Marketing analytics, experiments and budget resources

Knowing whether marketing works takes numbers you can defend: what a customer costs to acquire, what that customer is worth, and whether spend caused the result or only preceded it. Start with the Unit Economics Calculator, size spend with the Marketing Budget Calculator, and prove lift with an incrementality test.

Covers: Unit economics, budget sizing, KPI reporting, attribution, A/B testing, incrementality, MMM.

Learn the method

Analytics & Attribution Playbook — An attribution model, a live channel dashboard and spend optimisation. B2C version
90-Day Growth Playbook — Audit the funnel, run focused experiments and turn winners into SOPs. (from Go-to-Market & Growth Planning)
Foundations Playbook — Positioning, ICP, a GTM plan and core analytics for early-stage teams. (from Strategy & Positioning) B2C version
Paid Media Budget Allocation Playbook — Set a CAC target from LTV and allocate spend to equal marginal CAC. (from Paid Media)
Community & Dark Social Playbook — Eight steps for marketing where analytics can't see: find where buyers already talk, make thinking easy to forward, and measure by asking. (from Social, Community & Creators)
Lead Management Playbook — Agree lead stages, score on fit and behavior, respond fast, route to one owner and sign a marketing–sales SLA. (from Sales & Pipeline)
Pipeline Coverage & Forecasting Playbook — Size coverage from win rate, build a defensible forecast and review it weekly. (from Sales & Pipeline)

Run the numbers

Self-Reported Attribution Coder — Code the answers to How did you hear about us? into channels and see what analytics missed.
Unit Economics Calculator — Pressure-test CAC, LTV, payback and gross margin, with a plain-English verdict on each.
Marketing Budget Calculator — Size annual marketing spend by stage, business model and motion, then see a channel split.
A/B Test Significance Calculator — Frequentist and Bayesian verdicts for up to three variants, plus a sample-size planner.
Marketing KPI Report — Turn one period of spend, funnel, revenue and pipeline into a board-ready snapshot.
AI Answer Share-of-Voice Tracker — Measure whether AI answer engines name you, and whether the change since last run is real. (from AI Search & Agent Readiness)
Churn & Retention Calculator — NRR, GRR, revenue and logo churn, quick ratio and customer lifetime from one period. (from Retention, Expansion & Advocacy)
Cohort Retention Curve Builder — Retention curves for every cohort, a fair average, where retention levels off, and whether newer cohorts do better. (from Retention, Expansion & Advocacy)
Marketing Leadership Cost Comparator — In-house, fractional or agency, costed on your own numbers including ramp and your hours. (from Marketing Ops, AI & Team)
Paid Media Budget Allocator — Split ad spend across 16 channels with diminishing-returns math and a marginal-CAC solver. (from Paid Media)
Pipeline Forecast & Coverage Calculator — Weighted forecast, coverage against your win rate, the gap to target and the pipeline needed. (from Sales & Pipeline)

Build it

The MMM-Lite Starter Kit — A runnable media-mix model, data schema, incrementality template and decision rules.
The Marketing Budget Planner — Size, allocate, track and forecast spend with a CAC ceiling from your own unit economics.
The Board Marketing Slide Pack — Twelve board slides that lead with the answer: the number against plan, what it cost, what you learned and what you need.
The Marketing KPI Board Report — Board-ready KPIs, each with a trend and a headline, and sourced reference lines for payback and LTV:CAC.
The Tracking Plan and UTM Builder — Plan GA4 events and key events, set a UTM convention, build tagged links and keep a link log.
The Diagnose, Design, Execute Email Course — Ten short lessons over three weeks, from the one number that matters to a plan you can measure. (from Go-to-Market & Growth Planning)
The Retention & NRR Workbook — NRR, GRR, churn and quick ratio with plain-English reads, a cohort view and an LTV sizer. (from Retention, Expansion & Advocacy)
The Campaign Brief — Decide the one number, the one audience and belief, and how you will judge the campaign - before any money is spent. (from Go-to-Market & Growth Planning)
The Startup Marketing Plan — A 90-day plan workbook: funnel and unit economics, positioning, channel scorecard, roadmap and budget. (from Go-to-Market & Growth Planning)
The Lead Scoring and SLA Sheet — Score leads on fit and behavior, set the MQL threshold and write the marketing–sales SLA with a weekly tracker. (from Sales & Pipeline)
The Sales Pipeline & Forecast Tracker — Weighted forecast, coverage from your real win rate and the gap in dollars. (from Sales & Pipeline)

Run it with your AI agent

Incrementality & MMM — Design and read holdout, geo and lift tests, or a media-mix model.
Unit Economics — LTV, CAC, payback and a health verdict.
Marketing Budget Planning — Set the total budget and allocate it across functions.
A/B Test Significance — Check significance and size tests before you run them.
Marketing Report — Board-ready KPI snapshot with a decision-focused narrative.
Marketing Leadership Model — Prices in-house, fractional and agency with ramp, search time and your own hours, and says which shape fits. (from Marketing Ops, AI & Team)
Marketing Maturity Assessment — Scores marketing as a system across six dimensions, and names the weak links to fix first for your stage. (from Marketing Ops, AI & Team)
Paid Search Account Audit — Audits a search account against its own target: tracking, waste, starved winners, pages. Fixes ranked by spend. (from Paid Media)
Pricing Page Teardown — Scores a pricing page on 21 buyer checks, and says whether a price test can answer the question at your traffic. (from Pricing & Monetization)
Ad Creative Testing — Sizes a creative test before it runs, and refuses to name a winner the data cannot back. (from Paid Media)
Community & Dark Social — Maps where buyers already talk, decides whether to open your own community, and measures dark social by asking. (from Social, Community & Creators)
Pipeline & Forecast — Weighted forecast, coverage ratio and the pipeline gap. (from Sales & Pipeline)

Read the research

From Intuition to Intelligence: Why Marketing Analytics is the Essential Lever for Growth
How Do I Know If Marketing Is Working? Read the Stages, Not the Top of the Funnel
Is Your Marketing Budget Working Hard Enough? A Premium Consulting Perspective on Maximizing Marketing ROI
Marketing Budget Benchmarks by Stage 2026 — What companies spend on marketing by stage, type and GTM motion, reconciled across major surveys.
My LTV:CAC Is Below 3:1. Which Number Should I Fix First?
The AAJ Benchmark Library — Every benchmark AAJ publishes, with its primary source, sample size and the date it was last verified.
How Much Should a Startup Spend on Marketing? Budget Ranges by Stage
Incrementality Testing for Startups: Prove Your Ads Actually Work (2026 Guide)
MMM-Lite: Marketing Mix Modeling for Startups (No Data Science Team Required)
A/B Testing: The Complete Guide for Startups (Purpose, Methodology, Best Practices)
Tracking Setup for Startups: GA4, UTMs and Events — Set up GA4 tracking before you add a tag: events, key events, UTM rules, day-one settings, consent and CRM stages.
Dark Social: Where B2B Demand Actually Happens Now (2026 Guide) (from Social, Community & Creators)
Product-Market Fit: How to Tell If You Have It — You have product-market fit when one segment keeps using and paying without being pushed. Five steps and several signals to check before you scale spend. (from Strategy & Positioning)
Your NRR is 100% and you are losing a quarter of your customers (from Retention, Expansion & Advocacy)
Marketing Planning Cadence and OKRs: A Simple System for Startups — Five steps to a planning rhythm: four clocks, work back from the goal, shared OKRs, guardrails, weekly checks. (from Go-to-Market & Growth Planning)
Which marketing channels should a startup start with? — Start where your first segment already looks, pick channels whose cost fits your deal size, and test one or two against a pass mark you set in advance. (from Go-to-Market & Growth Planning)

Work with AAJ

MMM-Lite Engagement