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The great testing scam

I've noticed what seems to be a trend: more and more clients are accepting a new - and dangerous - definition of testing marketing campaigns. We have to stop it, or we could lose a powerful tool.
The scenario looks like this: you think something needs to be tested. You assume that the test is to learn something which both you and the client don't know is certain yet but may have a hypothesis about.

Then the client tells you that he or she expects the test to have a positive ROI. You ask, 'but wait a minute, this is just a test, we don't know if it's
going to work or not.' The client replies; 'Sorry, no guarantee, no test.'

This is bad practice that should be addressed head on. Pressed with an ongoing requirement to justify every penny, coupled with the general culture
of fear that seems to be a modus operandi in so many companies, clients eems to be ever more sensitive to risk.

All testing is a bit of a risky exercise but its aim is to produce insight and not immediate sales. Insight, that will be priceless in the long term and will help clients avoid wasting their advertising budgets.

While I was working on Tesco.com's email programme years ago we tested 14 different subject lines alone! No wonder that they understand so well what works and what doesn't for their customers.

I wish more clients out there realised the value of testing lies in the insight it provides and not immediate ROI.

Published Nov 02 2007, 05:25 PM by Lazar Dzamic

All Comments

Chris Arnold

November 6, 2007

A good example of the drift towards short term thinking, all because clients are under pressure to meet unrealistic financial targets. There is an old adage, “how can an accountant end up running a small business? He starts with a big one.” The biggest threat to our industry is the constant pressure to make an extra buck where there isn’t one. Lower values. Corner cutting. Unethical behavour. And then when the client runs crap they wonder why it doesn’t work. I think there is less real marketing about these days and too much mush. Only today the Church has done something it hasn’t done in generations, it publicly condemned supermarkets for putting too much financial pressure on suppliers – especially British farmers. It is concerned about society’s declining moral values at the hands of financially driven people. The true cost of profit these days is being made through those that get exploited. The question is not how much you make but HOW you make it. And although we cannot compare out lives with those in the Third World we are starting to see a growing exploitative and sweatshop mentality within the creative industries. All driven by client cuts and procurement.

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