100 impressions, and falsely conclude it’s a winning campaign.
From a statistical standpoint, 100 impressions only give you about 60% confidence level.
So, there’s a 40% chance of making a wrong decision.
You need to stay with the campaign for 900 more impressions to make informed optimization decisions.
So before changing your marketing channel, consider these dry but important statistics to make more confident decisions.