I’m an intuitive person who also makes decisions prioritizing facts and logic, not feelings.

But ads are not all logic. They are emotional too. We need to craft creative that appeals to readers. They’re making an emotional decision. They aren’t buying books because they’re useful. They’re buying books for an emotional experience.

What image will connect with readers? I can run a million tests and see what gets the best CTR on a landing page. Or I can follow my instinct, since I know the book and the audience.

I’ve had good results with both, but I usually have better results when I start with instinct. After I start, I look at ad metrics, but I don’t actually have a lot of useful data. At the end of the day, none of the metrics on the ad themselves matter for my overall profit. Only one metric matters: spend vs. sales.

Yes, if I can’t get past the feeling I shouldn’t have to spend money, or it’s wrong to spend a certain amount of money, that may hamper my business. But it isn’t necessarily a bad move. I’m a heavy advertiser and I’m not ashamed to admit it, but many of my risky ad decisions have failed. Some have succeeded. Some not so much.

I have friends who spend more conservatively who don’t make as much profit as I do, but they still make a solid profit with a great ROI.

It’s dangerous to profits to underspend but it’s dangerous to overspend too. There’s no one size fits all solution.