CedarPoint Reach plans and buys media for regional brands across the Carolinas. Every monthly report splits spend into what we can attribute to a verifiable source and what we cannot, and the second number is usually larger than clients expect.
A dashboard shows return on ad spend by channel. Every dollar has a source, every conversion has a path, and the numbers add up neatly. They add up because the model assigns credit wherever it can and the channels with the best tracking get the credit regardless of whether they caused anything.
Last-click attribution flatters whatever runs closest to the purchase. Branded search takes credit for demand created elsewhere. Retargeting takes credit for buyers who were already coming. Meanwhile broadcast, out-of-home, and word of mouth are invisible and get cut, because the dashboard cannot see them.
So our reports show attributable and unattributable spend as two separate figures. Across our book, 44% of spend cannot be honestly tied to a verifiable source. Saying so costs us the appearance of competence and it is the only defensible version of the number.
Illustrative month. The bar shows the share we can tie to a verifiable source.
Genuinely trackable. Query intent is visible and the path is short.
Trackable but misleading. Most of these buyers already knew the brand from somewhere else.
Platform-reported conversions consistently exceed what we can verify independently.
Highly attributed by the platform and largely reaching people already intending to buy.
Almost entirely unattributable. Also the channel this client can least afford to cut.
Unattributable by any honest method available to us.
Twelve planners and buyers in Wilmington. No media owner commissions.
Channel plans built on what the business needs, not on what tracks well.
Search, social, programmatic, and broadcast, with attribution honestly split.
Campaign creative produced in house or with named partners.
Incrementality testing, geo holdouts, and the methods that actually isolate effect.
Long-horizon brand work, which is the least measurable and often the most valuable.
A fixed-fee read of your current spend and what can honestly be attributed.
We take no commission or rebate from any media owner or platform. Fees are charged to the client and disclosed. A buyer paid by the channel has a reason to recommend that channel.
Incrementality over attribution. Where a channel matters and cannot be tracked, we design a geo holdout rather than pretending the dashboard covers it.
We will defend an unmeasurable channel. The two worst-tracking lines in the report above are the two we would keep, and we say so with the reasoning.
Current spend read for what is genuinely attributable.
Channels chosen on business need, not on reporting convenience.
Incrementality and geo holdouts where tracking cannot reach.
Attributable and unattributable shown as two separate numbers.
Regional retailers, healthcare groups, tourism and hospitality operators, home services, and consumer brands across Wilmington, Raleigh, Charlotte, and coastal South Carolina.
Fees charged to the client with no media commissions, and spend reviews available as a fixed fee first.
We decline roughly one enquiry in five, usually where a client wants a dashboard that shows every dollar working, which we cannot honestly produce.
Founded the agency in 2017. Signs off the attribution split each month.
Fifteen years. Defends the channels the dashboard cannot see.
Twelve years designing geo holdouts rather than trusting platform reporting.
Thirteen years, with production costs always shown separately.
They told us 56% of our spend could not be honestly attributed. Our previous agency had reported a full picture every month.
The geo holdout showed our radio was working and the dashboard had been telling us to cut it.
No media commissions, and they showed us the invoices. That changed how I read their recommendations.
If it does, credit is being assigned rather than measured.