There’s an inherent tension every performance marketer feels: the push to scale and the need to test. Scale too fast and you risk blowing through what’s working. Test too much and you risk losing the very stability that lets you scale. Finding a rhythm between the two — a testing cadence that works — is one of the hardest but most critical habits to build.
Over the years, I’ve learned that there’s no one-size-fits-all formula. But there is a way to design a cadence that feels less like guesswork and more like strategy.
1. Define What “Cadence” Means for You
When people talk about testing cadence, they often mean frequency — how often you test new creatives, landing pages, audiences, or bidding strategies. But cadence isn’t just about time.
It can be time-based (e.g., testing every two weeks), spend-based (testing after every $10K spent), or milestone-based (testing after a campaign hits a certain CPA or ROAS).
The key is to define it relative to your scale goals. If you’re planning to spend $50K this week, make sure your testing budget proportionally supports that — not as an afterthought, but as a planned fraction of your total spend. You don’t want to be in a situation where your test budget is so small it’s meaningless, or so large that it destabilizes performance.
2. Test One Thing at a Time
Every test comes with a cost — not just in dollars, but in focus.
That’s why I hold one rule sacred: keep tests as isolated as possible.
If I’m testing ad copy, I don’t change the audience. If I’m testing bidding strategies, I don’t also change the landing page. Each campaign should focus on a single variable, run long enough to reach statistical significance, and produce learnings you can actually use.
In other words: A/B test, not A-to-Z test.
3. Avoid the “Too Much, Too Soon” Trap
This is one of the most common pitfalls I see. Teams under pressure to improve performance start running multiple tests in parallel, expecting quick results.
The problem? Early data lies.
In the first week or ten days, you’ll often see noisy trends that don’t hold up. I’ve learned to give tests at least 2–4 weeks before drawing conclusions. That’s usually when clear separation between variables begins to emerge. Pull the plug too soon, and you’ll just end up chasing ghosts.
Patience, in testing, is underrated but invaluable.
4. Know When Not to Test
Sometimes, the smartest move is to pause testing altogether.
For example, if there’s a Friends & Family sale or a holiday promotion, your only job is to maximize revenue — not collect learnings. Running tests during those windows can skew data, because consumer behavior shifts dramatically.
On the other hand, smaller off-peak sales can be great opportunities to test. Those are moments where you can experiment without compromising business goals.
So, be selective. Not every week has to be a “testing week.”
5. Use Tools to Spot Blind Spots
Even with experience, I’ve found that I sometimes overlook what’s obvious. That’s where I rely on Prism — our AI-powered assistant at Pixis — to highlight missed opportunities.
For instance, Prism can surface “testing prompts” by scanning ongoing campaigns and showing where performance could be optimized. Maybe I’ve been so focused on bidding strategies and landing pages that I haven’t tested ad copy in a while. Prism’s word-clouding feature nudges me to look there, reminding me that even small shifts in language can improve CTRs and CPCs.
It’s not just about what to test next — it’s about not forgetting what you haven’t tested yet.
6. Keep a Living Log of Learnings
If you’re serious about building a sustainable cadence, track your tests like you would track a campaign.
For every test, document:
- What you tested (e.g., landing page, ad copy, bidding strategy)
- Your hypothesis (what you expected to happen)
- Your results (what actually happened)
- Your takeaway (what this means for future campaigns)
This log becomes your testing memory — the single source of truth for what’s been tried, what’s worked, and what’s worth revisiting later. It keeps your future tests smarter and your present ones focused.
7. Balance Testing and Scaling
Here’s the part no one tells you: testing will slow you down. Temporarily.
When you allocate spend to an experiment, that money could have gone into a proven campaign. It’s uncomfortable — especially when clients or leadership expect consistent results. But the point of testing isn’t short-term gain; it’s long-term scalability.
You’re buying learnings today that pay for themselves in future efficiency.
That’s the tradeoff. And that’s why a testing cadence isn’t a distraction from scaling — it’s what enables it.
Closing Thoughts
If I had to summarize my approach, it would be this:
Don’t test to test. Test to learn.
A strong cadence is less about how many experiments you run and more about how intentional they are. The discipline to isolate, the patience to wait, and the humility to log — those are the markers of a testing rhythm that scales without chaos.
And if you can get a system like Prism to help you spot the right next variable? Even better. Because great testing isn’t about doing more — it’s about doing what matters, deliberately.