What this lesson covers
How do I prove what worked, and tell that story?
- Attribution models
- Incrementality
- Integrated campaign planning, online and offline
- Bridging offline media into digital: vehicle wraps, direct mail, signage and events with QR codes, vanity URLs and promo codes
- Reporting results to a client or boss
- Pitching the next campaign
Why this matters now
Placeholder for the lesson's opening story: a vivid, real moment where a marketer or small-business owner meets this exact problem.
You can now
Tell the story of what worked with sound attribution, and pitch the next campaign.
For your own business or employer: Show your boss, or yourself, what the marketing earned and what to do next.
Industry case studies
Industry Case
Tepary Kitchen
Local restaurant · Local and offline
Case update 8.3
Module 8 of 8 in this case
Tuesday, 7:40 p.m., one year later
It's a Tuesday in August, 7:40 p.m., one year after the night Rosa counted 11 filled seats out of 96.
At 3 p.m., Miguel sent one text to 2,800 Tepary Club members: “Tuesday Tepary Table: Rosa's family-style menu, $26 a person, tonight only.”
Now 58 seats are filled. The printer for direct orders is louder than the delivery-app tablet. The QR codes on the tables and the pickup bags show which guests came from which invitation. And the POS shows 41 of tonight's guests by name.
The line cook doesn't ask to clock out early. He asks if he can stay.
Miguel builds the results pitch for himself and Rosa, and he makes it honest (illustrative figures). Tuesday and Wednesday occupancy rose from 35% to 52%, three points short of the goal, and the holdout weeks showed how much the campaign caused. Summer sales fell 6% instead of 25%. A third of the app orders moved to direct pickup, worth about $30,000 a year. The rating is back to 4.6. The ask for next year: a summer lunch club for people who work within three miles.
Remember the line from 1.1? Rosa knew her customers loved her food, but she didn't know a single one of their names. Tonight she does.
Artifact added
Campaign results pitch: Tepary Kitchen
Industry Case
Bajada Plumbing & Drain
Local home service · Demand capture
Case update 8.3
Module 8 of 8 in this case
2:10 a.m., one year later
It's 2:10 on a July morning, one year after the voicemail that said “never mind.” A water heater gives out in a hallway closet on the east side. A different homeowner, the same water spreading across the tile, the same search.
This time Bajada is in the map's three-pack, with 160 reviews and the Google Guaranteed badge. She taps call. A person answers on the second ring and gives her a time and the price of the visit before she hangs up. The call is logged to the channel that produced it.
At 3:05, the truck is in her driveway, wrapped now: the name, the number and “We answer. Price first.” The wrap carries its own phone number and its own web address, used nowhere else, so the trucks can prove what they bring in: 46 calls in three months. The neighbors see the truck at dawn.
Carmen's results pitch to Ray (illustrative): 96% of calls answered; the three-pack in five of six zip codes; reviews from 41 to 160 at 4.8 stars; marketplace jobs down from 35% to 19%, saving about $5,000 a month; 270 Bajada Care members. The ask: a second after-hours technician for monsoon season.
A week later, the homeowner joins Bajada Care and leaves a review. At 7:05 a.m., Carmen checks the voicemail box. It's empty.
Artifact added
Campaign results pitch: Bajada Plumbing & Drain
Industry Case
Ocotillo & Ash
DTC fashion · Demand creation
Case update 8.3
Module 8 of 8 in this case
The screenshot that matters
It's the same late-June weekend, one year after the 30%-off sale that lost $10 an order.
There's no sitewide sale this time. The First Monsoon drop goes to the VIP email and text list two days early, then to the three creators, then to everyone. The weekend brings 138 orders, 74 fewer than last year. At full price, the average order is $98. Returns are running at 14%. After the clothes, shipping, fees, returns and ads, each order leaves about $18 of contribution margin.
Sunday night, Lena takes a screenshot. Not of the order count. Of the contribution margin.
Her results pitch to Sam (illustrative): first-order acquisition cost down from $56 to $38; returns from 22% to 14%; repeat buyers from 25% to 33%, short of the 35% goal; a list of 14,800; flows now drive 22% of revenue.
And one honest finding about the creators. Lena compared tracking-link sales and branded searches in the weeks each creator posted against the weeks before. The nurse's posts drove real, measurable sales. The bus driver's followers loved the posts and barely bought. Next season's budget follows the evidence.
The napkin from last June is still on her desk. She keeps it there on purpose.
Artifact added
Campaign results pitch: Ocotillo & Ash
Report, renew and know when to part
Client reporting. A monthly report built on decision metrics (8.1): what happened, why and what's next. Lead with the business outcome. One clear page beats a data dump.
Setting expectations. Tests lose (8.2). Agree on the test plan before launch, set aside part of the budget for testing, and report what you learned next to what won. Deliver bad news early, with a recommended next step.
Renewals, case studies and endings. Renewals are earned in the monthly reports, not at the end of the contract. Ask permission to turn results into a case study; it is your best proof (1.2). When a relationship ends, hand over every asset and login, document the work and part well.
AI Advisor
AI AdvisorModule 8 · The live layer of this book
Campaign Results Advisor
Bring your numbers. Leave with a results story you can defend to a client or a boss.
Last updatedFirst brief coming
What’s current in analytics and measurement
The first dated brief arrives when this advisor opens. It will track: GA4 changes and reports · Offline conversion imports and conversion APIs on Google and Meta · Consent and privacy-aware measurement.
1 Coach my work
Bring your dashboard, test log and campaign results pitch and get coaching on your thinking.
2 What’s new in analytics and measurement
Ask for the latest tools, platform changes and rules, each one dated and linked to its official source.
What to bring
- Your goal and KPIs from Module 3, and where each number comes from: GA4, call tracking, point of sale, booking.
- Your test or before-and-after results, with dates and anything else that changed.
- Your draft results summary or pitch.
What the advisor does
- Separates decision metrics from vanity metrics, and checks how sales that never touch the website get counted (8.1).
- Checks the test design and whether the conclusion follows, even with small numbers (8.2).
- Asks what the attribution model can and can't tell you, and what an incrementality test would show (8.3).
- Helps you tell the story: what happened, what you learned, what to do next.
What it won't do
- Make up results, or round them up.
- Claim a channel caused a sale when the data can't show it.
Start here: one prompt for each lesson
8.1Build my dashboard
My goal is [goal] and my KPIs are [list them]. My data comes from [GA4, call tracking, point of sale, booking]. Which numbers drive decisions and which are vanity? Help me design a one-screen weekly dashboard.
8.2Check my test
Here's my test: [the hypothesis, the dates, what changed, the results]. Does my conclusion follow? If my numbers are small, how could a before-and-after period or holdout weeks help?
8.3Tell the results story· This lesson
Here's my campaign summary: [paste it]. Coach me to tell the story to a [client or boss]: what happened, what I can and can't claim caused it, and what I'd ask for next.
Try it with a case: Bajada Plumbing & Drain · Ocotillo & Ash · Tepary Kitchen Watch the advisor work on a case before you bring your own.
Open the live advisor: digitalmarketingessentials.com/advisor/8
Print-edition date added at printing. The advisor and its What’s current brief keep updating online.
Listen
Podcast · Move at the Speed of Culture
The ROI Case for Culture in Digital Marketing
Listen for how to make the money case to a client or a boss, the job of your campaign results story.
More from Move at the Speed of Culture →
Listen online: moveatthespeedofculture.com/roi-case-for-culture-in-digital-marketing
Key terms
- Attribution: Assigning credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that contributed to it.
- Attribution model: The rule used to divide that credit, such as last click, first click, linear, time decay, position-based or data-driven.
- Campaign report: A summary of what a campaign set out to do, what happened, what was learned and what to do next.
- Data-driven attribution: A model that uses an algorithm to assign credit based on how touchpoints actually contribute. It is the default model in GA4 (Google Analytics 4).
- Direct mail: Printed marketing, such as postcards, letters or catalogs, sent to people's mailboxes.
- Incrementality: The extra results that happened only because of a campaign, compared with what would have happened without it.
- Integrated campaign: A campaign that uses several channels, online and offline, around one message and goal, so each channel reinforces the others.
- Last-click attribution: A model that gives all credit to the final touchpoint before the conversion.
- Lift test: An experiment that measures incrementality by comparing a group that saw the campaign with a similar group that didn't.
- Pitch: A short, persuasive presentation that asks a client or boss to approve the next campaign, backed by evidence from the last one.
- QR code: A square, scannable barcode that opens a web page on a phone. A unique QR code links offline media to trackable online visits.
- Vanity URL: A short, memorable web address, such as brand.com/truck, used in offline media and often redirected to a tracked page.