Stop Celebrating Fake ROAS While Your Bank Account Bleeds
How to spot marketing waste and redirect dollars to channels that actually work
Hey everyone,
Welcome back for another bite to chew on.
Most brands are flying blind. They're celebrating 3x ROAS while bleeding money on every new customer. They're optimizing for metrics that look good in screenshots but destroy cash flow in spreadsheets.
Rohit Maheswaran from Lifesight has seen this story play out across hundreds of brands. The ones that scale sustainably have made one critical shift: they stopped measuring marketing with attribution and started measuring with contribution.
Today we’re breaking down exactly how to make that shift. From Rohit's measurement audit framework to the language that gets CFOs to love marketing spend, we're covering the incrementality playbook that's saving DTC brands millions.
🍽️ On the Menu:
The 5-Step Process That Exposes Marketing Waste
Speaking Money Instead of Metrics
Where to Spend When Meta Gets Too Expensive
You can watch the whole conversation with Rohit here:
Note: This newsletter was made in collaboration with Lifesight and their unified marketing measurement platform. Lifesight turns wasted ad dollars into predictable growth and profit through incrementality measurement.
The 5-Step Process That Exposes Marketing Waste
Incrementality answers one question: "Did my marketing actually cause this result or would it have happened anyway?"
Someone searches for your brand, clicks your sponsored link, and converts. Traditional attribution gives paid search 100% of the credit.
But would they have bought anyway through organic search? That's the $10M question most brands never ask.
Rohit has built Lifesight's measurement framework around this exact problem. Here's the 5-step process he uses to expose marketing waste:
Step 1: The Measurement Audit
Map how you currently measure each tactic: Email by clicks. Search by clicks. TV by brand lift.
Every channel uses different methodologies, making it impossible to compare true performance. Identify which channels are most likely non-incremental (hint: retargeting usually tops this list).
What to audit:
How each channel reports performance
Which channels are most likely non-incremental (spoiler: retargeting)
Where attribution overlaps are creating false wins
The goal is setting up measurement systems grounded in incrementality, not attribution.
Step 2: Test Your Top Spend Channels First
Create a testing schedule for channels where you spend the most money. These are most likely to reveal significant waste or opportunity.
Run geo-based experiments to understand true incrementality. Pull back Meta spend in 3 cities and measure the sales impact.
If people in those cities stop buying, Meta was driving incremental sales. If sales stay flat, you were just paying to reach people who were buying anyway.
This is exactly what Lifesight's platform automates—running systematic geo-lift tests across your media mix so you're not guessing which channels actually drive incremental sales.
Step 3: Cut the Waste
Now you know which channels are wasting dollars. Cut budget from the non-performers and reallocate to channels with higher marginal returns.
Focus your spend where each dollar drives actual new customers, not harvests existing demand. Once you've eliminated waste, you can start testing where to reinvest those dollars.
Step 4: Test New Top-of-Funnel Channels
Focus on exposing your product to net new eyeballs.
Rohit's take: brand marketing is the single most powerful performance driver you'll ever have. Strong brand marketing makes all your other channels cheaper and more effective.
Prioritize channels that expand your reach, not harvest existing demand.
Step 5: Build the Measurement Program
Treat measurement like a CRM system embedded in your business. Create decision frameworks for strategic, tactical, and operational choices. Get everyone aligned on the new methodology and metrics.
Lifesight's unified measurement platform connects all your data sources—from Meta to CTV to offline channels—so you can see true incrementality across your entire media mix.
Speaking Money Instead of Metrics
Marketing speaks ROAS, reach, and creative performance. Finance speaks EBITDA, cash flow, and profitability.
This disconnect kills trust and limits marketing budgets.
Rohit's solution? The Incrementally Adjusted P&L.
Instead of saying: "Meta gave us 3.2x ROAS"
Say this: "Meta drove $280,000 in incremental revenue at a 28% contribution margin"
Now you're speaking the CFO's language. Here's how to build that trust:
Change the Incentive Structure
Stop paying marketers for ROAS. Start paying them for profit. Ditch vanity metrics in boardroom presentations.
No more fuzzy attribution reports about social engagement. Walk in saying your experiments show every dollar in Meta returns $4 within six months.
Get Finance Involved from Day One
Include the CFO team in the measurement process from the start. Work together through the quarter—don't just report at the end.
Lifesight calls this a "source of truth" approach. Marketing and finance use the same incrementality-based metrics to evaluate performance and make budget decisions.
One DTC footwear brand using Lifesight's incrementally adjusted P&L approach saw an 18% increase in total revenue by shifting spend based on true contribution data rather than platform-reported attribution.
Lifesight makes this possible by translating your marketing data into financial language that CFOs actually understand—no more explaining why your ROAS doesn't match revenue growth.
Create Shared Language Around Business KPIs
Translate marketing performance into financial terms. Focus on contribution margin, not just revenue. Show clear path from marketing spend to business outcomes.
The most effective reporting framework moves from "Here's what happened" to "Here's what we're going to do next." Use experiments to validate model predictions. Give CFOs confidence in where to invest the next dollar.
Position marketing as a growth driver, not a cost center.
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Where to Spend When Meta Gets Too Expensive
Meta costs are rising. Brands are rushing to test AppLovin, Snapchat, and TV. Most are testing blindly.
But before you test anything, you need to understand your fundamentals.
Single SKU or multi?
Seasonal?
What are your margins and LTV?
Map your current funnel and identify blind spots.
Follow this testing priority:
Test your biggest spend channels first - These are most likely to reveal significant waste or opportunity
Focus on top-of-funnel tactics - Reach net new eyeballs rather than harvesting existing demand
Scale based on marginal incrementality - Where will your next dollar drive the most incremental return?
Watch for these red flags:
Platform conversions exceeding actual orders (duplication across platforms)
High ROAS but flat new customer growth (you're just harvesting existing demand)
Using platform dashboards for strategic decisions (they only show what's happening inside that platform)
Where to move your budget
Stop throwing money at retargeting and demand harvesting. When asked about his $1 million budget pick, Rohit chose YouTube for its scale and control, plus CTV for reach. Use geo-based experiments before you scale anything.
One retail chain using this approach saw a 48% increase in iROAS during peak season.
Stop asking "What's my ROAS?" Start asking "Where should I invest my next dollar for the most incremental profit?"
Sum It Up
Here's the reality: you're either measuring what actually drives profit, or you're flying blind while your competitors eat your market share.
The brands that survive the next few years won't be the ones with the prettiest dashboards—they'll be the ones who know exactly which marketing dollars work and which ones don't.
That's incrementality measurement, and it's not optional anymore.
Start with Rohit's audit. Fix the language gap with finance. Test strategically when costs spike. The framework is simple, but the results speak for themselves.
If you want to skip the months of building this infrastructure yourself, Lifesight handles the complex modeling, geo-testing, and cross-channel measurement so you can focus on acting on insights rather than collecting data.
Their clients see an average 23% boost in incremental ROAS within the first few months.
Ready to stop celebrating fake ROAS? Check out Lifesight to see what your marketing is actually driving.
Let us know how we did...
All the best,
Ron & Ash