A – Always. B – Be. C – Closing. Alec Baldwin delivered these infamous lines in the 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross and media sales managers everywhere have been using this quote, out of context, ever since. In my media days, I would tell our sales staff…go see your prospects and, as Baldwin emphatically states, do not leave until you get them to sign on the line that is dotted.
It’s a pretty universal message. Even today, on the agency side, a strong close or call to action is essential to driving revenue.
But as marketing has evolved, we’ve added a new acronym.
A – Always. B – Be. T – Testing.
Our strategies at Enrich are built around understanding what connects with your audience and making strategic decisions based on data. To truly understand what’s working, we actively test, tweak, and adjust – ensuring client campaigns deliver the best possible results.
Whether it’s paid social, search, or programmatic, here are three things we test and three real world examples of how we use these learnings to make drive sales and conversions.
- Creative Testing: Headlines, Images, Videos, CTAs
The message and visual you present are critical. We can mix-and-match content with copy to identify which creative elements drive the most conversions. For example, when working with Lake Effect Furniture and Mattress, we tested different pricing strategies in Facebook ads. Initially, we thought financing-focused messaging (“$49/month or less”) would outperform full-price messaging, but the data surprised us. Our third iteration—combined 0% financing awareness with a focus on full price per product—drove the highest engagement.
- Audience Testing: Targeting the Right People
Reaching the right audience is just as important as what you say. We don’t rely solely on default settings provided by platforms like Google or Facebook. Instead, we create Custom Intent audiences tailored to your business’s goals. For Keller Chevrolet, this meant targeting Custom Intent audiences on YouTube pre-roll ads, leading to a 50% increase in CTR and double the view rates compared to default in-market audiences.
- Placement Testing: Where Ads Appear
Not all ad placements are created equal. Some drive impressions, while others drive more impressions that matter. Does an ad perform better for a client like Mosquito Pros on, say, Facebook Stories or IG Reels? The next level is to take insights from placements and optimize it in conjunction with other tests. Placement testing showed us that Meta’s algorithm widely distributed our in-feed ads. Knowing this, we tested our original reformatted ads to more closely resemble content that users were already seeing. Lead acquisition costs were 50% lower for our “ugly” ads than for our more typical creative.
Why Does This Matter for You?
Testing allows us to maximize results and constantly improve. It is not a one-size fits all process. What works for one business in a particular market might not work for the same industry in a different market or a different industry in the same market. That’s why it’s important to learn from the success of others, make educated guesses about what you should try next, and always be testing.
Rich Chiaino
CEO, Enrich Marketing
