Insights
How acquisition actually behaves.
Working notes on the economics, measurement and craft of performance marketing. No listicles, no predictions, and every figure traced to a public source.
Pillar guides
- Pillar
Marketing Measurement in a Privacy-First World
Tracking got harder, not optional. A working guide to measuring marketing when consent is partial, identifiers are gone, and half your conversions are modelled.
Measurement & attribution · 7 min read
- Pillar
Performance Marketing: The Complete Guide
How performance marketing actually works — the economics that set your budget, the channels that spend it, and the measurement that tells you whether any of it worked.
Performance economics · 9 min read
All articles
- AI search & GEO · 7 minGenerative Engine Optimization: How Brands Get Cited by AIAI answer engines cite sources inside their answers. GEO is the practice of structuring content so yours is one of them — and it rewards different things than classic SEO.
- Performance economics · 5 minPerformance vs. Brand Budget: How to Split It Without GuessingThe split is usually argued from ideology and settled by whoever measures loudest. Here is how to reason about it from your own constraints instead.
- Lifecycle & retention · 6 minRetention Math: Why Repeat Rate Beats Cheaper ClicksA small improvement in repeat purchase rate raises what every acquisition channel is allowed to pay. The same effort spent on media efficiency helps one channel.
- Measurement & attribution · 5 minBuild a Marketing Mix Model Without a Data Science TeamMarketing mix modelling returned because it needs no user-level tracking. Here is what it actually requires, what it can answer, and when you should not attempt one.
- Conversion & landing pages · 6 minThe 27-Point Landing Page Conversion AuditA checklist for auditing a landing page, ordered by how much each item typically costs you — starting with the ones that waste media spend before anyone reads a word.
- Creative strategy · 5 minHow Many Ad Variants Do You Actually Need?Most creative testing programmes produce volume rather than learning. The number of variants that helps is decided by conversion volume, not by production capacity.
- Measurement & attribution · 6 minHow to Measure Incrementality on a Small BudgetHoldout tests, matched markets and time-based switchbacks — how to get real causal evidence about your advertising without a data science team or a huge budget.
- Performance economics · 5 minCAC Payback Period: The Metric That Decides How Fast You Can ScaleTwo channels with identical acquisition costs are not equivalent investments. Payback period explains why, and why it constrains growth more tightly than CAC does.
- Measurement & attribution · 6 minThe Modern Attribution Stack, ExplainedServer-side tagging, consent mode, modelled conversions and enhanced matching — what each layer actually does, and what it cannot do however well you configure it.
- Performance economics · 6 minWhat Is MER, and When Should You Use It Instead of ROAS?Marketing efficiency ratio measures whether the whole advertising budget is paying for itself — a question per-campaign ROAS structurally cannot answer.
Tell us the number you are trying to move.
Describe what you are spending and what it has to return, and we will tell you whether we are the right people.
Start a conversation