The Great Attribution Lie

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🕵️ The Great Attribution Lie

Every DTC founder has seen it. Your Meta dashboard says you drove 34 orders. Google reports 29. Your store backend? 21 total.

And somehow, those “high-performing” campaigns the ones everyone celebrates in Slack  are doing less than they claim. A lot less.

That’s the great attribution lie. You’re not measuring growth. You’re measuring credit theft.

Who Actually Drove the Sale?

Let’s break it down.

Someone sees your Meta ad. Doesn’t click. Later, they Google your brand. Click an ad. Buy.

Both platforms claim the win. Your ROAS looks amazing. Your margin? Not so much.

This is attribution theft when a platform rewards itself for showing up somewhere in the journey, even if it did nothing to cause the sale. And it’s happening every day across your funnel.

Last-Click Is a Liar

The most dangerous part?

You start scaling what looks like it’s working, but you’re just funding the cleanup crew.

Last-click attribution makes bottom-funnel campaigns look like heroes and top-funnel campaigns look like waste. But here’s the thing most purchases start with curiosity, not conversion.

Cut off the campaign that created demand, and the closer has no one left to sell to.

How to See Through the Lie

Start with these three metrics:

1. Blended CAC:  Total spend ÷ total new customers. If this goes up while ROAS looks strong, you’re gaming yourself.
2. True MER:  Total revenue ÷ total ad spend. No attribution debate. Just pure efficiency.
3. Incrementality: Ask: “Would this customer have converted without this campaign?” If the answer is yes, it didn’t drive impact, it just stole credit.

If you’re still optimizing for what your ad manager tells you, you’re not optimizing for growth. You’re optimizing for platform storytelling. Stop letting dashboards narrate your business. Start measuring what’s real and scale what moves the needle, not what just shows up. 

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🚀  Reel of the Day

The reel starts off like a regular conversation, but quickly subverts expectations. The camera lingers on the woman wearing the oversized spiral gold earrings. This visual dominance captures attention instantly, triggering what behavioral scientists call the “salience bias,” We notice and remember what stands out visually, even if it’s subtle in context.

There’s no need for words. The punchline is visual — the second girl’s blank stare, completely ignoring what the other is saying. 

The earrings aren’t “placed” into the reel. They are the reel. This is textbook “product-as-plot,” where the accessory isn’t added in post but drives the entire storyline.

Shooting this in a real café conversation makes the piece relatable. Women often compliment accessories during hangouts. This reel taps directly into that behavior without being obvious.

There’s no hard sell or even a call to action, the branding sits subtly in the corner. It’s clever, memorable, and reinforces the narrative. You’re not just buying earrings. You’re buying attention.

Broader Insights:

In an era where attention is the currency, this reel doesn't ask for it. It earns it. The storyline flips passive viewing into active engagement, without a single product demo or brand pitch.

Thanks for reading this edition! Keep pushing boundaries, testing ideas, and staying inspired. See you in the next edition with more ways to ignite your marketing success. 🥰