Early Adopters Crush It
Especially When They Also Adapt Early

I’ve seen this movie before.
When Amanda Bond, The Ad Strategist, shared her move to make Facebook ads perform when all marketers were experiencing the same downward trend, I knew I’d seen this movie before. Twice.
In forty years of marketing, I’ve seen how early adopters make the most profit. More importantly, the ones who quickly identify downward slides, quickly pivot, and devise solutions, make the most money over the long term. That’s what Amanda has done.
In “The Real Reason Facebook Ads Have Stopped Working,” Amanda describes how Facebook ads worked well in 2014-2016 when you could get $12 in revenue for every $1 in advertising. Today, it might look like .66% for each dollar. Conversions dropped to 1-3%. Buying 100 impressions to get 1? Aargh. (Thanks to marketing expert Kim Doyal for the introduction to Amanda’s case study.)
What happened? Amanda blames bro-marketing, essentially ego-driven messaging, considering it “inherently self-centered and seller-first (not customer-first).”
She enjoyed the success of 2014-2016. When numbers went south, what did she do? She adapted.
I’ve seen this story before. Twice.

Remember when the keyword “mortgage” was under $1 on Google pay-per-click around 1999? I remember years later when it hit $10. Well, today, it’s $47.12, one of the most expensive keywords. Maybe that worked in 2004-2005, but not today. What happened?
Market forces. Competition increased for the keyword. High costs led to long-tail campaign management. That meant that to continue to be successful, something had to change. Enter careful strategy. Adapting, testing, and tweaking became a constant state.
Twice.

Starting in 1984, direct response television ads used toll-free numbers to track results of infomercials, those 28-minute 30-second shows. Results were $15 in sales for every $1 spent on commercial time. Awesome, right? But producers learned quickly that after six months, results dropped when the creative got stale. They’d get a little lift from a tweak.
Once again, the early adopters made a ton of money doing 15:1. Days of easy money. But things change. Fast forward to today, a 1:1 is a success. What happened? Some bad actors made headlines, and some went to jail for false claims. The industry took a black eye and its reputation turned sleazy. Breaking even does not make a business, so the adaptation? Devotion to extending the lifetime value of the customer. Exactly Amanda’s solution: focus on the customer.
So, yes, I’ve seen this story three times.
Data tells the story.
But it’s the ingenuity of those early adopters who persevere and pioneer new strategies that yields long-term success.
They may identify a “market correction,” as Amanda mentions, or other force driving numbers into a downward spiral.
Moral of this story? Be quick to get in. Test. Be quick to adapt.
Whatever the new channel, consider being an early adopter. But remember: all the early successful early adopters tested first. They don’t throw in all their chips until they have tested, often tweaking offer and/or creative before rolling out with a bigger expenditure.
While early adopters may make the most profits, but those early adopters who are also early adapters succeed over the long haul by focusing on their customers and innovation.