Measurement
The most expensive marketing decision is often made before the campaign starts
The costly decision is rarely the bid strategy. It is deciding what the campaign is supposed to prove, and how you will know.
Two reports, two answers, and a decision made on whichever is closest to hand.
Measurement is designed, not installed
Most measurement problems are not tracking problems. They are question problems: nobody defined what the activity was supposed to demonstrate, so the reporting defaults to whatever the platform makes easy.
Decide the read before the spend
Write down, before launch, what result would justify continuing, what result would justify stopping, and what result would mean the test was inconclusive. If those three cannot be written, the campaign cannot teach you anything.
Conflicting numbers are a governance issue
When platform, analytics and finance disagree, the answer is not to pick the friendliest source. It is to agree on which number governs a decision, and to keep the others as diagnostics.
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