In my career, I’ve bought over $500 million of direct response marketing. For the record, most of the programs I’ve bought have failed. Probably more than 80% have failed. And yet, I’ve been successful at marketing. I get results.

The foundation for this success is a principle I learned from a marketing client many years ago. He told me, “Marcia, I have an insatiable appetite for marketing programs that work. I will buy all the marketing you can sell me if you can prove you achieve a Marketing Cost Per Acquisition (MCPA) of ‘x.’ And I have an unlimited budget for marketing programs that work.”

His philosophy was fuel for my marketing strategy. All I had to do was test a marketing program, show the data for how it performed, and then I could buy more of the program. Released from the shackles of a marketing budget, I could look for programs to test and scale. I stopped buying marketing, and I started buying tests.

I organized my testing priorities using a few simple rules.

• Can the test be measured?
• Can I test small?
• Is the test scalable and repeatable?
• What evidence do I have from past experiences this test will work?
• Test lists over testing offers. Test offers over testing creative.

Not all tests will work. In fact, most will fail. You don’t grow a business by buying marketing. You grow a business by testing, measuring, learning, and scaling successful tests. I buy tests.