Let me tell you about the week I spent manually “fixing” my “automated” Black Friday campaign every single day.

Spoiler alert: The automation didn’t work. At all.

The Setup That Should Have Worked

I was SO excited. I created this beautiful “5 Days of Gifts” campaign for Black Friday. Five different gift pages, each scheduled to appear on a specific day using Elementor Pro’s Display Conditions feature.

The plan was simple:

• Monday: Gift #1 appears (all other gifts say “Coming DATE)
• Tuesday: Gift #2 appears (all other gifts say “Coming DATE), Gift #1 Says “EXPIRED”
• Wednesday: Gift #3 appears (all other gifts say “Coming DATE), Gift #1&#2 Say “EXPIRED”
• Thursday: Gift #4 appears (all other gifts say “Coming DATE), Gift #1,#2 & #3 Say “EXPIRED”
• Friday: Gift #5 appears (all other gifts say “EXPIRED”)

Yup, I TESTED it. The day I set it up, I checked – and it worked! The correct gift appeared. I thought: “Perfect! I’ve done this type of campaign before with no issues. This will be fine.”

Spoiler alert: It was not fine.

What Actually Happened

Every morning, I’d check the site. Nothing was showing. Or the wrong day’s gift was showing. Or yesterday’s gift was still there when today’s should have appeared.

Every. Single. Day. I had to log in, manually adjust things, clear caches, regenerate files, and basically do the job the automation was supposed to do.

By Day 3, I was wondering why I even bothered with “automation” in the first place.

And then . . .  (que soap opera music) my pictures dissappeared on the actual gift pages. No background image. No PDF with link image. And definitely NO image in the upsel section. You know the one that says, “BUY NOW” and leads you to purchase. ARRRGGGHHHH!!

I’ll address that picture thing later in this blog post.

The Emotional Rollercoaster (Let’s Be Real)

I felt like I was letting you, my peeps, down.

You were expecting your gifts. You were excited. You’d signed up. And here I was, scrambling every morning to make the thing work that SHOULD have worked automatically.

And you know what started creeping in? That voice.

“Maybe you’re not as tech-savvy as you think.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be teaching this stuff if you can’t even make a simple campaign work.”
“Maybe you’re in over your head.”

Imposter syndrome. Or whatever-syndrome. That sneaky little voice that tries to convince you that technical failures are actually personal failures.

But I stopped that cold.

Because, wait a minute. I KNOW I’ve done this before. I KNOW it worked. I KNOW I’m not incompetent.

So what was different THIS time?

That’s when I got curious instead of self-critical. That’s when I stopped accepting “I must have messed something up” and started investigating “What is actually broken here?”

And THAT’S when I discovered it wasn’t me. It was the tool.

The timezone bug. The caching conflict. The known issues that dozens of other developers had reported in Elementor’s GitHub repository. I had NO idea all this was happening. I had tested and used this same element before, no issues.

However, I hadn’t done it like I described above inside the latest Elementor version, although I’ve used other 3rd party tools before. So I figured, hey let’s use this element that “they” say is working and fnally added to the software a few months ago. Why not?

I learned that I wasn’t failing. The software was.

And honestly? That discovery was validating as ANYTHING.

The Problem (It Wasn’t Me!)

Here’s what I discovered after doing some detailed research:

Elementor Pro’s Display Conditions have some serious bugs:

1. The Timezone Issue: Even though my WordPress was set to Eastern Time, and my server was set to Eastern Time, Elementor was using UTC (that’s Greenwich Mean Time – like 5 hours ahead of me!). So when I scheduled something for 9am, it was actually showing at 2pm.
2. The Caching Conflict: Display conditions are “dynamic” which means they don’t play well with caching. But caching is turned ON by default in Elementor. So the cached version of my page kept showing old content instead of checking “what should display NOW?”
3. The Manual Fix Trap: Because I didn’t know about these issues upfront, I kept “fixing” individual problems without understanding the root cause. Which meant I had to keep fixing the same problems over and over. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? You got it. I felt a little insane at that very moment.

The Real Lesson Here

This isn’t actually a story about Elementor being buggy (though it is).

And it’s not a story about “I should have tested” – because I DID test.

This is a story about testing THOROUGHLY and giving yourself TIME to catch issues before they become problems.

Here’s what I did wrong:

1. I moved too fast – I came up with this idea and immediately implemented it without enough buffer time. There was no room for “what if something breaks?”

Now, let me say that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with moving fast, however sometimes, you can move faster than your little brain allows and you wind up not even thinking about something small and critical.

2. I tested on one day, not multiple days – The test showed me that Day 1 worked. But it didn’t show me what would happen when Day 2 should appear, or when Day 1 should disappear, or how the transitions would work. 
3. Past success created false confidence – I’d done a similar campaign before with no issues. So I assumed this would work the same way. (It didn’t.)
4. I didn’t understand the technical limitations – I didn’t know about timezone offsets, caching conflicts, or the specific bugs in Elementor’s display conditions. So my “test” didn’t actually test for those issues. Sound familiar? You don’t know what you don’t know.

What I Should Have Done (And What You Should Do)

BEFORE your next automated campaign:

1. Test at least 3-5 days before launch – Not just “does it work today” but “does it work across multiple days, with transitions, with caching, on different devices?” Give yourself TIME to discover issues and fix them without panic.
2. Test the full sequence, not just one element – If you have 5 days of automation, test all 5 transitions. Watch Day 1 disappear when Day 2 appears. Don’t assume “if Day 1 works, they all work.”
3. Don’t let past success make you skip steps – Just because you’ve successfully run campaigns before doesn’t mean THIS one will work the same way. Different tools, different setups, different gremlins. Sometimes Same tools, but just wonky stuff happens??
4. Build in buffer time for Murphy’s Law – Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And it will go wrong at 6am on launch day when you’re trying to enjoy your coffee. Give yourself room for problems.
5. Understand the tool’s limitations – If you’re using display conditions, you need to know about timezone offsets, caching conflicts, and browser caching issues. Read the documentation. Search for known bugs. Ask in communities.
6. Have a backup plan – Sometimes manually scheduling posts or using a plugin that actually works is faster than debugging automation that doesn’t. Know when to pivot.

Here’s What I’m Doing Differently Next Time

I’m switching to Element Pack Pro for my display conditions (this has worked for me previously). And I’m testing it thoroughly BEFORE the next campaign.

But more importantly, I’m asking myself: “Is this automation actually SAVING me time, or is it creating more work?”

Because if I’m spending 30 minutes every day fixing automation that should take 5 minutes to do manually? That’s not efficiency. That’s just frustration dressed up as “being strategic.”

And I’m also giving myself permission to trust my experience.

When something doesn’t work and that little imposter syndrome voice starts whispering “maybe you’re not good enough”?

I’m going to remember: Or maybe the tool is broken.

Sometimes persistence isn’t about “trying harder.” 

It’s about investigating deeper. 

About refusing to accept “I must have messed up” and asking “What’s actually happening here?”

That’s how I found the real answers. Not by doubting myself, but by trusting myself enough to keep digging.

The Campaign Tech Testing Protocol

That’s why I created a complete testing protocol for automated campaigns like this – a step-by-step checklist you can use BEFORE you launch so you don’t waste time during your live campaign.

If you’re a UN-Marketing Academy member, you’ll find the Campaign Tech Testing Protocol in your Resources section right now. It includes:

• What to test and when
• How to identify timezone issues before they bite you
• The caching checklist
• Red flags that mean “abort mission”
• A comparison of different display condition tools

Not a member yet? Keep reading…

Speaking of the Academy…

You know what’s funny? The whole reason I almost shut down the Academy earlier this year was because I got caught up in tech challenges and stepped back from it.

But tech problems are EXACTLY why entrepreneurs need a community and support system.

Because when your “automation” breaks at 6am during a campaign launch, you need someone who’s been there to say: “Here’s what’s actually wrong, here’s how to fix it, and here’s how to prevent it next time.”

And more importantly, you need someone to say: “This isn’t your fault. The tool is broken. You’re not.”

Because that imposter syndrome voice? It gets LOUD when technology fails. And if you’re alone, trying to figure it out by yourself at 6am in your pajamas? That voice wins.

But in a community? Where someone else has hit the same bug, researched the same issues, and can say “Yeah, Elementor’s display conditions have a timezone problem – here’s the workaround”?

That voice gets real quiet real fast.

That’s what the Academy is for.

Not just the courses and the training (though those are there). But the real-time problem solving, the “here’s what I learned the hard way,” the “it’s not you, it’s the tool,” and the community of people who GET IT.

Academy members understand that technical failures don’t mean personal inadequacy.

Academy members know that sometimes the most strategic move is to admit something’s broken and find a better way.

Academy members won’t let you spiral into imposter syndrome when the real problem is a buggy plugin.

Special Academy Offer

Since I extended my Black Friday gifts through Friday, I’m also extending the Special pricing for the Academy:

20% OFF any membership level + 30 Days FREE

Choose your level:

• Academy Member ($97/month → $77.60/month) – All core training, weekly marketing nuggets, and community support
• Academy Accelerator ($144/month → $115.20/month) – Everything in Academy PLUS access to 6 UN-Marketing Implementation Courses
• Academy Inner Circle ($241/month → $192.80/month) – Everything in Accelerator PLUS LIVE coaching and mastermind calls 2x month

(Your holiday pricing locks in FOREVER)

This offer expires midnight (Friday, December 5th). And yes, I tested the countdown timer. 😂

Marketing tech should make your life EASIER, not harder.

When it doesn’t? It’s not you. It’s most likely the tool.

But knowing how to test, troubleshoot, and sometimes just SKIP the fancy automation in favor of what actually works?

That’s the real skill.

And that’s exactly what I teach in the Academy – not just the “how-to” but the “when should you” and “what do you do when it breaks?”

Ready to join a community where we figure this stuff out together?

Click here to grab your Academy membership at 20% off + 30 days free:

Or have questions? Leave a comment below or schedule a quick chat: Schedule a Chat with me

Here’s to automation that actually works (and knowing what to do when it doesn’t),

If you’re wondering whether the Campaign Tech Testing Protocol is worth joining for… it took me hours of research and debugging to figure out what was wrong. Six+ hours of reading GitHub issues, testing theories, and ruling out whether it was me or the tool. The Protocol would have saved me all of that PLUS the daily manual fixes AND the imposter syndrome spiral. So yeah, I’d say it’s worth it. 😊

ABOUT THE UN-MARKETING ACADEMY

The UN-Marketing Academy teaches purpose-driven entrepreneurs how to market authentically without aggressive sales tactics or AI-generated content. Our “Value First, Invitation Second” approach helps you build real relationships that convert to cash – without feeling gross about sales.

Current members include: coaches, authors, consultants, course creators, and service providers who are tired of “traditional” marketing and want a better way.