What is always-on marketing?
What does always-on mean?
A campaign has a start and an end. Always-on has neither. A search ad, a retargeting set or a prospecting set stays live month after month, with budget adjusted along the way.
You will also hear "continuous activity" or "evergreen campaigns". Same idea.
The case for it is straightforward. Customers buy all year, not only during campaigns. Being present when they are ready to buy is sensible. Starting and stopping also has a cost: gaps when nobody sees you.
What is the catch?
When a channel runs constantly, its results arrive constantly too. The platform keeps reporting sales. It is easy to stop asking which of those sales would have arrived anyway.
That is the incrementality question: what happened because of the ads, over and above what would have happened without them. A channel that is never paused gives you no comparison. You see the credit, not the effect.
The usual way to get a comparison is a holdout test: part of the audience, or some regions, deliberately do not see the ads, and you compare results with the group that does.
Our view: Always-on is a scheduling choice. It is not evidence that the spend works.
Easily confused with
Always-on vs Funnel
The model of customer stages. Always-on describes timing, not a stage.
Always-on vs Full-funnel
Coverage across stages. A brand can be full-funnel and run in bursts, or always-on at one stage only.
Buzzword alert
"Always-on gives us constant momentum"
Usually means: the spend never pauses.
Ask: what do we know about sales when it does?
"It's a continuous optimisation engine"
Usually means: settings are adjusted regularly, inside the platform's own reporting.
Ask: against which control is the improvement measured?
FAQ
Is always-on better than campaign bursts?
Neither wins by default. It depends on how your customers buy and on what a test shows. A plan that is never checked cannot say.
Does always-on mean the budget stays the same?
No. It means the ads stay live. Budget can still change with season, stock and margin.
Can you test an always-on channel?
Yes. A holdout test pauses it for part of the audience or some regions, and compares the results. You then get an estimate of how much of the reported credit the ads caused.
Let’s find what’s actually working.
Next step. See what your ROAS figure leaves out. Use the Is your ROAS real? calculator.