Zach Morrison, Chief Executive Officer and board director, Tinuiti
In marketing — as in all aspects of growing a business overall — it’s imperative to know up front how much a team is willing to lose, how long they’re willing to try and when to walk away.
Yet, too often, waste is treated like a bad word, instead of asking: Is this the cost of growth? Or just a line item our team has learned to ignore?
Waste is a feature, not a bug
Every marketing budget should have waste in it. If there’s zero waste, the company isn’t trying anything new — not experimenting with new channels, formats, measurement, tech or audiences. The team isn’t creating the conditions where something new and valuable can emerge. The kind of growth that only shows up once outside of comfort zones, where things feel unfamiliar, risky, even a little scary.
No one in board meetings, client reviews or leadership sessions says, “Only bring me ideas that are guaranteed to work.” What leaders want is smart thinking, fast feedback and full transparency. They want to know: How long will you test? How much risk will you take? What will you do with what you learn?
Results are never perfect out of the gate, whether it’s testing into AI SEO, TikTok, streaming TV or niche retail media networks. But with the right measurement and decision frameworks, early inefficiencies often point the way to growth.
Cloud-based tech company AppFolio is a perfect example of this. When its marketing platform held the company back, it dared to try something new. Tinuiti helped the company experiment by pitting a new programmatic solution against AppFolio’s existing tech. This calculated waste unlocked unprecedented flexibility and drove a 3x increase in click-through rate.
This kind of testing isn’t a waste — it’s an investment. The problem is that most marketers don’t draw a line between smart experimentation and wasteful drift. That’s when valuable media dollars leak out.
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