$0 “Growth Hacks” We Can Vouch For

Hi there,

Welcome to Human Scale! On this side, we’re real startup people who roll up their sleeves to grow startups and brands strategically and efficiently. This month, we wanted to double-click on something everyone is always asking us about: how to optimize growth efforts without spending more money. As a team, we often run to each other for new ideas, so here’s a peek behind the curtain of our latest “water cooler” talk.

Yes, you can still get performance insights while using Google Ads Performance Max (PMax) 🕵️

If you run Google Ads, you are likely leveraging PMax (Google campaigns that use AI to display responsive ads across the main networks: search, display, video, etc.) and know it's basically table stakes. You also know that you have less visibility and control over campaign dynamics in exchange for Google’s promise to show up in the right places at the right times to hit your goals.

Did you know you can easily run scripts (no coding experience necessary!) that can generate automated reports to show you data on things such as exactly how much you’ve spent in different networks or top keywords within PMax? One of our leads, Kelly, learned this, and it’s been a game changer.

“One of our e-commerce clients began relying more heavily in 2024 on PMax, rightfully so because it was generating the strongest return on investment. However, almost overnight and with no major changes from our side, impressions spiked, which seemingly indicated quality had dropped, and effectiveness declined. Using a script, we determined Shopping impression share skyrocketed, taking away from more effective Search placements. This allowed us to more closely evaluate Google Shopping inventory and how to improve.”

Though you can’t optimize in real-time, you can understand fluctuations and gain insights so these campaigns are no longer a black box. With that, you can make more informed decisions about adjusting your plans and budgeting holistically across paid channels. [Search Engine Land - How to track Performance Max campaigns with Google Apps Script].

Audience insights live in your affiliate partnerships 🤓

Sometimes new growth ideas are hidden inside existing tactics. Affiliate partnerships are great for several reasons besides the low-risk, incremental conversions. One of our favorite things is to leverage them for additional audience insights.

One of our leads, Sydney, uses this as shorthand to deeper ideal customer profiles you can act on as you go:

“Strong-performing affiliate partners are literally telling you where your customers are—what they’re reading, what they care about, and where they’re spending time. This can inform messaging, and it’s also a great way to low-risk test potential deeper brand partnerships.”

P.S. As a team, we prefer premium media partners and content creators as affiliates—due to the reach, brand lift, and trust—versus coupon/discount aggregators, especially for smaller brands.

Quick messaging testing framework — product features vs. consumer mindsets 🎭

We all know we should continually test messaging in our marketing channels. We often see clients testing differences that are too close together conceptually or that don’t leave them with clear learnings to act on later.

One go-to messaging test framework is feature-forward vs. user emotion/mindset-forward. What I like about this is that the results can help influence how you message across channels and can get you closer to your best hooks.

Onboarding quizzes can do double duty 👯

Many of our health and wellness category clients leverage onboarding questionnaires or quizzes as part of their conversion funnel, so we review a lot of onboarding experiences for reference. Often with these clients, optimization of onboarding experiences and email/SMS flows are within our scope of work.

For businesses that promise personalized experiences, onboarding is used literally to funnel the user to the correct experiences. We also highly recommend that the onboarding primes the user on what to expect, helps build the overall value proposition, and prepares them for the next action.

Some examples of this: Repeat a core value with context on why a question is being asked: “We believe personalized care is what makes the difference. To match you with the right care team, tell us […]”

Until next month,

GOC