How we measure
Every number we show you, in your workspace, the weekly digest or a case study, is measured the way this page describes. A number we could not measure is shown as unknown, never as zero.
The outcome plan
At onboarding your approver picks one to three KPIs from leads, sales, customer acquisition cost, cost per result, click-through rate and return on ad spend, enters a baseline for each and may add targets. The plan sets a checkpoint 60 to 90 days out, 75 by default.
With Google connected, we can also pull a baseline from your Google Ads account: the 90 days in your time zone ending yesterday. The pulled numbers are kept beside the ones you entered and never replace them; progress is compared with what you entered.
Reported and confirmed
Every number carries its source. Platform-reported numbers come from the ad platform: Google Ads (read from your connected account or from a CSV export you upload) and Meta (from a CSV export). Confirmed numbers come from your own systems: GA4 and the leads your landing page collects.
The two are never added together, because a confirmed conversion is usually the same conversion an ad platform also reports. For one deliverable and day, a Google Ads row read from your account wins over the same day in a CSV export; Meta rows add, because Meta is a separate channel.
In the weekly report, sales are the GA4 conversions when GA4 data exists, else the platform-reported ones; leads are your landing-page leads when you have them, else the platform-reported ones.
How each KPI is computed
Progress against your plan uses the ad rows of the period:
- Leads and sales: the conversions.
- Customer acquisition cost and cost per result: spend divided by conversions.
- Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions.
- Return on ad spend: revenue divided by spend.
A ratio with nothing to divide by (no conversions, no impressions, no spend) is unknown. A field no row reported is unknown; a measured zero stays zero.
Too early to tell
The weekly report opens with one number, your plan's first KPI that can be computed, and how it moved against last week and against your baseline. When the week spent under $50 or showed under 1,000 impressions, the report says it is too early to tell instead of calling a change. A change within 2 % either way is reported as flat. For a cost, down is better.
Winners
Every Monday we rank the creatives of the last seven days. Only a creative that spent at least $50 takes part. Those with conversions rank first, by cost per conversion, lowest first; the rest follow by click-through rate. The top fifth are the week's winners and the bottom fifth its laggards. Nothing is paused automatically: a person reads the laggards and decides.
Case studies
A case study is published only with the client's consent, and names the client only when they agreed to be named. It states only numbers measured as above: each one is listed under "How we measured" with its period and its source, and a case study whose text holds any other number cannot be published.