Your Recession-Proof Advantage: Small, Smart Experiments
Big marketing swings aren't dead. But they are harder to justify.
I’m no economist, but it doesn’t take much to know we’re all raising our eyebrows and holding our breaths over the economy. Tariffs loom ahead and car prices are sure to go up… but at least eggs are cheaper again?
Amid all the uncertainty, now probably isn’t the time to be testing big marketing swings, or at least, not as many as you’re used to.
That’s why your new edge is this: controlled, affordable experiments.
These small, smart experiments are:
Intentional tests that isolate a specific variable (like message, audience, or channel)
Low-stakes—typically under $500 (often $0)
Designed to teach you something immediately useful, whether it wins or flops
They are not:
Entire marketing campaigns
Gut-feel pivots with no plan
“Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”
💡 Think like a scientist, not a campaign manager.
Instead of asking, “What should we do next?”
Start with: “What do we want to learn?”
🧪 Real examples of $0–$500 experiments:
Social content test: Run two LinkedIn posts in different formats. You could try a text-only version, and that same text designed into a PDF carousel. Which one gets more clicks or comments? By the way: I often test links-in-posts vs. posts-with-link-in comments. Guess which one consistently peforms better. Surprise, surprise, the posts-with-link-in comments. I typically see 8x reach in posts that say, “Link below in the comments” vs. posts where I embed the link directly. Your mileage may vary. In fact, I’d love to hear what experience is like.
Landing page tweak: Change a headline or offer. Split traffic using a free tool like Google Optimize or VWO. Or honestly… maybe just change it and move on (for the moment). At SparkToro, we’re a lean enough team that we don’t feel it’s worth the ROI to set up a tool. Sometimes we’ll just go ahead and change the headline. And if, after a few weeks, we realize it performs worse, we’ll just change it back. We just don’t think it’s worth the time and money to set up a test, and throw some ads to get a statistically significant amount of people, just to make a copy edit that we believe is better and clearer than what we previously had.
Audience research insight: Use SparkToro to find niche social accounts your audience follows. (Don’t worry, we offer always-free accounts!) Check out these social accounts and see if you can find people who have a newsletter with, say, 3,000 subscribers or 5,000 social media followers. Inquire about a $300 sponsorship trial run. Some of these creators may not yet have many inbound sponsorship requests, and you could be an early supporter. Plus, I’ve found that sometimes these creators work harder for your money because they want to offer a great experience that will attract more advertisers. (Hey, I’m one of them.)
Email format test: Try plain text vs. designed. Measure open and clickthrough rates. In my experience, I’ve found plain text almost always performs better — except in the case of when you have a more visual asset that needs to be marketed, like an event or a new product feature. Again, your mileage may vary. Let me know what works for you.
Each of these small experiments teaches you something. And you can likely run these simultaneously or in quick succession. Over time, those immediate learnings compound.
🤔 Next week: How to choose what to test
Until then: what’s one marketing question you’d love to answer with a small experiment?
Reply and let me know. I might include your scenario in a future issue.
You might have noticed… this is about to be series of micro-lessons. I’ll later bundle this up into a course and create additional templates and curate resources. If you’re interested in sponsoring this, please reply to this email.
—Amanda
Love the concept of starting with "What do we want to learn?" - so good!
Thank you, Amanda.
Drop dead, stone cold, iron-clad, insight-fueled guidance at its finest. 🙌