Patience is a (digital marketing) virtue.

Have you ever kicked off a brand new campaign and wondered to yourself, “why am I not seeing the results I expected?” a day or two in? Or, have you been asked that very same question by clients or fellow team members? This can often be disheartening to see and you may feel a deep, primal urge to course-correct and immediately change what isn’t working. Though it may be difficult, I’m here to tell you to ignore that feeling and be patient.

If you’ve just launched a brand new campaign, in a brand new ad account, on a brand new platform that you’ve never played on before—it’s very likely you will not immediately see the results you want. This is where patience comes in—give your campaigns time to collect a sizeable amount of data before going in and making sweeping changes. Ad platforms like Google Ads or Facebook ads use historical data to optimize when and where your ads show. If your account is brand new or if you’re starting a new campaign with completely different targeting than your other campaigns, there will be no historical data to guide your new campaigns. Give your campaigns time to accrue that valuable data and you may start to see the results gradually roll in. You never know what you could be missing out on if you decide to toss out a campaign after only a few days.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should let your campaign run for months without any significant changes. It may be helpful to set timed metric benchmarks before the campaign even starts. This could be something like “If we don’t receive X amount of conversions one week into the campaign, we will change Y” or “If engagement remains low two weeks into the campaign, we will pause campaign A and put those resources into campaign B.” These are examples of larger actions that should be considered a week or two into the campaign after a sizeable amount of data has been collected. Smaller actions like bid optimizations should still be occurring throughout your campaigns each day.

Patience is a virtue. Don’t jump to conclusions. Good things come to those who wait. Something something perseverance. There are various quotes regarding the importance of patience. In the scope of a digital marketing campaign, patience plays a key role when launching something new or making any significant changes. The data definitely doesn’t lie, just give it some time to build its case before moving forward.