Recency Bias: Why Recent Events Skew Your Judgment

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I never used paid ads (until last month).

It’s just how my early business model unfolded. I started doing pretty much everything for any business owner who needed help. Once I found a few clients, I expanded my work with them.

But now I’m getting narrower — doubling down where I can provide extreme value (and focusing only on the ideal client).

To experiment with my newer model, I was looking for fresh opportunities.

Enter Google Ads.

Holy crap!

You can get a whole bunch of eyeballs on your ads for <$30 a day…(it may not necessarily be the right eyeballs, but that's another story.)

Very quickly, I got a few booked calls.

That’s when it happened — my brain started devising strategies for pursuing more paid growth, and I jumped down rabbit holes.

I started romanticizing how significant those future outcomes could be — and just like that — I forgot all about how fast growth is dangerous.

This is an example of recency bias → the tendency to give more weight to recent events (or information) in decision-making.

Recency bias often leads to flaws in your judgment.

You overweight short-term pops over longer-term trends

• for example → a recent spike in sales might leave you overly optimistic about year-end results.

You overlook past underperformance 

• for example → you give your less-than-stellar employee slightly better marks on their performance evaluation because they crushed the presentation last week (despite a poor previous three months).

You mistake urgent for important

• for example → a finance consultant reveals flaws in your cash management system, prompting a week-long overhaul. Meanwhile, your marketing efforts suffer, causing the pipeline to dry up.

To combat recency bias, try these 2 strategies:

1 — Zoom out by three frames

It’s a way to reslice the data and turn short timeframes into longer ones.

Use days-weeks-months-quarters-years as the time frames.

For example, if you’re using a dataset over 2 weeks, zoom out to 2 months, 2 quarters, and 2 years. This broader perspective helps put recent events into context without losing their relevance.

2 — Ask yourself, "If I didn’t know this information, what would I do?"

See if removing the information changes your decision. It might be worth zooming out or sparing with a thought partner if it does.

Tip: Write out the thought process…in a way that your future self can actually understand it. You’ll roll your eyes at me, but I’m deadset that note-taking is like insurance on your time.

However, recency bias isn't all bad — it can shorten your marketing-to-purchase process.

Use recent successes to build credibility and drive action.

For example, let’s say your company wins an industry achievement award — solidifying your awesomeness. Blast it everywhere in your marketing materials. Use attention to fuel more attention.

However, the key is to combine it with urgency to drive action (buy your product or service). This will tap into your customers' recency bias.

Because a year later…you’re still an “award winner,” but the impact will have worn off by then.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading.

See you next week.

— Peter

P.S. I help businesses and organizations make the strategic decisions that move the needle. Here are 2 ways I can help you:

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Then tell me what you think in just one click.