Test When It’s Quiet, Win When It’s Not
⚡️ Stop Treating A/B Testing Like Damage Control, Smarter Controls in PMax, and more!
Howdy Readers 🥰
In this newsletter, you’ll find:
🚨 Why Amazon Growth Feels Broken (And How Smart Traffic Fixes It)
📈 Smarter Controls in PMax
🏆 Ad of the Day
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Together with SEMrush
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⚡️Test When It’s Quiet, Win When It’s Not
Most marketers treat A/B testing like damage control: conversions dip, panic sets in, and suddenly it’s “run a test” season. But elite growth teams flip this script. They test not during chaos—but during calm.
We call it Stability Spike Testing—the art of launching your boldest tests when your funnel is running smooth, metrics are steady, and no one’s screaming on Slack.
Why? Because stability creates clarity. No false urgency, no confounding variables, no marketing fires. Just a clean testing ground and the mental space to challenge what’s “working.”
The $78k Headline Switch
A skincare brand hit a performance plateau nothing wrong, just same-old returns. During a “quiet” month, their team swapped their high-performing, warm-and-fuzzy hero copy for a brutally direct benefit headline:
“Fades Dark Spots in 14 Days. Or It’s Free.”
CRO lead hated it. Brand team was nervous. But they tested it anyway.
Result? +19% CVR, +28% AOV.
Why? Calm gave them the runway to try something they’d never approve mid-crisis. That one test added $78k in incremental monthly revenue.
P.S. The test took time—custom dev, QA cycles, manual tracking. Ironically, this kind of “risky” idea is exactly where tools like Stellar shine: lightweight, no-code A/B testing you can launch in minutes, not weeks. You can book a free demo here!
The 3-Test Playbook for Stability Spike Testing
1. Kill Your Darlings Test: Take your best performing copy, layout, or CTA—and break it on purpose. Remove it. Replace it. See if the lift was real, or just a placeholder win.
2. 180 Test: If your tone is warm, go aggressive. If your layout is dense, go minimal. Push the pendulum in the opposite direction and see what breaks (or converts).
3. “Remove to Improve” Test: Delete one “essential” element—badges, reviews, countdowns, trust icons. If performance holds (or lifts), you just removed cognitive friction you didn’t know existed.
Stability isn’t a signal to slow down. It’s a window to ask harder questions, test uncomfortable ideas, and discover buried upside.
Next time your dashboard looks quiet, don’t let comfort stall growth.
📈 Smarter Controls in PMax
Insights from Google
Google’s Performance Max is rolling out powerful new features to help advertisers optimize every part of their campaigns. From deeper customer insights to more creative control, these updates make it easier to drive results while steering AI with precision.
The Breakdown:
Lifecycle Goals Get Smarter - Retention goals are now fully available, allowing advertisers to prioritize high-value lapsed customers with customized bidding. You can define which users offer greater lifetime value, and see new customer acquisition costs directly in reports.
Better Control Over Image Assets - Performance Max can now pull images from your landing pages to expand creative variety automatically. You’ll have visibility into these assets and can remove or disable the feature if needed.
Stronger Creative Variation Tools - Image enhancements now allow Performance Max to auto-generate alternate versions of your images using smart cropping. Future updates will unlock even more options, like uncropping and animating creatives.
Expanded Negative Keyword Limit - Google has increased the campaign-level negative keyword limit from 100 to 10,000 giving advertisers more flexibility to filter out irrelevant traffic and steer AI more effectively.
With smarter goals, advanced creative controls, and deeper search filtering, Performance Max is evolving into a more customizable and precise tool. These upgrades help advertisers fine-tune automation while improving performance across every stage of the customer journey.
🎥 Ad of the Day
What Works:
The headline “Meet the toothpaste that’s 100% toothpaste” is a smart reversal hook—it instantly highlights how mainstream toothpastes are not truly clean. This tactic subtly exposes the industry’s hidden toxins without directly calling out brands.
The scratched-out ingredients—“NO plastic waste,” “NO filler ingredients,” etc.—visually and psychologically signal purity by elimination. The eye-catching green highlight adds a memory hook and builds trust through contrast.
The earth-toned props (rock, bamboo toothbrush) establish an eco-conscious vibe, while the bold yellow “100%” pops just enough to disrupt the soft color scheme.
This ad leverages clean-label psychology—the trend where consumers reject products with complex or synthetic ingredient lists. It also uses value alignment: those who care about sustainability, wellness, and minimalism will feel this brand aligns with their identity. That builds emotional buy-in fast.
Broader Insights:
This is a masterclass in negative framing used positively. Instead of bragging about what it contains, it wins hearts by showcasing what it doesn't. For a category filled with greenwashing, this ad keeps it simple, honest, and strategic. That's how you sell hygiene through integrity.
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