(1) UNIT ECONOMICS — CAC (cost to acquire one customer), LTV (total revenue from that customer), LTV:CAC ratio (must be ≥ 3:1 for sustainability), payback period (months to recoup CAC), blended ROAS (total revenue ÷ total ad spend) AND marginal ROAS (revenue from last dollar spent). If blended ROAS = 5:1 but marginal ROAS = 0.8:1: you are overspending — the last dollar loses money. (2) ATTRIBUTION — model choice (last-click, multi-touch, incrementality), cross-platform dedup (platforms double-count), iOS 14.5+ adjustment (30-40% signal loss), incrementality holdout results (the only honest measure of true ad value). (3) FUNNEL — conversion rate at EACH stage (impression → click → land → lead → MQL → opp → close). Identify the biggest leak (lowest conversion between stages). Fix the leak before adding traffic. (4) CREATIVE — hook rate (>30% first 3 seconds), hold rate (50%+ watched), fatigue curve (when CTR drops 30% from peak → kill creative), rotation schedule, format A/B testing. (5) AUDIENCE — segmentation (LAL 1%/3%/5% tiers), reach % of total addressable, frequency (3-7/week optimal), saturation point (when incremental reach < 5%), exclusion lists (existing customers, converters).
Structured reflection tool for expert-level performance marketing reasoning — forces unit economics rigor, attribution integrity, funnel diagnostics, creative analysis, and audience architecture before spending a single dollar. Based on the disciplines of direct-response marketing (Claude Hopkins, "Scientific Advertising," 1923), modern attribution science (Randall Lewis, Google incrementality research, 2011), and media buying mathematics (LTV:CAC ratio, payback periods, marginal ROAS). Catches Vanity Metrics (celebrating impressions instead of calculating unit economics — a hotel spends $50,000/month on social media ads. Report: "2.3M impressions! 45,000 clicks! 1,200 likes!" Manager: "Great, how many bookings?" "We do not track that." The hotel has no idea if the $50K generated $0 or $500K in bookings. Impressions are the metric you report when you do not have a metric that matters. Fix: CAC (cost per booking) = $50,000 ÷ bookings. If CAC > booking profit: you are losing money. If LTV:CAC < 3:1: your acquisition is not sustainable. The only metrics that matter: how much does a customer cost, how much are they worth, and how long until you recoup the acquisition cost?), Attribution Naivety (trusting platform-reported ROAS as truth — a furniture retailer runs ads on 3 platforms simultaneously. Platform A claims: "We drove $200K in sales." Platform B claims: "We drove $180K in sales." Platform C claims: "We drove $150K in sales." Total claimed: $530K. Actual total revenue: $300K. Every platform takes credit for the same customer. The customer saw an ad on A, clicked on B, and bought through C — all three claim the sale. Fix: incrementality holdout test. Hold out 10% of audience from each platform. Measure: what revenue do you LOSE by not advertising? That difference is the TRUE incremental value. If holdout group revenue = treatment group: the ads are taking credit for sales that would have happened anyway), Funnel Blindness (not diagnosing which stage is leaking — a cooking class business spends on ads. "We get plenty of clicks but no bookings." Funnel: impression → click → landing page → class selection → checkout → booking. Click rate: 3.2% (good). Landing page → class selection: 62% (good). Class selection → checkout: 8% (DISASTER — this is the leak). Checkout → booking: 91% (good). The problem is not awareness, not the landing page, not checkout — it is class selection. Investigation: too many options (47 classes), no filtering, no "most popular" sorting. Paralysis of choice. Fix: reduce to 12 featured classes, add filters, show reviews. Class selection → checkout: 8% → 34%. Bookings 4x. Without stage-by-stage diagnosis: the business would have spent more on ads to push more traffic through a broken funnel), Creative Laziness (running the same ad until it dies without testing rotation — a wine subscription runs one ad creative for 6 months. Month 1: CTR 4.2%, CPA $28. Month 3: CTR 2.1%, CPA $52. Month 6: CTR 0.8%, CPA $134. This is creative fatigue — the same audience has seen the same ad 12+ times. Hook rate (first 3 seconds of video): dropped from 38% to 11%. The audience has literally stopped watching. But the campaign is still running. Fix: creative rotation schedule — new creative every 2-3 weeks. Test hooks (first 3 seconds), hold rate (watched 50%+), and CPA per creative variant. Kill any creative when CTR drops 30% from peak. Minimum 3 active variants at all times), and Audience Saturation (ignoring reach and frequency limits — a local bakery targets "women 25-45 interested in baking" within 10km radius. Audience size: 12,000 people. Monthly budget: $5,000. CPM: $15. Monthly impressions: 333,000. Frequency: 333,000 ÷ 12,000 = 27.8 impressions per person per month. Each person sees the ad 28 times. After 7-8 exposures: returns diminish sharply. After 15: negative brand perception ("why do they keep showing me this?"). Fix: expand audience (remove interest targeting, go broader), reduce budget, or rotate creative aggressively to vary the message. Optimal frequency: 3-7 exposures per week. Beyond that: diminishing returns → annoyance). Call once per traffic strategy, campaign launch, or performance review