How I Track Every Experiment (And Prioritize What Matters)

Here's the system I use every week to prioritize, test, and scale smarter.

Author

Adam Lasky
May 05, 2025

Because “just throw money at it” isn’t a marketing strategy.

Good morning. In this edition:

  • ⚡ One of my go-to templates for running a high-functioning marketing system

  • 🔥 Why “structure” is your best growth hack

  • 💥 How to move fast without losing clarity

  • 🎉 A Google Sheets marketing OS experiment tracker you can use

🛠 My Go-To Marketing OS Template

Since that newsletter on systems thinking addressed the anti-hacking mindset, some of you asked for the tools I use to make that mindset operational.

So let’s make it real.

Here’s one I use every single week to keep experiments moving, campaigns clean, and my team aligned:

It’s a decision-making framework. It helps you cut through the noise, align execution with strategy, and learn fast.

🧩 Why You Need a Marketing Operating System

Marketing is full of motion. Ideas, tests, campaigns, copy, creative, landing pages.
But motion ≠ momentum. And it definitely ≠ scale.

That’s where a Marketing OS comes in. You need a structure that helps you:

  • Capture ideas without losing them

  • Prioritize based on impact, not hype

  • Tie every test back to a larger goal or theme

  • Move fast without breaking everything

  • Log learnings so you don’t relearn them next quarter

Think of this like your growth team's mission control.

📋 What’s Inside the Template

Here’s how it works—and how I use it:

🧠 1. Every Test Starts With a Hypothesis

No random buttons. No “let’s just try this” energy.
Every entry follows this format:

If we do X, we expect Y because Z.

For example:
If we shift our tennis lesson landing page to focus on "flexible, coach-led availability," we expect a 15% lift in CVR because existing data shows drop-offs around scheduling friction.

This forces clarity. Forces logic. Forces thoughtful bets, not random tinkering.

🔍 2. ICE Scoring to Prioritize

Each test gets an ICE score:

  • Impact: How much could this move the needle?

  • Confidence: How sure are we that it will?

  • Effort: What’s the cost (time, money, dev hours)?

This stops you from chasing shiny things and helps you stack-rank what matters now.

I do this weekly and re-rank the list. Priorities shift. Focus shouldn't.

🧠 3. Ladder Tests Into Strategic Themes

Experiments aren't isolated. They're part of a bigger system.

Every test is tagged with:

  • Funnel stage (Awareness, Consideration, Conversion)

  • Strategic theme (Pricing Clarity, Message Match, Objection Handling)

  • Primary KPI (CVR, AOV, CAC, ROAS, etc.)

That means we don’t just learn “what worked” but rather we learn why it worked and where it fits. It also makes it easier to spot patterns and compound wins.

📚 4. Log Learnings and Version History

Too many marketers run tests and never revisit them. Your growth team ends up in a cycle of "rediscovering" things you already knew.

This tracker has space to:

  • Write a short debrief (What happened? Why?)

  • Attach links to dashboards, creatives, results

  • Tag learnings as reusable across other geos, segments, or products

You’re building institutional knowledge rather than campaigns.

🚀 How to Use It

✅ Clone it.
✏️ Make it yours.
💬 Reply with questions or suggestions.

This is a v1—and I’d love your feedback. If enough people are interested, I’ll build out more plug-and-play modules (like campaign naming systems, media calendar boards, or KPI dashboards).

🔄 Remember: The System Is the Strategy

You don’t need more ideas.
You need a system that captures, ranks, and tests the right ones.

So the next time you feel overwhelmed by all the things you could do: pull this up, score the ideas, and move forward with clarity.

Because speed is great. But speed + structure? That’s how you scale.

👇 Get the Template + Test My New GPT Agent

Oh…and one more thing.

I’ve been building my own GPT-powered agent to help marketers run this system automatically. It can:

  • Prioritize your tests with ICE scoring

  • Suggest high-leverage experiments based on your KPIs

  • Flag gaps in your funnel or messaging

  • Keep your experiment log clean and up to date

This is an early version (v0.1), and I’d love your feedback before I polish it up.

📬 Reply to this email or DM me on LinkedIn if you want to try it out and help shape it.

This newsletter is for you. What marketing challenges are you facing in your startup journey? Reply directly to this email with your questions or topics you'd like to see covered in future issues.

Until next week,

P.S. Found this helpful? Forward it to another founder who might benefit—we're all in this together.