In today’s complex digital landscape, many brands find their growth stagnating despite hitting their ROAS goals. The problem often lies in a fragmented measurement strategy, where the impact of marketing efforts on platforms like Meta is lost when customers purchase on Amazon or other retail channels. In this episode, Ashleigh Shapiro, VP and Head of Growth at Code3, joins us to break down why this measurement gap exists and how to fix it.
Key Takeaways
- Your marketing performance is likely stronger than you think because standard attribution models fail to connect ad exposure on one platform to purchases on another.
- Over-investing in bottom-of-the-funnel activities like search is like fishing from a shrinking pond, as it only captures existing demand and fails to generate new growth.
- Relying solely on ROAS as a success metric can be misleading and may hide a decline in your brand’s underlying health.
- True growth requires a holistic measurement approach that embraces incrementality and acknowledges that you cannot control where a consumer ultimately decides to purchase.
Understanding Code3’s Evolution and Expertise
Ashleigh begins by explaining Code3’s unique position in the digital advertising landscape. The agency started as SocialCode in 2009, becoming the very first paid social agency and Facebook’s first ads API partner. Today, Code3 operates on three core pillars that reflect the modern marketing reality: Connections (covering all direct-to-consumer and standard media), Commerce (encompassing all retail media), and Creative (serving as the connector and performance driver for everything else). This evolution mirrors the industry’s own journey toward recognizing the interconnected nature of digital marketing channels.
As VP and Head of Growth, Ashleigh oversees the company’s strategic thinking, point-of-view development on emerging topics, go-to-market strategies, and revenue growth. Her role puts her at the center of conversations with advertisers who are all grappling with the same fundamental challenge: measurement in an increasingly complex digital ecosystem.
The Disconnect Between Platforms
One of the most significant challenges for marketers today is that advertising platforms operate in their own walled gardens. As Ashleigh explains, “You have a lot of different platforms, but they’re not connected.” This creates a blind spot for brands that can be devastating to their understanding of marketing effectiveness. The root of the issue is deceptively simple: multiple platforms impact revenue, but they don’t share data with each other.
Consider this common scenario: a consumer sees an ad on Meta, clicks through to a brand’s direct-to-consumer site, but then decides to complete their purchase on Amazon after comparing prices and reading reviews. In this case, Meta’s pixel can only track activity on the D2C site, so when the consumer ultimately purchases on Amazon, Meta shows no conversion. The platform appears to be underperforming when, in reality, it played a crucial role in driving that sale.
This problem is magnified by post-pandemic consumer behavior. Digital and ecommerce adoption is higher than ever, with consumers purchasing across multiple channels. Simultaneously, brand investment in retail media has reached new heights, meaning revenue is flowing through both D2C sites and platforms like Amazon. When fifty percent of revenue comes through D2C and fifty percent through Amazon, but your pixel can only be placed on your D2C site, you’re only seeing half the picture of your marketing’s true impact.
The Real-World Impact: A Case Study in Misattribution
Ashleigh shares a compelling real-world example that illustrates how this measurement gap plays out in practice. She worked with a client where seventy percent of revenue came from Amazon and only thirty percent from their D2C site. The brand was evaluating Meta’s performance based solely on D2C conversions, essentially judging the platform on only thirty percent of their total business.
The breakthrough came when they conducted a test: when Meta spend decreased, Amazon performance declined as well. This revealed that Meta was actually driving demand that converted on Amazon, not just on the D2C site. The brand had been dramatically undervaluing Meta’s contribution because they couldn’t see the cross-platform impact. Once they understood this connection and started measuring incrementality properly, they were able to increase Meta investment and break out of their growth stagnation.
This scenario, as Ashleigh notes, happens “all the time” with different brands and platforms. The fundamental issue remains the same: brands are making investment decisions based on incomplete data, leading them to undervalue channels that are actually driving significant business impact.
The Danger of the “Shrinking Pond” Strategy
While investing in demand-capture channels like Google and Amazon search can produce impressive ROAS figures, it’s a strategy with a built-in expiration date. By focusing only on capturing existing demand, brands are essentially “fishing from a shrinking pond.” They are not actively working to create new customers or build brand affinity. Over time, this leads to a decline in the overall business base.
Ashleigh identifies three common patterns among brands with stagnating performance. First, they’re overly invested in bottom-of-the-funnel tactics. Second, they’re overly reliant on ROAS as their sole source of truth. Third, they have no understanding or measurement of incrementality. Usually, it’s a combination of all three factors creating a perfect storm of misguided strategy.
The host shares his own cautionary tale that perfectly encapsulates this problem: “We hit ROAS goals for our brand for years. Then we got fired when the brand realized that the brand was dying.” This story illustrates the peril of relying on a single, often misleading, metric. A high ROAS can create a false sense of security, masking the fact that the brand is slowly losing relevance and market share.
The underlying issue is that search volume is declining year over year. When brands focus exclusively on capturing existing demand through search, they’re competing for a shrinking pool of potential customers. Without investment in demand generation and brand building, the pond continues to shrink, making growth increasingly difficult and expensive.
The Complexity of Consumer Choice
Modern consumers don’t behave according to marketers’ neat channel strategies. Research suggests that about fifty percent of consumers who visit a brand’s D2C site will also visit an e-tailer like Amazon to review the brand before making a purchase decision. This cross-shopping behavior creates attribution challenges that traditional measurement simply cannot handle.
The audience duplication between platforms compounds this problem. Most people who shop at Walmart also shop on Amazon. Most people who use Instagram also use TikTok. When you serve an ad on one platform and the consumer purchases through another, the attribution connection is lost. The question becomes: did Amazon drive the sale, or did TikTok? How are all these touchpoints working together to influence the final purchase decision?
Ashleigh emphasizes that brands often try to control this consumer behavior by segmenting their traffic artificially. They might attempt to send twenty percent of their traffic to Amazon, twenty percent to Walmart, twenty percent to D2C, and so on. But this approach is fundamentally flawed because it ignores consumer preference. If someone is a Target customer and you send them to Walmart, they’re likely to bounce. The choice ultimately belongs to the consumer, and successful brands need to make it as easy as possible for consumers to purchase wherever they prefer.
Organizational Challenges and Team Structure
The measurement gap isn’t just a technical problem; it’s an organizational one. Many brands have separate teams for Amazon and D2C that don’t communicate effectively. They often work with different agencies for different channels, creating further silos. This structure made sense in an earlier era of digital marketing, but it’s counterproductive in today’s interconnected ecosystem.
Ashleigh draws a parallel to an earlier evolution in the industry. There was a time when the conventional wisdom was “jack of all trades is a master of none,” leading brands to work with separate search agencies, social agencies, and so on. Eventually, the industry recognized that these channels needed to work together for optimal budget allocation and performance. The same consolidation needs to happen now between Amazon and D2C strategies.
When Amazon teams think about performance without considering what’s happening on Meta or connected TV, they’re missing a huge portion of what drives Amazon performance. Consumer decision-making doesn’t start and stop on Amazon. Ideally, discovery happens somewhere else in their social feed, especially for brands that rely on brand prominence and awareness.
The Challenge of Internal Advocacy
Beyond the technical and organizational challenges, marketers face the difficult task of advocating for themselves internally. When a marketer has to sit in front of their CFO and justify additional budget for a channel showing a ROAS of two when they need a five, it can be a daunting conversation. They might intuitively understand the need to make the case for demand generation, but without the appropriate data and resources to back up their argument, they can feel stuck.
This is where the measurement gap becomes particularly problematic for career advancement and internal credibility. Marketers know they need to invest in brand building and demand generation, but they struggle to prove the value using traditional metrics. They need tools and frameworks that help them demonstrate the full impact of their marketing investments across all channels and touchpoints.
The Evolution of Agency Relationships
In this new paradigm, the role of agencies must evolve significantly. Brands are exhausted by agencies who simply take orders and execute predetermined strategies. They need strategic partners who will challenge their assumptions and push them toward more effective approaches, even when those approaches are more complex or counterintuitive.
Ashleigh shares an example of this philosophy in action. Code3 was responding to an RFP where a brand specifically requested help with linear TV advertising. After conducting their analysis, Code3 came back and said the brand should not do linear TV at all. Instead, they recommended connected TV as a better fit for the brand’s audience and objectives. It was a risky move that could have cost them the business, but the brand appreciated being challenged and ultimately selected Code3 because they provided strategic leadership rather than just execution.
This approach requires agencies to be willing to have difficult conversations and make data-driven recommendations that might contradict the client’s initial instincts. As Ashleigh puts it, “Order takers aren’t gonna cut it.” In a difficult macroeconomic climate, brands need partners who will push them outside their comfort zones, because often their comfort zone is exactly what’s keeping them stuck.
The Path Forward: Change Management and Education
Implementing better measurement practices isn’t just about adopting new tools; it requires comprehensive change management. Even when someone is hungry and willing to change, it’s still inherently difficult because it requires a fundamentally different way of thinking about marketing performance.
The process starts with making the business case and explaining why current approaches are failing. For marketers, this means helping their internal stakeholders understand why they’re stagnating and how measurement gaps are contributing to the problem. It requires educating leadership on the limitations of ROAS-only thinking and the importance of incrementality.
Ashleigh emphasizes that agencies can’t just communicate effectively with their direct point of contact; they need to help that person facilitate change management within their organization. This means providing the right tools, talk tracks, data, and presentation materials that marketers can use to educate their CFOs and other stakeholders about new measurement approaches.
The key is helping marketers confidently articulate why traditional metrics are insufficient and what the organization should be measuring instead. This includes explaining the “so what” of incrementality and how it connects to business outcomes that leadership cares about.
Using Forecasting to Build Confidence
One particularly effective approach for driving change is using forecasting and modeling to demonstrate the potential outcomes of different strategies. When brands are resistant to shifting away from bottom-funnel tactics, agencies can model what will happen if they continue on their current path versus what could happen with a more balanced approach.
Often, the forecast reveals that the current strategy won’t achieve the brand’s growth goals. After a quarter of results that match the forecast’s predictions, brands become more receptive to alternative approaches. The forecast becomes a tool for building confidence in incrementality-based measurement and more sophisticated marketing strategies.
This approach acknowledges that change is often a process rather than a single decision. Even when people say they want to change, it sometimes takes multiple conversations and proof points to fully embrace new approaches.
Connect with Ashleigh
To learn more about Code3’s approach to unified measurement and full-funnel growth strategies, you can connect with Ashleigh Shapiro on LinkedIn or visit the Code3 website. For listeners interested in diving deeper into the concepts discussed in this episode, Code3 has case studies available that demonstrate the real-world impact of implementing incrementality-based measurement approaches.
