What it really means when we say that marketing is an art and a science

As the leader of a digital marketing agency, I’m big on mindsets. A mindset that encompasses much of what I have to say about marketing leadership is this: that marketing is both an art and a science, but not in the way that people usually think.

It is extremely common for people to misconstrue what marketing means as an art or a science. When they think art, they think about the subjective, and marketers’ days become about changing aesthetic things—layouts, colors, and taglines—based on intuition alone. With science, they think it’s about measurable linear increases vs. leaving room for learning and unexpected possibilities, and growth strategies become too rigid and formulaic.

Both scenarios set marketers up for constant judgment and reactivity. When marketing teams misuse ideas around art and science, they fail to own their own strategies and push aside distractions. They’re receptive to too much input on their work, which leads to marketing whiplash.

So what does the art and science of marketing really mean, and how should the two work together?

Marketing as art means being willing to go against convention

To say that art is purely the creation of pleasing images, stories, and sounds would be wildly inaccurate, and the same is true of marketing. Marketing, like art, isn’t just making things look pretty. It’s about saying something new, or true, which often involves challenging people—external to your organization and internally.

Marketing, like art, isn’t just making things look pretty. It’s about saying something new.

There’s an example out of a book on CRO (conversion rate optimization) testing that Augurian uses a lot when explaining CRO to prospective clients. A manufacturer of children’s goods pretty much exclusively used the word “infant” on their product pages, when keyword research showed that people don’t think of them as “infants,” but “babies,” which also makes intuitive sense—nobody says, “Isn’t that a cute infant?”

Replacing “infant” with “baby” on pages for one category led to a huge lift, and the same result came from making the change with a second category. Eventually, the swap was made global for the whole site. This phased testing was a scientific approach no doubt, but it all started with an insight that went against an entire organization’s accepted wisdom. The job of the marketer as an artist is not to say “Yes, and I’ll do the icing.” The job of our inner artists is to risk being the first to state what’s been lost.

Marketing as science means looking for alternative explanations

Augurian once worked with a client who had a unique solution for men’s hair loss. We observed on their website that their contact form was really long, and we felt that it asked for too much detailed information. So we simplified the form, but it actually performed worse.

We could have immediately abandoned the line of inquiry and reverted back to the old strategy, but we still had the sense that there was something going on with the form. So we used a heat mapping tool to gather more data, and learned that what was actually happening was that people were getting distracted. The client had a bunch of highly compelling content—convincing before and after photos and a video clip from their appearance on Good Morning America—within sight of the contact form. It wasn’t that the form was too long, but that people were bouncing out of it to click on the client’s own sales materials. After removing those distractions from the contact form page, conversions went through the roof.

The job of the scientist isn’t only to observe and report. The spirit of science is asking, “Why?”

The job of the scientist isn’t only to observe and report. The spirit of science is asking, “Why?” When we found out our hunch about the contact form was wrong, we didn’t deem the experiment an outright failure, but an invitation to consider what other questions could be asked.

What art, science, and marketing all have in common: a commitment to learning through trial and error 

This last example is about an idea that definitively didn’t work out the way we wanted it to, but still led to a practical insight for an Augurian client. This client had wanted to refresh their Facebook ads more frequently, but their historical strategy of using original photos for their creative was a bottleneck—getting new photos for Facebook ads was a pain. Our team decided to test stock photos as a solution for enabling more frequent ad refreshes given the constraint.

The ads using stock images were a flop. The click-through and conversion rates of the ads using stock images turned out to be lower, and their cost was significantly higher than the ones that used client images. Despite these results, my team still celebrated this as a win because of the significant learning. We could now go back to the client and say with confidence that stock images didn’t fit with their business, schooling for neurodiverse children. Said another way, authentic representation of their unique clientele is an important part of resonating with their audience—a meaningful and enduring piece of understanding to inform our future strategy.

The key to success is a growth mindset—one where we seek to learn always, which is dependent on an openness to being wrong.

The modern marketer’s job is challenging because it’s complex. We must be artists who dare to speak up or be different to create new forms, while also being scientists. As scientists, we must search for new explanations when we don’t have any by observing, hypothesizing, and setting up experiments. Across both roles, the key to success is a growth mindset—one where we seek to learn always, which is dependent on an openness to being wrong. Not getting hung up on always getting things right is the attitude that begets great art, great science, and business growth through great marketing.

Please like this article if you enjoyed it, share it, and follow me for more on how us marketers can blend art and science to learn about their businesses.

Josh Becerra is President and Founding Partner of Augurian, an award-winning digital marketing agency started in 2015. He also is the host of a podcast series where he interviews SaaS industry leaders on their marketing insights and experiences.