ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence · Swami, ContraMinds Labs

How To Make Marketing Attribution Work - Scott Desgrosseilliers (#019)

·1 hr·2 clips

The conversation opens with the math. ROAS is defined as revenue divided by spend, with one as the basic break-even point before product costs are even counted. CAC comes next. It is framed as spend divided by unique customers, using a simple $10,000-to-100-customers example that lands at $100 per acquisition. New visit percentage is introduced after that. The point is to estimate how many clicks belong to genuinely new visitors, and it should stay at zero on retargeting campaigns because retargeting is meant to re-engage rather than prospect. The discussion then broadens from single metrics to the larger problem of attribution. It treats attribution as a way of pulling signals from everywhere and turning them into useful data that helps people use ad spend more profitably and waste less of it. Imperfection is not ignored. Some journeys cannot be tracked perfectly, yet the guest argues the system still works if it improves top-line growth, ROAS, and efficiency. The conversation also pushes back on the idea that attribution should be judged by perfect completeness alone. There are always untrackable situations, and those gaps do not erase the value of a model that helps a team make better decisions overall. The platform itself is described as being set up with campaigns, identities, and data flowing into a brand-controlled domain. From there, attribution can be allocated across campaigns and conversions with models that change as the funnel changes. A default way of working is offered. The episode compares it to a template picker, where teams choose a standard view that gives everyone a shared scoreboard without having to micromanage the attribution settings. More control remains available for deeper work. A CMO or data team can change the top-of-funnel definition, lookback windows, lookforward windows, and lifetime settings when a different strategic view is needed. That flexibility is part of the pitch. The episode keeps coming back to a simple business lesson: use attribution to spend more intelligently, align the team, and cut waste, even when the data is never perfectly complete.

As heard by us

A practical look at attribution when tracking is imperfect.

Marketing attribution sits under paid growth here, and the discussion stays close to the numbers that matter: ROAS, CAC, new visit percentage, and the problem of turning messy signals into something usable.

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Get a clearer read on which campaigns are actually paying back in real terms, day to day.

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