Why “Spike Tests” Don’t Work in Marketing (And What to Do Instead)

A tech consultant asked me a really insightful question today: “Can you do a spike test for marketing?”

It got me thinking. Because at first, I genuinely considered it. The idea made sense on the surface. In software development or tech consultancy, a spike test is a neat way of proving value: you take a small, specific problem, implement one precise solution, and measure the impact. It’s low risk, high learning. What’s not to like?

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised… Marketing just doesn’t work like that.

And here’s why.

Marketing isn’t modular – it’s messy

In tech, you can isolate a variable and test one small function. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, it tells you something valuable.

But in marketing? Everything is connected. Your messaging affects your conversion rate. Your sales follow-up affects your cost per lead. Your brand positioning affects the performance of your Google Ads. Nothing sits in a neat little box on its own.

Marketing isn’t a neat little Lego set where you can click in one piece, test it in isolation, and get a clean result. Marketing is more like a spider’s web. Touch one strand, and the whole thing shivers. You might pull on “lead generation”, but what actually moves is your sales process, your pricing, your proposition, your content, your CRM… it’s all connected. You can’t isolate one bit and expect to get clean data.

So if you try to run a “spike test” in marketing – like, say, one email campaign – what are you really testing? The list quality? The subject line? The offer? The landing page? The follow-up?

You might think you’re testing one thing… but you’re actually testing everything all at once, and hoping something sticks.

His assumption was fair, though

And here’s the thing: his assumption was totally fair. Because loads of marketers offer exactly this kind of thing.

They’ll promise to run a one-off campaign and “get you loads of leads”. Sounds great, right?

Until you realise that those leads are mostly junk.

Because what they don’t tell you is that they’re not qualifying those leads. So what you end up with is a spreadsheet of 500 names, 487 of whom were just bored and clicked a button. You hand that to your sales team and now they’ve got two problems:

1. Too many people to follow up with, and

2. No way of knowing who’s actually interested.

So the good leads get lost in the noise, your team gets frustrated, and everyone ends up thinking marketing doesn’t work. (Spoiler: it does – just not like that.)

A spike test without a strategy is like an experiment without a hypothesis

Here’s the analogy that really hits home: doing a spike test in marketing without a strategy is like running an experiment without a hypothesis.

You might be lucky and discover something useful. But most of the time, you’ll waste time discovering something you didn’t mean to find out, and then you won’t be sure what to do with the data you’ve collected.

You didn’t get a definitive answer because you didn’t ask a definitive question.

Yes, you might run a campaign and get some leads. And some of those might be decent. And you might convert them. And honestly, that’s how I thought marketing worked when I first started. Try a thing. See what happens. Cross your fingers.

But if you’re relying on luck and happy accidents… that’s not marketing. That’s gambling.

Spike tests appeal because they’re seductive

They promise fast results. They feel safe because you’re only testing one thing. And they give the illusion of accountability: “Let’s see if this works before we commit.”

But here’s the truth: if you’re still spike testing in your marketing, you’re still gambling.

And if you’re tired of gambling - tired of wasting time, money, and opportunities - then what you actually need isn’t a tactic. It’s a system. A structure. A strategy.

That’s what I build. I don’t dabble in random campaigns. I design and build Marketing Machines that generate predictable, qualified, profitable leads.

If you’re done with guesswork and ready for a marketing strategy that actually works, let’s talk.
Book a clarity call and I’ll show you what a structured, testable, measurable marketing strategy looks like: rosconkie.com/clarity