Max Lishansky

Common sense and complexity in marketing measurement Yes, last-click attribution is suboptimal to other methods that consider and attempt to measure the contribution of all marketing efforts on commercial outcomes. Yes, last-click attribution introduces the risk that an advertiser invests money into a channel that does not deliver truly incremental outcomes. Yes, last-click attribution could result in analytics that wholly distort a business’ underlying marketing dynamics. But in certain circumstances, last-click attribution can be the best approach for measuring marketing outcomes.

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Retail Media Ad Tech: Why cheap can cost you $$$ 🤑 In retail media, tech isn’t just a simple tool—it’s the engine driving ad revenue. Opting for budget tech may cut costs, but it often caps your growth potential. Here’s why: A retail media platform generating $50M in ad revenue might spend $5M on tech fees. Budget options could cut this to $1.5M, saving $3.5M—but that “savings” can cost you up to $200M in unrealized revenue. Advanced platforms double click-through rates and allow you to expand ad inventory, turning $50M into $250M. Leaders like The Home Depot and CVS know that high-performance tech is an investment that pays off. Oh, and we’re called Pentaleap for a reason—that’s the 5x our clients have seen in the many A/B tests we've run. Choose tech that drives growth, not just savings. #retailmedia #commercemedia #pentaleap

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At 6 figures, vanity metrics are a distraction. At 7 figures, they're your downfall. After working with dozens of high-growth DTC brands, I've noticed a pattern: The ones scaling fastest focus relentlessly on actionable metrics. But first, let's address what many brands get wrong: ❌ Vanity Metrics (I call them the 'Growth Illusion') The total website traffic, social media follower count, and email list size might look impressive in the reports. But they're dangerous distractions. These metrics don't correlate with revenue or profitability. They often mask underlying issues in your business. Worse, they encourage short-term thinking over sustainable growth. It's gonna result in high marketing costs and low ROI. I've seen beauty brands with millions of Instagram followers struggle with tiny conversion rates. Fashion startups with massive email lists but negligible repeat purchases. These vanity metrics created an illusion of success while the businesses stagnated. Now, let's focus on what truly matters. ✅ Actionable Metrics Here are the 8 metrics that truly matter for ecommerce growth: → Conversion Rate → Average Order Value (AOV) → Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) → Cart Abandonment Rate → Revenue Per Visitor (RPV) → Add to Cart Rate → Gross Margin → Net Promoter Score (NPS) Unlike vanity metrics, these metrics give you a clear picture of your store's health. They reveal your true growth potential and areas for improvement. -- Stop chasing vanity metrics that look good on paper but don't drive growth. Remember, what gets measured gets managed. Follow me for more content on scaling ecom brands 🚀

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AdAttributionKit: Unpacking Apple’s new ad attribution framework AAK unifies Apple’s various advertising attribution frameworks under a single umbrella product name and extends SKAdNetwork in meaningful ways, including with support for re-engagement and alternative app marketplaces. These are substantive improvements. But impediments to adoption remain: IP-based attribution is still widely viewed as a suitable alternative to Apple’s native iOS attribution framework, meaning that platform tools like Conversion APIs will take adoption priority.

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DTC managers at multi-channel revenue brands are getting under-credited. Let me explain. I talk to dozens of brands per year that: • Sell across 3 primary channels (DTC, in store, Amazon) • Have "growth" or "performance" laddering into the DTC team • Track P&Ls separately across each rev stream It's usually the CMO or the VP of Growth or whoever manages the DTC line item who reaches out to me. They say something like this: "Ben, I keep having to cut my ad budgets because my DTC revenue is barely growing and efficiency is terrible! Can you help improve our marketing program?" This is a classic case of where company structures and KPIs dictate performance. The poor DTC manager is out here thinking that their growth marketing program is bad, but, in reality they've misdiagnosed the problem. When I dig in further with them, I end up finding out: • The DTC marketing budget is 90% of the ad budget • Amazon and in-store are both growing very well • There's no clear reason why a customer would buy direct Here's the harsh truth: it is very very VERY hard to make people buy in an experience that they don't prefer. Direct to consumer ecommerce is still only 13% of all retail transactions in the US. 13%! That's it! People prefer to buy on Amazon, or in Target, or at Sephora. Why wouldn't they? They've spent tens of billions of dollars building a brand that has a wide assortment of access, best prices, best fulfillment, etc. How can the lil ol' DTC manager compete? When I start to ask how the DTC team is being measured, it is usually some combination of: • DTC revenue over performance marketing costs • Touch based attribution performance • Customer surveys and trends How is it fair that 90% of the marketing budget is going toward something that's likely to only produce 13% of the sales? That doesn't mean that the marketing is ineffective, on the contrary, it means that the brand is measuring wrong. The Amazon and in-store team get all the credit while the DTC manager gets shafted. So how can you fix this? Properly understanding the contribution of ALL marketing across ALL revenue and customer interactions. We often see an equal if not GREATER contribution to incremental revenue and customer acquisition across Amazon and in-store than in DTC, even from "performance" campaigns that are driving directly to the website. Yes, really. For example: a performance Meta campaign might have a 1.5x incremental ROAS on DTC, a 1.5x incremental ROAS on Amazon, and a 1x incremental ROAS on in-store retail. That's a total of 4x iROAS vs the "proven" 1.5x iROAS. See it all the time across hundreds of tests and marketing mix models. Reach out to me and I can help dig you out of this pit. #dtc #attribution #incrementality #omnichannel

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READ THIS CAREFULLY: If you’re just tracking sales, you’re leaving money on the table—literally. When I speak with eCommerce brands, the most common pain point they share is a lack of clarity on profitability. They’re drowning in data but starving for insights. They’re focused on what’s visible—sales—while the hidden costs beneath the surface, like shipping fees, transaction costs, CAC, and fulfilment expenses, quietly erode their profits. It always makes me pause because it’s the clearest signal that brands are only seeing a fraction of the whole picture. When I see high sales numbers, my first thought isn’t, “Great job!” It’s, “Are they actually making money?” Here’s the brutal truth: Just because your sales are up doesn’t mean your profits are too. Without a clear view of how your marketing spend, operational costs, and customer acquisition impact your bottom line, you’re sailing straight into dangerous waters. But there’s a better way. Imagine having a dashboard that not only tracks your sales but also reveals the bottom of the iceberg—giving you a complete profitability overview. Imagine knowing exactly how each dollar spent is affecting the profitability of your store. With StoreHero this is finally possible. Link to book a demo in the comments 👇

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Retail Media is passive income. When you hire us to do it. :) Kidding, been in all seriousness. It is probably the most MEASURABLE velocity tool. It is probably the most FLEXIBLE velocity tool. Here’s your go-to retail media platform list: -Kroger: 8451 -Ulta: UB Media -Target: Roundel -Costco: Costco Media -Best Buy: Best Buy Ads -Most Grocery: Instacart -Convenience: DoorDash -CVS: CVS Media Xchange -Walmart: Walmart Connect -Macy’s: Macy’s Media Network -Dollar Tree: Chesapeake Media -Sam’s Club: Sam’s Member Access -Home Depot: Home Depot Ad Center -Ahold (Food Lion, etal): AD Retail Media -Albertsons: Albertsons Media Collective -Walgreens: Walgreens Advertising Group -Chew.com: Chewy Retail Media (dotcom bonus) Citrus and Criteo can give you access to almost any other major retailers. There you have it. There’s your cheat sheet. Now, if you want it to be passive income… Or you want it to be passive velocity… Hit me up. :) ——— 🔹 We grow brands on Amazon. 🔹 We grow brands in Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, CVS, Macy’s, Instacart, etc. #ecommerce #retailmedia #retailmedianetworks #cpg #cpgbrands #retailstrategy #founderlife #instacart #ShopperMarketing #walmart #wholefoods

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Here's why I'm bullish on DTC over the next 1-3 years (despite its recent challenges). → The Market is ripping  → IPO windows are also opening up again  → More rate cuts coming What does all of this mean? Consumer confidence and spending will rise as macro conditions improve. Unfortunately, we’ve seen some DTC brand deaths, but that won't be a downfall in e-comm. Sustainable businesses come from this type of creative destruction. Things burn down so new businesses can rise from the ashes. I asked the Yotpo legend Tomer Tagrin. on his take on our recent podcast episode of Equation of Excellence. And I knew his view was going to be a good one: → The prophecy is given for the fools.  → Most times are a great time to build.  → Ignore macro excuses—focus on great work, and the results will follow. But the most important viewpoint he mentioned came from his journey with cancer: “Focus on the thing you can control. The thing I can’t control I put zero energy into.” Absolutely honored to have him on the pod—incredible stories on Yotpo’s inception, the value of humility in leadership, how to succeed as e-commerce evolves, and way more. Catch the full ep in the comments.

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We are living the midwit meme right now in eCommerce. Brands have zero confidence in the allocation of their media dollars. Despite having more tools than ever before, I have never seen more confusion inside of organizations. Proxy metrics have been substituted for financial measures and the allocation of capital has become disassociated from the financial return it intends to create. With the introduction of so many difference forms of measurement you create the ability to defend every channel. Your MTA, In platform, post purchase survey and incrementality studies often all say different things making every decision "defensible". Combine that with agencies or employees whose financial incentive is tied directly to channel performance and you immediately create a counter incentive to the financial health of the company. I can't tell you how much money we have seen be wasted on account of this problem. So what is the solution... Simplify. Build a connection between your in-platfrom results (i recommend 7 day click) and your primary business measurement for media (i recommened aMER). Best way to do that is with a geo holdout experiment that gives you a relative incrementality % for platform results. Use that weighted measure to set cost controls and you will never have to think about measurement again. But regardless of what system you choose fight for clarity and speed to action. Avoid decision paralysis and ambiguity. Think from first principles and measure the bank account.

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A marketing measurement perspective that I don't see represented often is that, for a substantial proportion of advertisers, last-click really is optimal. If a fairly new mobile app with low TAM penetration scales exclusively on Facebook, how much actionable insight is gained by introducing complex measurement machinery? While I'm certainly guilty of advocating it, the viewpoint that more sophisticated measurement infrastructure is always better strikes me as overly generalized. In certain contexts, orchestrating experiments or building, tuning, and deploying probabilistic models probably won't meaningfully impact advertising efficiency. And in those specific (again: not all!) contexts, with limited data and a homogenous (possibly, single-channel) channel mix, reducing interpretability and overhead might do more harm than good. Creating complexity where last-click may perform just as well as an ensemble of methodologies doesn't actually optimize the bias/variance tradeoff -- it may not reduce bias sufficiently to compensate for a large increase in variance.

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Advertisers accept ad tech vendors’ use of fingerprinting — and the misguided characterization of it as “probabilistic attribution” — to their peril. These methods are not future-proofed, but more than that, they mask the broader trend of user-level attribution ultimately, eventually being impossible. Advertisers should be adapting to an increasingly restrictive privacy environment with system-level changes. Not only does simply swapping deterministic identifiers with fingerprints introduce measurement imprecision / risk, it delays the inevitable, which is a wholesale transition to econometric ad measurement. Even genuine probabilistic methods shouldn’t be seen to facilitate user-level attribution. That’s a dead end. Advertisers should accept that, absent persistent deterministic identifiers, their measurement infrastructure should seek to answer three questions: 1. What’s the optimal level of ad spend? 2. What’s the optimal distribution of ad spend across historical channels? 3. Does my spend on any given channel deliver incrementally additive revenue? This — and the introduction of new channels — requires moderated, systematic experimentation. There is no “bottoms-up” methodology that can provide guidance. Advertisers should seek to achieve platform-level ad spend efficiency and maximize revenue using first-party data through personalization. It’s not just that fingerprinting isn’t reliable — what fingerprinting attempts to deliver, which is user-level attribution, isn’t possible as privacy interventions reduce the availability of deterministic identity.

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For decades, marketers were taught that attention was the holy grail. Catch someone’s eye, and the battle was half-won. Platforms optimized for clicks, brands chased impressions, and we built strategies around fleeting moments of engagement. But today, attention is cheap—and fleeting. Here’s what’s changed: 1. Overexposure: The average consumer sees upwards of 6,000 ads per day. Overwhelmed by noise, they’re tuning most of it out. (Forbes) 2. Distrust: Consumer trust in advertising has plummeted. According to Edelman, only 33% of people say they trust ads. Instead, they rely on peers, influencers, and authentic brand experiences. (Edelman Trust Barometer) 3. Intentional Consumption: Social media usage is declining among younger demographics, as people prioritize wellness and mindfulness. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube still thrive, but they reward depth and authenticity, not gimmicks. (Pew Research) Consumers aren’t mindlessly scrolling anymore. They’re curating their feeds, blocking ads, and choosing substance over spectacle.

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This is not an attack on agencies, but... I often hear CMOs and CEOs saying: "If we want to scale this channel, let's hire an agency." Let me be clear: this is (often) not the best way to scale any channel. Here's why: 1. Resource allocation While agencies may look experienced and know what they're doing, you'll rarely have their best talent managing your account. The reality? You often get junior profiles learning on your budget. 2. Time investment Because of agencies' business model, they will never invest as much time as you want in your account. Think about it: is 2 to 4 days of work per month enough for a core marketing channel? 3. Strategic alignment After working with numerous agencies, I can tell you that the best and only way to scale a channel you're serious about is to run it yourself. The solution? → Hire someone who is a field master and give them full ownership → If you're early stage and can't afford a specialist yet, working with an agency can be a temporary solution → But once you find traction, it's time to bring it in-house 🔍 How to make the right decision: Agency vs In-house When to consider an agency: - Early-stage with limited budget - Testing new channels before committing - Non-core marketing activities - Need for specific expertise on short-term projects - Geographic expansion requiring local knowledge When to go in-house: - Core marketing channels - Need for deep product/market knowledge - Long-term strategic importance - Budget allows for dedicated expertise - Need for rapid iterations and testing 💡 Pro tip: Before making your decision, calculate the real cost of both options: Agency costs: - Monthly retainer - Additional fees - Management overhead - Knowledge transfer costs - Platform access fees In-house costs: - Salary & benefits - Tools & training - Recruitment costs - Management time - Team integration 🤔 Your turn to share! I'm curious about your experiences:  - Have you successfully transitioned from agency to in-house? - What challenges did you face? - For agency leaders reading this - what's your perspective? Let's make this discussion valuable for everyone - share your insights in the comments below!

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🎥 Is Thumbstop Ratio (TSR) the secret sauce for video ad success? 🤔 After analyzing $1.4M+ in ad spend across 400+ ads, here's what I discovered about this buzzworthy metric: 📊 Key findings: -TSR doesn't strongly correlate with ROAS, CPA, or revenue -There's a weak positive relationship between TSR and CTR -38% TSR appears to be a good benchmark for engagement 💡 Takeaway: While TSR can be a useful secondary KPI for creative engagement, it shouldn't be your north star for performance. 🔍 Want to dive deeper? I've broken down the data, methodology, and insights in a full article: https://lnkd.in/gGrntvv3 👇 What's your take on TSR? Have you found it valuable in your campaigns? Share your experiences below! #VideoAdvertising #MarketingMetrics #DataAnalysis #DigitalMarketing #FacebookAds #MetaAds

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The Director of Marketing for a $500M merchandise retailer internally reviewed their CDP. Here are 2 things she says the vendor aced and 2 that might get them fired: 🏆//1 Great at Unifying Data She’s faced difficulties integrating past CDPs with the many 3rd-party tools her company uses. It always led to site slow-downs that limited their conversion rates. But her current vendor has seamlessly unified all their customer data across channels. No site slow-downs, no integration issues. And she loves how much it’s helped her better understand customer interactions. She’s also thrilled by how it’s made it easy to craft more relevant, compelling, and effective marketing in real-time for her customers. 👎//2 Not User-Friendly This CDP starts running into trouble with content creation and audience segments. She says, “It’s unnecessarily complex and difficult to manage.” Plus: - Navigating the platform is challenging - And its segmentation tools aren’t as intuitive as they could be - Causing friction in leveraging the CDP’s full range of capabilities 🏆//3 Effective Identity Resolution “We have a high number of customers using different platforms,” she says. So she needs a tool with strong identity resolution (IDR) capacities. The good news: She’s been thrilled with her CDP’s IDR. She says it’s significantly improved their reach “by uncovering an extra 20% of users across different devices!” 👎//4 Lack of Actionable Insights Despite the CDP’s effectiveness, she’s frustrated at how little guidance the vendor offers. “I’ve found myself guiding our CDP more than it’s been helping us,” she says. “It’s not ideal.” She’s hopeful though, as the platform has teased an upgrade that promises enhanced actionable insights. But if the vendor doesn’t deliver — this is going to be a big sticking point for her. She’s felt similarly irritated by a lack of actionable insights in other tools… Like their: - A/B testing AI tool - Personalization tool - Product recommendation tool She doesn’t want to have to waste hours digging for actionable insights. She wants platforms that make it easy for her to get the main points and quickly act on them to drive market growth. ___ Tl;dr A few *amazing* features won’t make up for others that constantly frustrate your clients. MarTech is a competitive market – if you don’t offer the full enchilada, buyers will find a competitor who will. Thoughts?

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Why did Stitch partner with Talon.One? Three main reasons... 1️⃣ In working with Braze customers, we've seen an incredible amount of pain with their existing loyalty platforms (looking at you, Punchh & CrowdTwist, Inc.). 2️⃣ The platform is 👌. The response time and the ability to customize workflows is elite. 3️⃣ The combination of Braze + Talon.One is a marketer's dream. Scale, capability and efficiency bridging marketing & loyalty together.

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9/10 eComm brands I talk to struggle with attribution & don’t know if their ad spend drives an incremental impact on their store. This is something we’ve been battling with for the better part of 2024. It’s especially important for our brands that spend over $5000/day. Looking at the Facebook or Google ads manager has proven to be pretty unreliable... So one way to solve this issue is using post-purchase surveys which we try to set up for every client we work with. Asking people how they first heard about you will give you probably the most accurate representation of which channel is working best for you and which channel is wasting your ad spend. We track responses daily and use internal spreadsheets to track the total New Customer CPA which you can monitor while scaling the ad spend on 1 channel and maintaining your ad spend on every other channel. 3 questions I advise every eComm brand to include in their PPS are: ✅ How did you first hear about us? ✅ How long have you known about us before deciding to purchase our product? ✅ What are you most looking forward to from your purchase today? You have to do everything in your capabilities to understand the customer journey otherwise you might be easily lighting your money on fire.

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TikTok Shop AOV is WAY lower than website b/c: 1. Discounts are CAPPED which does not incentivize higher cart sizes (in the below example, you think it's 50% off, but the coupon is maxed at $20 discount) 2. Upsells/cross-sells in the CART are below the fold and ppl will rarely scroll below the "checkout button" 3. These are largely impulse purchases. If TTS doesn't incentivize higher AOV, brands are stuck in low AOV purgatory. If I'm TikTok, I start considering a solve for both of the above.. honestly pretty easy Despite TTS low AOVs, we're noticing 2.5-7x higher conversion rate than the DTC site. B/c of this- TikTok Ads performance has been higher driving to the Shop (vs website) for every client we've touched on TikTok in 2024.

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