Performance Marketing
Attribution, CAC, incrementality — measuring marketing when every platform claims the same conversion.
Every platform will claim the same conversion, and every one of them will be able to justify it. Attribution is not a reporting problem to be solved once; it is a standing argument to be managed.
Notes on CAC that includes what nobody counts, incrementality testing on a budget that cannot afford a holdout, and the reports that mislead most convincingly.
Did the ad cause the sale, or just arrive before it?
Every dashboard answers a question you did not ask — which ad stood closest to the sale. The question you wanted answered is whether that sale would have happened anyway.
7 min read
The shelf moved into the app
For decades the most valuable advertising space in retail was eye level on the shelf. That shelf is now a search result inside a delivery app, and it is sold by the click.
6 min read
Who gets the credit for the sale?
Add up what every platform claims it delivered and you will have sold roughly twice as much as you actually did. All of them are telling the truth as they see it.
6 min read
Performance marketing cannot sell what nobody wants
A performance campaign is a very good net. It is not a very good reason. If nobody wants the thing, a better net just proves it faster and more expensively.
6 min read