This week, in data
The signal this week: it feels like advertisers are planning for the future instead of reacting to the data of the present. Meta share dropped slightly but performance is up, even in the wake of numerous reported bugs.
Meta: The fact that Meta is launching native AI connectors should probably affect performance in the coming weeks, as tons of users test new creative and AI-driven recommendations.
TikTok continues to grow: share grew +5.83% (the largest reallocation of any platform) while almost every leading indicator deteriorated. CTR collapsed -14.77%, CPM jumped +5.67%, CVR slipped -2.53%, and CAC rose +7.93%. Normal moves for when new budget and testing campaigns move in.
What to watch: the pattern to track over the next two weeks is whether TikTok's share grab gets validated by improving CTR and CVR, or whether the data finally catches up and budget snaps back. YouTube's CPM is the other tell: a second consecutive double-digit print would confirm a new auction floor rather than a one-week dislocation. We’re still bullish on YouTube.
Northbeam + Common Thread Collective
You may have heard: we’re partnering with the team at Common Thread to bring enterprise-grade attribution to seven-figure businesses. If you’ve always wanted to try Northbeam and grow from seven to eight or nine figures revenue, this is your chance.
A philosophy of cash versus accrual
Most news outlets agree - we’re in a tough economy. Gas prices are rising, consumer confidence is low, and advertisers are spending more to combat increasing CACs.
The question: how do you strategize your ad account to survive in a brutal economic environment?
Here’s what we’ve learned watching some of the best marketers in the world: you must be efficient above all else.
Step one: Measure your ads on a cash versus accrual basis to maximize efficiency. This will move you away from hand-to-mouth growth marketing and let you measure the real impact of your ads as touchpoints driving sales.
Measuring ads on a cash basis means you’re attributing your revenue and conversions to the day an order was placed. This is useful for high-level business reporting. It’s great for answering questions like “What was the overall ad impact of my ads on my business?” But it’s only part of the picture.
Measuring on accrual means you’re attributing revenue and conversions to the day a marketing touchpoint happened. It’s useful for measuring how your specific campaigns are performing. You can answer questions like “Which ads and channels are performing best over the last seven days? ”
By using both lenses, you can measure your ads’ ability to generate demand and their ability to capture it. This is critical for actually measuring your ads through an economic downturn.
For example, imagine a simple customer journey. Steve buys a widget. He visited the Widgets Co website via ad clickthroughs on January 1, January 2, and January 3, but purchased it on January 3.
Under a cash view, all his touchpoints would be given credit on the third for the transaction. Excellent for understanding short-term revenue generated by his purchase, right?
Under an accrual view, the conversion and revenue for Steve’s purchase would be distributed across the days the touchpoints happened. This lets you understand that actually your ads on all three days influenced his decision. You can see how this simple but powerful dual perspective can color your decision-making. Read an expanded explanation here.
If you want to squeeze maximum efficiency out of your ads, you need to analyze them through both lenses to measure their full-funnel impact.
Measuring profitability
Now that you understand how your ads are influencing your business, it’s time to hold them to extreme accountability standards. You can’t afford to waste a dollar. In a downturn, customer acquisition is expensive, but since many businesses are failing or pulling back their ad spend, impressions will be cheaper. (We saw this exact thing during the COVID Lockdown Ecommerce Boom TM.)
You can measure your business success and your channel performance on a cash basis. This lets you understand how much performance you need from each channel to succeed.
But you should measure specific ads on an accrual basis. If you’re setting even one-day targets on your ads with accrual, you can be sure you’re capturing the historical relationships between the two and measuring for demand generation, not just demand capture. It distributes your financial and conversion impact over time.
We wanted a simple way for marketers to evaluate how well their ads are hitting these targets. We saw many people calculating these in Excel spreadsheets and manually evaluating them with conditional formatting. We also met folks who were struggling to calculate their performance “benchmarks” in the first place.
That’s why we developed Profitability Benchmarks. With Profitability Benchmarks, you can easily measure the channel by channel performance of your ads against rigorous targets. It simplifies the entire above process.
Yes, this post is basically an ad for Profitability Benchmarks. But we built this thing to serve the demands of marketers who want to squeeze maximum efficiency from their ad campaigns. Which is probably you. And in a downturn, efficiency is more important than ever. So I hope you’ll forgive me for offering the exact tool you need at this exact moment.
We’re in this together, folks. So chat with us and see how we can help.
⛳️ Going to Meta’s Summit? Join us for Topgolf and dinner. Some cool events for cool marketers like you.
🧀 Meta is allowing third-party AI tools to manage your ad accounts. China’s moves on Manus mean Meta must do this to satisfy demand for agentic support.
🎬 YouTube is rolling out side-by-side ads on livestreams. The video stays visible while the ad plays underneath, but the audio still hijacks the stream.
🛒 Google's April Demand Gen Drop went live. Commerce Media Suite now supports Demand Gen, and you can finally optimize toward view-through conversions on YouTube.
🪦 Meta is finally killing Dynamic Creative. Jon Loomer's latest field notes confirm the format is sunsetting, with Format Display Options and a new 10-asset workflow taking over.
🚨 JOB: Associate Director, Growth Marketing / REEF / Carlsbad CA: You’ll use Northbeam in this one. Don’t miss the opportunity of a lifetime.
🚨 JOB: Senior Paid Search and YouTube Manager / Grüns / Remote: how about a gig at the fastest growing DTC brand in the world?
🚨 JOB: Senior Designer, Marketing Brand and Creative / Northbeam / remote: join me in making amazing content for social and this newsletter!
🚨 JOB: Partnership Marketing Specialist / Qualia / remote: a travel-focused affiliate role that seems exciting.
🚨 JOB: Senior Amazon Growth Manager / Qualia / remote: Amazon-focused role at this excellent supplement business.
🚨 JOB: Head of Growth / Javvy Coffee / Remote: join the best marketers in the game, $5m budget, and freedom to make infinite scale happen.
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