Paid Media Without the Noise

Decide what a customer is worth before you bid

Contribution margin after product, packaging, shipping and payment fees is the number that governs acquisition. Without it, return on ad spend is a vanity ratio.

For repeat-purchase categories, model a conservative second-order rate rather than a hopeful lifetime value.

Structure accounts around intent, not platforms

Search demand, category discovery and retention audiences behave differently and should be budgeted separately. Collapsing them into one blended figure hides the campaign that is quietly funding the ones that fail.

The three reports worth reading weekly

First: new-customer contribution by channel. Second: creative performance by concept, not by asset. Third: landing-page conversion by traffic source, so a media problem is never mistaken for a site problem.

Everything else is available on request and read monthly.

Test creative concepts, not colours

Meaningful lift comes from a different argument — a new objection answered, a new use case shown — not from a new button colour. Run fewer tests, run them longer, and write down the hypothesis first.