The Paid Media Test Log

Log every paid-media test with its hypothesis, baseline and read-out date, flag tests read early, and see what share of decided budget led to a roll-out.

Excel + Google Sheets · Free

What this resource helps you do

Log every paid test before it starts with its hypothesis, baseline and read-out date, flag tests read early, and see what share of decided budget led to a roll-out.

Get the log from AAJ's free marketing templates library.

What the Paid Media Test Log does

The Paid Media Test Log helps you write every paid test down before it starts, read it once on the date you set, and see what your budget taught you. It flags tests decided before their read-out date and shows what share of decided budget led to a roll-out.

What is inside

Tests: forty rows with the hypothesis, the one variable changed, dates, budget, metric, baseline, the smallest change worth detecting, result, decision and a read-early flag.
Summary: decided budget and its shares, tests still running or with no decision, the share rolled out, inconclusive and read early, and a table by channel.
An Example Co. (fictional) sheet with four tests and the Summary they produce.

How to use it

Plan the test before you spend. Write the hypothesis and change one thing. Choose the metric that pays, say whether lower is better, and enter the baseline from the ad you would keep.
Run it to the read-out date. Leave the decision as running and do not read it early.
Read it once. Enter the result, check it in the calculator, and record whether it was significant, the decision and the date.
Review the Summary monthly. See how much decided budget led to a roll-out and how many tests were inconclusive or read early.

Who it is for

Founders and first marketers at seed to Series B startups who run paid tests on any channel and want a record they can trust: what was tested, against what, read when, and what it led to.

The worked example uses Example Co., a fictional company; its figures are illustrative. The template is free in exchange for an email address.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a paid media test log record?

Before the test: the hypothesis, the one thing that changed, the metric that pays, its baseline, the smallest change worth detecting, the budget and the read-out date. After it: the result, whether it was significant, the decision, the date you decided and what you learned.

Why does reading a test early matter?

AAJ's ad-creative-testing skill treats a test read before it reaches its planned size as unclean, because early looks inflate false winners. The log flags any decision dated before the read-out date, and the Summary shows how many decided tests were read early.

What if lower is better for my metric?

Set 'Lower is better?' to Yes for metrics such as cost per trial or cost per demo. The log then reads a fall as better and a rise as worse.

Is an inconclusive test a failure?

No. No winner is a result: the change you tested was too small to matter at your budget. Test a bigger idea next rather than running a flat test longer. A high inconclusive share usually means tests were sized by hope, so size the next one before you spend.

Which channels does it cover?

Google Search, Microsoft Ads, LinkedIn, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Capterra/G2, Reddit and Other. The list lives on the Summary sheet and feeds the dropdown, so the two cannot drift apart.

Is the template free, and what format is it?

Free, in exchange for an email address. It is an Excel .xlsx that opens in Excel and Google Sheets, with no macros.