How to Maximize Your Growth - A systematic framework to prioritize growth initiatives

November 7, 2022

When reflecting on how to grow your Shopify store sales or eCommerce business, there is only one formula that will maximize your growth. However, there is a catch or two! Our team will show you how to work around those. Without further ado, here is the magic formula:

  1. Rank your marketing opportunities by Return on Investment (ROI)
  2. Invest in the opportunity with the highest ROI, then scale
  3. Adjust and Iterate

Maybe this is new information… maybe this seems obvious. In either case, the devil is in the details. In this case, the details are encompassed in the measurement, certainty and execution. So let's walk through each step in a little more detail. 

Step 1 - Rank Your Marketing Opportunities by Return on Investment

In order to do this, you need a couple of things: 

  • A list of your opportunities (click here for our list of ideas to get you started)
  • The ROI for those opportunities 

It's a good idea to start with a comprehensive list of broad areas and then narrow it down to more specific campaigns and tasks iteratively. Then, when it comes to estimating your ROI, the best place to start is with the actual data. This could be from Google Analytics or an ad platform. It's important to know that no data is 100% accurate and the better handle you have on measurement bias, the better you will be able to adjust accordingly. 

If you don't have data to rely on yet you can: 

  • make some assumptions
  • research benchmarks for your industry 
  • run small sample tests to get early indicators of performance
  • build mathematical models (spreadsheets are your powerful friend)

It is essential to consider any uncertainty in measurement errors or assumptions. If there is not a clear winner within the estimated margin of error, it is best to take a balanced approach and split investment. It is important to do this while trying to improve accuracy through enhanced attribution or modeling as more data is collected. 

Step 2 - Invest in the opportunity with the highest ROI, then Scale

Step 2 is easy! Scale your growth strategy as long as it holds the top return on investment. 

However, this does require actively monitoring the performance of the leading opportunities as well as runner-ups and potential big movers within the list. This means that some portion of your budget may need to be allocated to performance sampling to be able to identify movements in real-time and account for changing dynamics.

Step 3 - Adjust and Iterate

Lastly, all opportunities have a performance curve. If we plot performance on the y axis and investment level on the x, all investment opportunities will see diminishing ROI at some point.

This means the performance will flatten and in some cases begin to fall at some level of investment. Nothing lasts forever. And every marketing opportunity maxes out at some point. If you have reached every person in an audience, an ad gets old and annoying and you are capturing search volume. This means any strategy only scales so far. That's why it is crucial that this formula be applied iteratively on a continual basis. It’s a simple formula, but one that requires continuous oversight in order to maximize your growth. If you are relying on assumptions (which will almost always be the case), it is critical to collect more data to prove, disprove, or refine and revisit the prioritization of efforts with new data as it comes in.

At Indra Intelligence

At Indra Intelligence we can help you maximize the results of your investments. Through the use of strategic prioritization we provide high quality and effective marketing. Using smart budget allocations we help you optimize your ROAS driven spend allocation for paid digital campaigns. Click here to learn more about our products and services so that you are one step closer to maximizing your growth!