Black Clover · Paid mix
Moving budget off Google without losing return
I report to the CEO and own where the paid budget goes. Meridian shows me where each channel stops paying back. When two channels both claim the same sale, a GeoLift test or an RCT settles it.
Head of Business Intelligence & Performance Marketing · Black Clover · Feb 2025 – present
martysmithson04@gmail.comLinkedIn (opens in a new tab)Resume PDFMcfly Analytics Shopify App (opens in a new tab)
The question
Google, Meta, and Microsoft all count their own conversions, and some of those are the same orders. So which one gets the next dollar?
The call
Google had about half the paid budget. I cut it to 35% and moved the difference into the other channels.
What happened
We spent more in total and ROAS still went up. More spend usually drags return down, so that was the part I cared about.
What the CEO saw
I built a dashboard with five full years of history so the CEO could see what changed without me choosing the dates.
Why I don't add up platform numbers
Every ad platform reports its own conversions, and the same order can show up in more than one report. Add them up and paid media looks bigger than it was. I keep platform numbers as signals. The budget runs on numbers that can't count an order twice.
How I use the model
Meridian MMM answers the mix question. Given everything spent across Google, Meta, and Microsoft, which channel still returns on its next dollar, and which one has flattened?
Sometimes the model can't tell two channels apart. At that point I stop arguing about attribution and run a GeoLift test or an RCT. The result goes back into the model, and the model tells me what to test next.
Moving the money
Revenue per ad dollar, counted in cash, is the number I steer by. A channel gets more budget when its next dollar holds up in the model and in a test. If it only looks good in its own dashboard, it doesn't get more.
What the CEO sees
What goes to the CEO is short: what the model says, what a test settled, what the cash number shows, and what I'd do next. It sits next to the five-year dashboard, so every claim can be checked against the history.
The data work underneath is the next case.
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