6 days ago
A Test-And-Learn Mentality Is The Only Way To Grow
Ben Dutter is the Chief Strategy Officer at Power Digital and Founder of fusepoint, a strategic data consultancy within Power Digital.
Brands are drowning in data but still can't answer the most important question: What's actually driving growth?
Marketing's purpose is to move the business forward. But in too many boardrooms, that story isn't adding up. The numbers speak for themselves. According to Gartner, 60% of CEOs have fired their CMOs for failing to evolve. CMSWire's 2025 State of the CMO report found that 69% of CMOs feel intense pressure to prove ROI.
The message is clear: Adapt or get replaced.
The Real Problem: ROAS Is A Mirage
Costs are rising. Consumer attention is fragmented. And marketing teams are still clinging to rigid playbooks and siloed dashboards that fail to capture true performance.
Here's what I see repeatedly: Attribution contradicts platform data; finance wants revenue while creative wants engagement; and everyone's pointing to return on ad spend (ROAS) as the measure that will save them.
But ROAS is just an illusion. It creates the appearance of a trackable metric—numbers that look great in a deck but don't reflect incremental impact. Just because a platform claims credit doesn't mean it earned it. If you're making decisions based on optics instead of outcomes, you're not solving for growth.
Replace Vanity With Accountability
That's why we use a system called BEATS. It separates signal from noise by putting the right metrics in the right order, with higher methods taking priority over lower ones:
• Business Metrics: If it doesn't show up in the profit and loss statement (P&L), it doesn't matter.
• Experiments: Controlled tests to prove true impact.
• Analyses: Media mix modeling (MMM) and similar methods give directional insight.
• Tracking: Attribution helps fine-tune execution.
• Surveys: Supplementary context—your customers have a lot of useful insight.
This hierarchy creates clarity. If your attribution model says one thing but your incrementality tests say another, trust the test. And above all, trust the P&L. If your business isn't profitable, something is off.
We saw this play out with a direct-to-consumer (DTC) apparel brand. On paper, ROAS looked solid. But incrementality testing revealed 30% of paid conversions were actually cannibalizing organic sales. Shifting to a customer lifetime value (CLTV) and incrementality model increased lifetime value by 17% in a single quarter. That's the kind of insight that earns boardroom confidence.
What Execution Actually Looks Like
Data only matters if you can act on it.
Marketing, finance, analytics and creative must operate from the same scorecard. That means aligning on unified, business-relevant KPIs, relying on live dashboards that everyone trusts and maintaining the flexibility to pivot mid-flight. Above all, it means focusing on incrementality—not vanity metrics.
Internal alignment leads to faster decisions and sharper strategies, and proves that marketing drives growth.
What To Do Now
Growth isn't a guessing game. It's a discipline. And the only way to stay ahead is by embedding a test-and-learn culture across your organization.
Start by prioritizing experiments that isolate true lift. Reward your teams for what they learn—not just for being right. Anchor your measurement on metrics tied to revenue or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). And don't wait: Testing without action is just a delay tactic.
CMOs don't need more dashboards. They need to answer one question with clarity: Are we making the company more money?
If the answer isn't obvious, it's time to rethink your system.
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