If a Report Cannot Change a Decision, Delete It
A short standard for marketing reporting that survives contact with a board.
Read: If a Report Cannot Change a Decision, Delete ItMeasurement
Measurement is where marketing goes to argue. These pieces are about the arguments worth having and the ones that are just two tools counting differently.
Why do my analytics and ad platform numbers never match?
Because they are answering different questions. An ad platform counts conversions it believes it influenced, within its own window, attributed to its own click. Analytics counts sessions it observed, attributed by its own model, after consent. Neither is lying and neither is complete, and the fix is to pick one as the number you manage to rather than to reconcile them.
Written on Measurement
Branded Search Is the Honest Early Indicator
When PR, AI visibility and brand work start paying off, branded search moves first.
Read: Branded Search Is the Honest Early IndicatorHow we think about this
Consent changed the ground under this permanently. A meaningful share of behaviour is now unobserved, and modelling fills the gap with estimates rather than facts. That is workable as long as everyone reading the report knows which parts are measured and which are modelled, and it becomes dangerous the moment a modelled number is defended as a count.
The test for a report is whether anything in it would change a decision. A report that shows the same six metrics every month, all slightly up, is a ritual. A report that says which of three things to stop doing is a tool. The pieces here are mostly about getting from the first to the second, which usually means deleting most of the report.
The work behind these pieces
Where this subject turns into something we are paid to do.
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