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Budgeting
5 min read
·
How much of your budget should go to testing?
Too little testing and you run out of winners. Too much and you never scale the ones you find. Our rule of thumb, and when to break it.
Article details
Topic
Budgeting
Reading time
5 min read
Published
Written by
Margin strategy team
Every account needs new ads, because every ad wears out. The question is how much money to put into finding the next winner while the current ones still pay the bills.
Our starting split
We usually start at 80 percent on proven ads and 20 percent on tests. Proven means an ad has beaten your target cost per purchase for at least two weeks. Everything else counts as a test.
When to test more
Push testing toward 30 percent when results are slipping, when you launch a new product, or when your best ad is more than six weeks old. Those are the moments when fresh ideas matter most.
When to test less
Drop toward 10 percent during peak sales weeks. That is the time to put money behind what already works, not to experiment.
Whatever the split, decide on Friday, change budgets on Monday and leave tests alone for a full week. Changing things every day makes it impossible to learn anything.
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