"My conversion rate dropped 0.3%… should I change my headline?"
"My email open rates are down… time to rewrite everything?"
It's the optimisation addiction talking. The compulsive need to fix, tweak and improve without stopping to ask the most important question in marketing:
What exactly are you optimising for?
You need to identify your optimisation objectives before you can make meaningful improvements. Otherwise, you're just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship… or worse, creating new holes while trying to patch old ones.
Here's what I mean. Last month, a client spent three weeks "optimising" their email welcome series because their click-through rates seemed low. They tested subject lines, redesigned templates, rewrote copy. Click rates went up 0.8%. Whoop.
But when we dug deeper, we discovered their real problem: 40% of new subscribers never received the welcome email due to deliverability issues. They were optimising the wrong thing entirely. They hadn’t upstreamed their thinking to the bigger issue they were facing. Poor past email marketing tactics that had hammered their ability to hit their new customers’ inbox. The fix wasn’t ‘to optimise’ (aka. marketer jargon for ‘stay busy’)
The Two-Level Objective Framework
Every optimisation should have two clear objectives:
Micro Objective (The Immediate Goal)
What specific metric are you trying to improve? Don’t say ROAS.
By how much?
In what timeframe?
Why this metric, right now?
Macro Objective (The Business Impact)
How does improving this metric serve your larger business goals? Profit.
What happens to customer lifetime value? At least considering the implication and how it impacts repeat business. I’m looking at you discount codes…
How does this reduce your dependence on paid acquisition?
What's the compound effect over 6-12 months?
Without both levels defined, you'll find yourself optimising for vanity metrics that don't move the business forward. Or worse, improving one metric while accidentally sabotaging another.
The Real-World Reality Check
Here's a simple audit you can do today: Look at your last five optimisation projects. For each one, write down:
What you were trying to improve (be specific)
Why you chose that particular element
How success would impact your bottom line
Whether you achieved the intended business outcome (not just the metric improvement)
I'm willing to bet at least three of those optimisations either had unclear objectives or optimised for metrics that didn't significantly impact revenue or customer retention.
The Questions That Actually Matter
Before you touch another campaign, ask yourself:
Is this optimisation moving me toward sustainable, diversified growth or just making my ad dependency more efficient?
Am I optimising because I see a real opportunity or because I'm avoiding the harder work of building new growth channels?
Will improving this metric by my target amount actually change my business trajectory?
What's the opportunity cost of spending time on this instead of building partnerships, improving SEO or strengthening customer retention?
Breaking the Optimisation Addiction
The hardest part about optimisation addiction is that it feels productive. You're always improving something. But improvement without clear objectives is just expensive busywork.
Instead of reflexively optimising when growth stalls, try this recovery approach:
Pause and diagnose: What's the actual problem? Not just the symptom you can see in your analytics.
Define both objectives: What's the metric goal and what's the business impact goal?
Consider alternatives: Would the same time investment in partnerships, SEO, or email marketing deliver better long-term results? Or a overarching growth strategy that sits across all of these (like I shared yesterday)
Set success criteria: How will you know if this optimisation actually worked for your business (not just your metrics)?
Your Optimisation Recovery Challenge
This week, before you optimise anything, write down your micro and macro objectives.
You might discover that the "urgent" optimisation isn't urgent at all. And that the real growth opportunity is in the sustainable channel you've been putting off because it's harder than tweaking an existing campaign.
Remember: Optimisation without clear objectives is just procrastination with spreadsheets.
The most successful founders I work with optimise strategically, not compulsively. They know exactly what they're optimising for, why it matters, and how it fits into their broader mission of building ad-independent ecommerce growth.
What are you optimising for?