Let’s be honest for a second. (I know, bit of a bold way to start a blog post).
In my time as Creative Director, I’ve sat in hundreds, if not thousands of strategy meetings. There is often a silent expectation hanging in the air. It’s the hope that we can simply switch on a campaign and watch the leads pour in.
But here is the reality most agencies are too scared to tell you: Marketing is a laboratory.
The real work doesn’t stop at the launch; it starts there. When we hit ‘go’ on a campaign, we aren’t just spending budget. We are buying data. In those first three weeks, we learn more about your customers than years of guessing could ever teach us.
To get results, we need to be fast. We need to be agile. And —perhaps hardest of all— we need to be willing to admit when our initial assumptions were wrong.
Because if you can’t pivot in the first 21 days, you aren’t marketing. You’re just hoping.
When I say “21 Days,” I’m not pulling a number out of thin air. In the digital space—whether it’s Google Ads, Meta, or a new landing page—there is a rhythm to how data comes in.
Here is exactly how we view that timeline at Excite, and why it requires nerves of steel to navigate.
Days 1–7: The "sit on your hands" phase 🔍
This is the hardest part for most business owners.
When we launch a new campaign, the excitement is high. You want to refresh your browser every hour to see the leads drop in. But modern algorithms need time to learn. In this first week, the platforms are essentially casting a wide net to see who bites.
If we panic and change the headline on Day 2 because nobody clicked yet, we reset the learning phase. We reset the algorithm. You wouldn’t pull a cake out of the oven five minutes after putting it in just to check if it’s chocolate or vanilla. You’d ruin it.
So, during this week, our job is observation. We check for technical errors, sure. But mostly? We let the data settle.
Days 8–14: The reality check ✅
By the second week, the dust has settled. Patterns start to emerge. To be brutally honest, this is where our assumptions get tested. Ouch.
Maybe we thought that “clever, witty” headline would work wonders. But the data shows us that the “boring, direct” headline has a 40% lower cost-per-click.
We look for outliers. Which ad is eating the budget with no return? We look for surprises. Which audience segment is engaging more than we predicted?
This is the detective phase. We aren’t making massive moves yet, but we are sharpening the knife.
Days 15–21: The pivot (aka "killing your darlings") 🔄
Here is where the magic happens. By week three, we have enough solid data to make the hard calls. This is where the agile mindset is non-negotiable.
If we spent hours designing a beautiful creative asset, but the market hates it? It goes.
If we thought price was the main selling point, but the quality ads are winning? We shift the budget.
This period involves cutting the losers and doubling down on the winners. It’s not about admitting failure. It’s about recognising opportunity. The market is always right, and by Day 21, we are finally listening to what it’s saying.
Don’t get fooled by vanity metrics 📈
When we are deep in the data during those first few weeks, you need to know what we are actually ignoring.
There is a trap in marketing called “Vanity Metrics.” These are numbers that make you feel good but don’t pay the bills. I see business owners get obsessed with them all the time.
Here is what we don’t panic about in the first 21 days.
- Likes and shares: These are nice, but they aren't leads. You can't pay staff with a Facebook like.
- Impressions: This just means the ad appeared on a screen. It doesn't mean anyone actually looked at it.
Here is what we obsess over:
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Are people actually stopping to read?
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): How much did it cost to get that phone to ring?
If an ad has 1,000 likes but zero conversions, I will kill it without hesitation. If an ad has zero likes but is generating leads at $20 a pop, that’s our winner.
The most expensive metric in marketing: your ego 🧠
Here is the hardest lesson I’ve learned in my career: The market does not care how hard we worked on the creative.
We might spend days crafting a visually stunning campaign, agonising over the typography, the imagery, and the vibe. We fall in love with it. We convince ourselves it will win awards.
But then we launch it. And… crickets.
Meanwhile, a scrappy, simple ad we threw together as a “Plan B” (the one with the ugly red button) is getting all the clicks.
This is the crossroads where campaigns either die or thrive.
We have two choices. We can take the Ego Route, blame the platform, blame the season, and force the “beautiful” ad to keep running because we can’t bear to admit it’s not working. Or, we take the Agile Route. We put our hands up and say, “We were wrong.”
At Excite, we choose the second route every single time.
A war story from the trenches 📖
I want to give you a concrete example of what this looks like in the wild.
A few years back, we had a client in the home renovation space. We did the research. We built the personas. Every bit of data told us that “adding value to your home” was the winning hook. We built a beautiful campaign around investment, property value, and financial gain.
We launched. And for the first 10 days? It was flat.
The cost per lead was sky-high. The clicks were expensive. If we had just “set and forgot” this campaign, the client would have burned through ten grand with nothing to show for it.
But because we were in that 21-day lab mindset, we didn’t panic. We looked at the data. We noticed a tiny outlier. There was a secondary ad set running—almost as an afterthought—that focused entirely on “getting your weekend back” and spending less time on maintenance. It had zero talk of money. It was all about lifestyle.
That little ad was getting clicks at half the cost of our main “hero” campaign.
The Pivot
On Day 12, we paused the entire “Investment” angle. We took the budget and threw it behind the “Lifestyle” angle. We spun up three new variations of that winning ad overnight.
The Result
By Day 21, the lead volume had tripled. The cost per lead dropped by 60%.
We didn’t win because our first idea was brilliant. We won because we admitted our first idea was wrong. That is the difference between an agency who wants to be right, and one who wants you to make money.
In that first 21 days, discovering that our assumption was wrong was actually a massive win. It’s a filter. Every time we identify an angle that doesn’t work, we stop wasting budget on it. We trim the fat.
If we are too proud to pivot, we are just burning cash to protect our feelings. But when we let the data make the decisions, the marketing becomes leaner, faster, and infinitely more effective.
Why we don't ask for your approval on every tweak 🤔
This might sound harsh, but it saves us both time.
During the learning phase, we need to move fast. If we see a headline underperforming on a Tuesday morning, we want to change it by Tuesday lunch.
If we have to stop, email you, wait for a meeting, discuss the colour of the button, and get sign-off… the opportunity is gone. The algorithm has already punished us for running a bad ad for too long.
When you hire Excite, you are hiring us to make those micro-decisions for you. You approve the strategy. You approve the budget. You approve the brand voice. But you have to trust us to steer the ship when the waves get choppy. We don’t ask for permission to pivot; we just report the win to you afterwards.
What to look for in a partner 🤝
If you are looking for a marketing partner, don’t look for the one who promises a crystal ball. They don’t have one.
Look for the partner who promises to be a scientist. Look for the team that gets excited about the “First 21 Days”, because they know that’s where the gold is buried.
Marketing implies agility. It means being brave enough to find profit on Day 22, rather than pretending to be perfect on Day 1.
So, let’s launch, let’s learn, and most importantly—let’s pivot.
