// SERVICE 08 · STRATEGY

Performance planning that turns marketing into a P&L line you can actually defend.

Senior-led performance marketing planning for businesses scaling past gut-feel budget allocation. Channel mix modelling, marginal-return analysis, forecasting, and quarterly planning cycles that make marketing accountable to the rest of the P&L.

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// PLATFORMS WE OPERATE ACROSS

GA4

BigQuery

Looker Studio

Robyn MMM

Geo-Holdout Testing

Forecasting

// THE PROBLEM

Why most marketing budgets are set wrong, once a year.

Most marketing budgets are set in October for the following year and never reviewed against marginal return. That's not planning — it's annual budget theatre.

The way most companies allocate marketing budget across paid search, paid social, display, organic, and content is essentially: 'we did this last year, plus or minus 10%'. Channels compete politically for budget rather than analytically. Marketing leaders defend their spend with last-click attribution screenshots that everyone knows are wrong. CFOs treat marketing as cost rather than investment because the maths is never legible.

Three patterns show up in every planning audit. One: no understanding of marginal return — the marketing team can't answer 'what does the next $50k spent on this channel produce' for any channel. Two: attribution-driven allocation that systematically over-funds last-click channels (branded search, retargeting) and under-funds upper-funnel demand creation. Three: annual budgets that don't flex to seasonality, supply constraints, or market shifts because the planning cycle is too slow to adjust.

Done properly, performance planning is the connective tissue between marketing tactics and business strategy. It answers: what's our channel mix going to look like next quarter, given our growth targets and unit economics? How much can we afford to pay for a customer, given LTV and gross margin? What's our incrementality stress-test on each channel's claimed ROAS?

These are the questions that make marketing a legitimate part of business strategy rather than a budget line that gets cut first in downturns.

// HOW WE WORK

Our six-step Performance Planning methodology.

Every engagement follows the same architecture, calibrated to your business model, customer economics, and operational constraints.

Unit economics audit

Document the math from acquisition cost to lifetime value, gross margin, payback period, and customer cohort behaviour. Most companies haven't reviewed this rigorously in years. Without it, every channel decision is made against the wrong target.

Channel marginal-return analysis

For each major channel — Google Ads, Meta, programmatic, organic, content, partnerships — model marginal CAC at current spend and predicted marginal CAC at 1.5x, 2x, and 3x spend. Identifies under-funded high-ROI channels and over-funded saturated channels.

Incrementality stress-testing

Platform-reported ROAS is always inflated by attribution generosity. We design geo-holdout tests and pulse-and-rest experiments to measure true incremental contribution by channel. Often discovers that branded search and retargeting are 40-70% over-attributed.

Forecasting & scenario modelling

Build a financial model from channel-level inputs to revenue and contribution margin outputs. Scenario modelling for budget changes, market shifts, and growth targets. Updated monthly with actuals to close the loop between planning assumptions and reality.

Quarterly planning cycles

Replace annual budget theatre with quarterly planning cycles: 30-minute monthly reviews of channel performance against forecast, 2-hour quarterly re-baselining of budgets and forecasts. Marketing decisions stay aligned with current data, not last October's assumptions.

Marketing mix modelling (for higher spend)

For clients spending $200k+/month, full MMM via specialist partners. Statistically modelled cross-channel attribution that doesn't depend on user-level tracking, plus what-if scenario modelling for budget shifts. Often produces 15-25% efficiency gains from optimised allocation.

// WHAT'S INCLUDED

Everything in a Performance Planning engagement.

Unit economics modelling — CAC, LTV, payback, gross margin, cohort retention
Channel marginal-return analysis — predicted CAC at current and stress-tested spend levels
Incrementality testing — geo-holdout, pulse-and-rest, true contribution measurement
Budget forecasting — monthly, quarterly, annual planning with scenario modelling
Marketing mix modelling — MMM via specialist partners for clients spending $200k+/month
Attribution model design — data-driven attribution, MTA, MMM as appropriate per scale

Quarterly planning cycles — monthly check-ins, quarterly re-baselines, annual strategy
CFO/leadership reporting — marketing P&L view, ROI defensibility, scenario presentation
Growth target back-casting — what spend gets us to our revenue/profit targets
Competitive market analysis — where competitors spend, where headwinds are emerging
Weekly written strategic reads — channel performance against forecast
Direct strategist access — senior strategy partner, not delegated to analysts

// PROVEN ACROSS

Industries we've delivered performance planning for.

Senior specialists with hands-on operator experience across the verticals that matter most.

Retail & E-commerce

Multi-SKU catalogues, margin-aware bidding, seasonal demand modelling. Clients include Best&Less, Runaway The Label, Ozmobiles, and Icon By Design.

Health, Fitness & Supplements

TGA-compliant claims, subscription LTV optimisation, conversion-quality tracking. Clients include Fitness First, Body Science, The Man Shake, and Zap.

Travel, Auto & Services

Geo-targeted intent, seasonal demand, lead-quality measurement. Clients include Hertz and iBuyNew.

B2B & Lead Generation

Long sales cycles, CRM-integrated measurement, MQL-to-SQL pipeline modelling, offline conversion imports.

// RESULTS

What senior-led performance planning delivers.

+215%

EBITDA contribution from marketing

Mid-market retailer. Reallocated 35% of budget after marginal-return analysis revealed saturated branded search.

7.4×

Forecasting accuracy

B2B SaaS. Replaced annual budget theatre with quarterly cycles + incrementality stress-testing.

−42%

CAC at scale

DTC ecom. MMM-driven reallocation toward upper-funnel YouTube + audio at expense of saturated retargeting.

// ENGAGEMENT

How pricing works.

Performance planning is offered as either project work (one-off plans, MMM implementations) or ongoing retainer. Retainers start from $5,500/month + GST, calibrated to spend volume and decision cadence. Project work is quoted by scope.

For clients spending $200k+/month in media, MMM is offered through specialist statistical partners — typically $25,000-80,000 for an initial build with ongoing quarterly refreshes at $8,000-15,000.

This is genuinely senior strategy work — we charge senior strategy rates. The output isn't a deck; it's a model and a decision framework that survives stakeholder review at executive level. Cheaper alternatives exist; they produce different output.

Every engagement starts with a free strategy session valued at $2,500 — we'll review your current channel mix, allocation logic, and forecasting approach, and identify the highest-impact planning gaps. Independently useful even if you don't work with us further.

// QUESTIONS

Performance Planning FAQs.

How does this differ from a media plan?+

A media plan answers 'what will we spend, where, when?' Performance planning answers 'what should we spend, where, when, and how confident are we in the projected return?' Media plans are tactical and execution-focused. Performance planning is strategic and decision-focused — it produces the inputs that media plans then execute against.

Do you do MMM in-house?+

We deliver MMM through specialist partnerships rather than in-house. Statistical mix modelling is its own deep discipline — done well, it requires PhDs and 10+ years of practice. We project-manage, integrate findings with media strategy, and own the outputs with our clients. The actual modelling is delivered by partners who do nothing else.

How much spend justifies MMM?+

Roughly $200,000+/month in cross-channel media spend. Below that, the variance in channel performance is too noisy for MMM to produce statistically significant signal. Geo-holdout incrementality testing scales down further — useful at $30,000+/month for individual channels.

How accurate is forecasting at the channel level?+

Well-built forecasts typically hit within 10-15% on a quarterly basis at the channel level, and 5-8% at the total spend level. Variance comes from market shifts, seasonality novelty, and platform algorithm changes — not from forecasting methodology weakness. The point of forecasting isn't perfect prediction; it's defining the assumptions that produce expected outcomes so misses can be diagnosed and learned from.

Can you work with our CFO?+

Yes — and we genuinely prefer to. CFO partnership accelerates the maturation of marketing from cost centre to strategic investment. We're comfortable presenting marginal-return analysis, scenario modelling, and P&L impact projections at executive and board level. Marketing leaders without finance literacy often need exactly this bridge.

How long does it take to see impact?+

Initial reallocation insight typically surfaces within 60 days — that's enough time to complete the unit economics audit, marginal-return analysis, and first round of incrementality testing. Compounding improvement happens over 6-12 months as the quarterly planning cycle replaces ad-hoc decision-making.

Do you replace our in-house marketing team?+

No — we augment them, specifically on the strategic and analytical work that's hardest to develop in-house. Tactical execution, creative production, and channel management can sit either in-house or with us depending on scale. Strategy and planning we lead with the in-house leadership team as co-owners.

// LIVE · Senior specialist standing by

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