Optimisation vs. Maximisation — Knowing Where to Focus Your Effort
Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash
Ask yourself if you’re clear about what you are actually trying to achieve when you say “improving performance”.
Below we discuss two very different approaches: optimisation and maximisation – and how knowing which to prioritise can be the difference between moving the needle and just moving numbers.
The short version
Maximisation is about increasing volume — i.e. get more traffic, more leads, more sales, etc.
Optimisation is about improving efficiency — ie.e. better conversion rates, better quality leads, better ROI, etc.
Both are valuable. Applying the wrong one to the wrong problem wastes time and money.
When to focus on optimisation
Focus on optimisation when you already have meaningful volume — traffic, leads, or sales — especially when performance within that volume isn’t where it should be.
For example, a website gets 50,000 visits a month and converts leads at 0.3%. Here, driving more traffic isn’t the problem, it is the website that is not doing its function well enough and the focus should be on improving the funnel by:
Refining messaging and CTAs,
Improving site speed and user experience,
Reducing friction at checkout or form level,
Qualifying traffic better across acquisition channels.
In this context, optimisation has leverage — even a modest increase in conversion rate will have a direct, compounding effect on revenue.
Moving the conversion rate from 0.3% to 0.5% is the difference between 150 leads and 250 leads - to achieve the same number of leads at a 0.3% conversion rate you would need to increase traffic to 83,333 visits per month.
In a nutshell:
High volume and poor efficiency → prioritise optimisation.
When to focus on maximisation
Maximisation becomes the priority when your efficiency is already strong - you simply don’t have enough volume for the results to matter.
For example, a landing page converts 25% of visitors into leads, whilst the site only gets 200 visitors a month.
Here, A/B testing button colours or adjusting copy in the hope of gaining a 10% lift in conversion rates will result in negligible gains compared to driving volume.
In this case, the goal should be to maximise reach:
expand acquisition channels,
test new audiences or markets,
increase spend where returns are proven.
Only once you’ve achieved meaningful scale does further optimisation make sense.
In a nutshell:
Strong efficiency and low volume → prioritise maximisation.
The balancing act
Most businesses naturally oscillate between the two – maximising until growth starts to dilute quality or returns, then optimising to restore balance – and repeat.
The key is recognising where you are on that curve.
Optimising too early can result in tinkering on metrics that don’t matter yet.
Maximising too early can mean scaling waste – spending more to amplify inefficiency.
At candid, this is often where we start with new clients: understanding whether the data suggests a scale problem or a conversion problem. From there, we build the right model for growth — one that balances both approaches over time rather than defaulting to either.
Final thought
Optimisation makes you sharper.
Maximisation makes you louder.
The art is knowing when you need to be which.
