Campaign Insights
Performance Marketing Playbook
A structured approach to portfolio allocation when platform signal quality is deteriorating and incrementality is the only defensible currency.
Platform-reported ROAS has become a coordination device rather than a measure of truth. Our playbook treats it as one input among several, weighted by a confidence coefficient derived from holdout testing.
The core mechanic is a quarterly incrementality calendar: a rolling schedule of geo and audience holdouts that keeps a live estimate of true marginal return per channel.
Teams that adopt this framework typically reallocate between 12% and 20% of paid budget within two quarters, with no increase in total spend.
Our position: capability without an operating model produces expensive noise.
Shard & Co · Strategy Practice
This insight forms part of Shard's ongoing research programme. For the underlying methodology or a briefing with the authoring team, contact the practice directly.
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