Eric Siu explains why marketing attribution is mostly unknowable. Jesse Pujji spent $75M on Uber ads, but drivers claimed they heard about it from family even though they signed up through Facebook. Founders under $25M in revenue shouldn't obsess over tracking exactly where customers come from.
There's a good story here. I'm going to share this from Jesse Pujji. So Jesse says this on Twitter. So he says, I thought I wasted $75 million on Uber ads, but it led me to a marketing breakthrough. So it's 2014 and Uber hired my company to manage its ad spend. Their goal, get new drivers. My team spends $75 million for them and earns a healthy commission. I'm proud. In fact, every time I get into an Uber, I ask the driver, how did you hear about this new thing? I expected them to say, I saw a great ad. Nope. They were like, I heard about it from my cousin, or I heard about it from my mom. I'm bummed. Seems like my ads aren't working. My firm will lose Uber as a client. Then start asking, how did you sign up to Uber? They're like, it came up on Facebook and I signed up. My breakthrough realization: attribution is somewhat unknowable. Now I tell founders with less than $25 million in revenue to stop stressing, which is kind of what we've been talking about for a while. It's like you can't try to know everything because you're gonna stress yourself out.
