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By Lenny Rachitsky · lennysnewsletter.com · @lennysan on X · YouTube · LinkedIn
Guest authors Michael Kaminsky and Mike Taylor explain how marketers measure incrementality, the true sales caused by spend, using three methods: multi-touch attribution, marketing mix modeling, and conversion lift studies. Drawing on research into 42 top consumer brands, they argue that combining the methods through triangulation gives the most reliable picture of what marketing actually drives.
Subscriber post — summary only01Key takeaways
- Attribution alone can mislead; the real question is how many sales marketing incrementally causes.
- Triangulating multi-touch attribution, marketing mix modeling, and lift tests beats relying on any single method.
- Over 40% of the studied brands combine at least two measurement methods, and about 20% use all three.
- Use lift tests to calibrate marketing mix models, which otherwise fit many plausible configurations equally well.
- Incrementality results are a snapshot in time and can drift, so testing must be repeated regularly.
02Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.