Long-form thinking,
written by operators.
We write because we have to think, and we publish because we think it might be useful. Essays as record of how we approach the work — not blog posts as content marketing. No 400-word listicles, no SEO filler. Things you might actually want to read.
Recent essays.
Meta reporting beyond Ads Manager.
Meta’s in-platform ROAS is generous by design — attribution windows, view-through conversions, and blended prospecting all flatter it. How to build a reporting layer on a blended metric that reconciles against real revenue instead of taking Ads Manager at its word.
The measurement stack for high-spend advertisers.
At scale, measurement is not a dashboard — it is a layered system: clean signal into the platforms, a blended metric anchoring reality, and incrementality tests settling the questions attribution cannot. What the stack contains and why each layer earns its place.
Facebook Ads cost benchmarks in 2026 — and why they mislead.
Realistic 2026 ranges for Meta CPM, CPC, and CPA — presented with the caveats that make them usable. The real lesson is methodological: a benchmark is a distribution, not a target, and your own economics decide whether your cost is good.
SaaS marketing metrics that matter.
Median B2B SaaS CAC payback now sits around 15-16 months — a different world from the 12-month rule of thumb. The metrics that matter, current benchmark ranges, and how to derive paid media targets from them.
Incrementality testing without a data team.
Every attribution model, however sophisticated, is still an allocation of credit among ads. None of them can tell you what would have happened without the ad. Only a controlled test can, and you do not need a data science team to run one honestly.
Profit on ad spend: bidding to margin, not revenue.
A 4x ROAS on a 15% margin product loses money. A 2.5x ROAS on a 70% margin product prints it. Revenue-based bidding cannot tell the difference, which means most accounts are systematically over-buying their worst economics. The fix is to bid to margin.
MER vs ROAS: which number is actually telling you the truth.
Platform-reported ROAS measures each channel in isolation, and every platform over-claims its own contribution. MER measures the whole business at once. Understanding when to trust each is one of the highest-leverage shifts a growing brand can make.
Brand vs non-brand: the measurement error most accounts make.
When someone searches your brand name, they were probably going to find you anyway. Counting that as paid acquisition is a measurement error most accounts make routinely, and it quietly corrupts every decision downstream. Here is how to fix it.
Ecommerce unit economics: CAC, LTV, and MER that add up.
Before any scaling decision, four numbers have to agree: real CAC, contribution-margin LTV, payback window, and MER. How to compute each honestly and turn them into bidding targets.
Google Ads metrics that lie to you.
CTR rewards clickbait, conversion rate punishes growth, impression share hides its own denominator, and platform ROAS grades its own homework. What each metric really measures and what to read instead.
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