Why Your Team Is Addicted to “Safe” Channels (And How to Break the Habit)

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TL;DR: Why teams default to “safe” channels—and how to change the mindset

• Many marketing orgs retreat into demand-capture channels when budgets tighten, even though incremental reach comes from upper-funnel testing.
• Channel decisions now hinge on cross-functional bandwidth, not just marketing intuition.
• The most advanced teams use multiple attribution models internally to gain confidence and reduce risk.
• Creativity and speed matter more than ever: AI creative tools, CTV growth, and podcast diversification are giving marketers new ways to run tests.
• A culture of experimentation, built with one-pagers, post-mortems, and clear hypotheses, is what separates stagnant teams from growth organizations.

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Every marketing leader knows the story: as budgets tighten and forecasts get conservative, it’s easy to get pulled back into the warm embrace of “safe” channels, like paid search or email. 

But only sticking to those core channels can also slow your growth.

In our recent Ad Week panel discussion with growth leaders from Bilt, Gusto, and Headway, one theme emerged loud and clear: the biggest obstacle to channel diversification is comfort. (Or put more bluntly: apathy.)

In this article, we break down why teams fall into the safety trap, the risks of staying there, and how top marketers are building experimentation cultures that actually drive results.

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Meet the speakers

• Nikki Jackson, Head of Demand Generation, Gusto
• Jake Orbach-Smith, Growth Marketing Lead, Headway
• Alexandra Bacchus, Director, Paid Marketing, Bilt
• Matt Wynne, Principal, Right Side Up

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Why we default to “safe” channels (even we when shouldn’t)

“Safe” channels feel like an early 2000s Toyota Camry. They’ve been around for a long time. They’re predictable. They work.

And maybe most importantly: everyone knows they work. 

But notice how we put “safe” in quotes? Our panelists made something very clear: safety often comes at the cost of long-term growth.

“Meta and YouTube are changing weekly; platforms look totally different than they did six months ago. That alone is a reason to retest old channels.” — Nikki Jackson, Head of Demand Generation, Gusto 

This isn’t just opinion. According to Gartner, 76% of marketers say they are too reliant on performance marketing channels despite diminishing returns. Not only that, CPMs appear to be rising across major ad platforms.

Rising costs + changing platforms + shrinking targeting options = safe channels are actually riskier than they appear. 

So just like it might be time to upgrade to a newer car with better safety features, you need to explore beyond your tried and true tactics.

The real constraint: Cross-functional bandwidth

One of the most repeated insights from the panel: testing is a cross-functional lift.

“Getting a test out is much more than spending dollars. It’s engineering time, BI time, measurement time. That’s the hard part.” — Jake Orbach-Smith, Growth Marketing Lead, Headway 

What this means is that team capacity—not budgets—is the limiting factor.

This is exactly why so many organizations retreat to “easy” channels:

• Less tagging
• Fewer complex data setups
• Fewer attribution challenges
• Faster launches

But easy doesn’t equal effective. And as noted during the panel, failing to experiment has a compounding opportunity cost.

“Safe” channels capture demand, but don’t create it

Core channels are good at capturing demand, but they don’t necessarily create it.

“If your inbound dries up, that’s the clearest signal you’ve over-invested in capture channels… it’s time to invest in demand gen.” — Jake Orbach-Smith, Growth Marketing Lead, Headway 

The panelists emphasized balancing both worlds: 

Demand capture (or lead generation)

• Paid search
• Branded search or retargeting
• Affiliate bottom-funnel optimization

“Affiliate is a great entry point for testing new channels because you only pay when a specific action happens. Once the affiliate partnership helps us validate a channel, we can confirm we’re reaching the right audience and feel confident investing more in sponsorships that reach and resonate with that same group.” — Alexandra Bacchus, Director, Paid Marketing, Bilt

Demand generation

• Connected TV (CTV)
• Podcast ads
• Broader paid social
• Contextual partnerships

Leaders treat lower-funnel channels as the foundation, not the whole house.

How to break out of the safety trap

Across the session, three themes came up repeatedly, each offering a blueprint for senior marketers trying to diversify their channel mix.

1. Provide metrics that stakeholders care about the most

One of the strongest takeaways came from the attribution discussion is that different stakeholders need different metrics:

“Trying to force everyone into the same metrics is a mistake. Finance needs one view, channel owners need another — and that’s okay.” — Matt Wynne, Principal, Right Side Up 

Advanced teams can go as far as creating multiple attribution models. Matt says that during his time at Wrike, his team used four models, including one specifically for Finance that focused on last-touch for simplicity.

But even if you’re not at a stage where you can build multiple models, focus on what each decision maker cares about the most—and give them metrics that will make them understand the value of your efforts.

This reduces the fear of “wasting spend” on new channels.

2. Use AI to accelerate creative

One of the biggest concerns about experiments is that they’re slow to put together, and therefore risky. This is why Gusto uses AI tools to rapidly create and iterate creative.

“We’re piloting three or four tools to build creative faster. It lets us test more without the overhead.” — Nikki Jackson, Head of Demand Generation, Gusto

Fast creative = cheaper tests = more willingness from leadership to push into uncertainty.

3. Build a culture of documented, repeatable experiments

Thorough documentation may be the single biggest differentiator of high-performing growth orgs.

Always track what worked, what didn’t work, and why. Without documenting your tests, wins won’t be remembered and losses will be considered failures, not learning opportunities.

“We have a one-pager culture. Every test has a doc: why we ran it, what happened, what we learned.” — Jake Orbach-Smith, Growth Marketing Lead, Headway

And just as crucially: Revisit tests regularly as platforms change.

A simple experimentation framework to break the habit

Here’s the playbook distilled from the discussion:

1. Rebalance budget to avoid over-reliance on capture channels: A 10–20% reallocation into test channels can reveal major lift.
2. Ask: “What would unlock incremental reach?” Not: “What feels easy?”
3. Create a lightweight testing framework: Hypothesis → KPIs→ runway → documentation.
4. Build alignment with tailored stories: Different narratives for finance, leadership, and channel owners.
5. Document tests so future teams don’t start from zero: The one-pager + post-mortem combo is gold.

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Ready to break out of “safe” channels? RSU can help.

If your team is stuck in the safety trap—over-relying on paid search, under-testing growth channels, or struggling with attribution confidence—we can help.

We can help you:

• Identify your highest-potential test channels
• Design smart, measurable experiments
• Improve attribution confidence
• Build internal testing culture and frameworks

👉 Reach out to the RSU team to start your next breakthrough experiment.

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