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The TL;DR:
Let’s Chat D2C: Ecommerce Attribution is Changing!
Building in Public with SCALIS: Bouncing Back from Missed Days
What I’m Thinking about this Week: The Post-Launch Energy Shift at SCALIS.
The D2Z Podcast: In this episode of The D2Z Podcast, I sat down with Austin Harrison, CEO of NorthBeam, discussing data-driven marketing and the shifts he is seeing in ecommerce.
App Highlight: Supermoon is my new favorite AI-powered customer service platform.
Upcoming Events: I’ll be in Miami all week!
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Let’s Chat D2C: Ecommerce Attribution is Changing
In an era where digital advertising is becoming increasingly complex and costly, solutions like Northbeam, Triple Whale, and Prescient AI have emerged as essential tools for Ecommerce brands looking to optimize their marketing spend and maximize performance. These platforms address a critical problem: the diminishing visibility into customer journeys due to privacy changes (like iOS 14.5) and the need for more accurate attribution models.
Why These Solutions Matter for Ecommerce Brands
Ecommerce brands today operate in a fragmented digital landscape. The days of relying solely on Facebook Ads to drive conversions are over. With rising customer acquisition costs (CAC) and data restrictions, brands need robust analytics platforms that provide deeper insights into marketing efficiency. Northbeam, Triple Whale, and Prescient AI help brands achieve this by:
Unifying Data Across Channels – These tools aggregate data from various marketing channels (Meta, Google, TikTok, email, SMS, etc.), providing a holistic view of customer interactions.
Providing Real-Time Attribution Insights – They help brands understand which marketing touchpoints contribute most to conversions, reducing wasted ad spend.
Leveraging AI for Smarter Decision-Making – Predictive analytics and machine learning enable brands to allocate budgets more effectively and forecast performance.
Mitigating the Impact of Privacy Changes – With the decline of third-party cookies and increased data restrictions, these platforms provide alternative tracking methods that remain privacy-compliant.
Understanding Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) vs. Media Mix Modeling (MMM)
To fully leverage these solutions, brands must understand the two key attribution models: Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) and Media Mix Modeling (MMM).
Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA)
MTA tracks individual user journeys and assigns value to each marketing touchpoint along the way. For example, if a customer interacts with a Google ad, clicks an email campaign, and finally converts after seeing a TikTok ad, MTA will distribute credit across these touchpoints. This method is useful for:
Understanding how different channels work together in driving conversions.
Optimizing budget allocation by identifying high-performing touchpoints.
Real-time tracking and quick optimization of ad spend.
However, MTA has limitations—it relies heavily on deterministic tracking, which has been disrupted by iOS updates and increasing privacy measures.
Media Mix Modeling (MMM)
MMM, on the other hand, takes a broader, statistical approach. Instead of tracking individuals, it looks at aggregated data over time to determine how different marketing channels contribute to overall sales. This method:
Does not rely on individual tracking, making it more resilient to privacy changes.
Helps measure long-term impact of brand awareness campaigns.
Provides a high-level view of marketing performance across all channels.
The downside? MMM requires significant historical data and is less effective for real-time optimizations.
How Brands Can Leverage Both MTA and MMM
The best approach for Ecommerce brands is a hybrid model that combines the strengths of both MTA and MMM. Here’s how:
Use MTA for real-time decision-making – Platforms that provide granular, event-level data to adjust ad spend and creatives quickly.
Leverage MMM for strategic planning – Solutions that use predictive analytics and econometrics to guide long-term budget allocation.
Adopt a First-Party Data Strategy – Tools that integrate first-party data sources, helping brands future-proof against privacy changes.
Test and iterate – Brands should continuously refine attribution models based on performance insights.
The Future of Ecommerce Attribution
As Ecommerce brands move into 2025, AI-driven attribution and predictive analytics will become the gold standard. The brands that succeed will be those that invest in data-driven decision-making, blending real-time insights from MTA with long-term forecasting from MMM.
Platforms like Northbeam, Triple Whale, and Prescient AI are not just solving today’s problems—they are shaping the future of Ecommerce marketing. Brands that embrace these tools will gain a competitive advantage, optimize their marketing budgets, and drive sustained growth.
Building in Public with SCALIS: Bouncing Back
Being a startup founder means constantly navigating challenges, and one of the toughest is losing valuable time to illness. Recently, I was in Hong Kong and got food poisoning, which wiped out a few days of productivity. As an entrepreneur, losing even a single day can feel like a massive setback, especially when you're deep in execution mode.
This experience reinforced my commitment to optimizing my surroundings to eliminate distractions and focus entirely on work. To that end, I recently made a significant change: I sold my condo and am moving into a house. This move isn’t just about upgrading my living situation—it’s a strategic decision to give my brother and me a larger dedicated work area, more room for the team, and a space that fosters deep focus and execution.
The ability to create an environment optimized for success is critical. Whether it’s having a distraction-free workspace, reducing commute times, or making lifestyle changes to prioritize health and efficiency, every decision must align with long-term goals. For me, this move is about setting up the best possible conditions for SCALIS to thrive.
Going through this experience also made me realize just how badly we need another sales team member at SCALIS. Even when I’m at 100%, I’m still being pulled in a million different directions, making it difficult to dedicate the necessary time and energy to sales. We need someone solely focused on selling so that we can continue scaling effectively without being bottlenecked by my limited bandwidth.
What I’m Thinking About This Week: The Post-Launch Energy Shift at SCALIS
Six months ago, we were in the trenches, building SCALIS with a mix of excitement and uncertainty. The team was working hard, but without real customers using the product, motivation ebbed and flowed. You can only do so much testing and iteration in a vacuum before you start questioning everything—will this work? Are we making the right decisions?
Fast forward to today, and everything has changed. Now that customers are using the product daily, the team has completely leveled up. There’s an undeniable energy shift when you see real users engaging with something you built. Every fix, feature, and improvement is no longer hypothetical—it’s solving a real problem for real people. That direct impact has the team more fired up than ever. People are working late, not because they have to, but because they’re obsessed with making the product better.
But what’s even more interesting is how this momentum was built over time. About six months ago, we started identifying our top performers—the ones who consistently delivered, took ownership, and set the bar for what great looked like at SCALIS. Instead of just relying on outside hiring, we doubled down on these A-players, giving them more autonomy and responsibility. And the best part? They started bringing in referrals—people they trusted and knew would raise the bar even further.
This steady investment in talent has completely transformed our team. Not only are we operating at a higher level, but the buy-in is deeper than ever. When you surround A-players with other A-players, it creates a culture of ownership, accountability, and ambition. Everyone is pushing each other to be better, and it’s showing in the speed and quality of our execution.
That said, keeping things fun and lighthearted is just as important as pushing for growth. It’s easy to get caught up in the momentum, but creating moments to connect on a personal level keeps the team grounded and engaged. A little while back, I included a note two-thirds of the way through my weekly all-team email to see who would catch it. Only a handful of people did, and each of them got a surprise gift card. It was a simple way to inject some fun into the week, and it reminded everyone that while we’re serious about our work, we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
If there’s one takeaway from this, it’s that the real start of a company isn’t when you launch—it’s when you have customers who rely on you. That’s when your team finds its true purpose. And if you’ve been strategic about who you invest in along the way—and make sure to have some fun while doing it—that’s when everything starts to scale effortlessly.
This Week’s The D2Z Podcast
#141 – Creating an Entrepreneurial Playbook
🎧 Listen Now 🎧
In this episode of The D2Z Podcast, I sat down with Austin Harrison, CEO of NorthBeam, discussing data-driven marketing and the shifts he is seeing in ecommerce. Specifically, we explore the following:
❗Building a SaaS company requires trust in your team.
❗Data quality and integrity are paramount for customer success.
❗AI and machine learning are exciting but often overhyped.
❗The future of media buying includes diversification of channels.
❗Small businesses should focus on learning before investing in complex solutions.
❗Continuous improvement is essential for product usability.
App Highlight: Supermoon
Had a blast demo'ing one my new favorite AI-powered Shopify apps - Supermoon!
🤖 Efficient AI Automation
Supermoon is designed to automate customer service tasks, significantly reducing the number of inquiries that require human intervention. With an AI that can answer up to 70% of customer questions automatically, businesses can expect efficiencies in handling customer service operations.
🔢 Multi-Channel Support
The platform integrates various messaging services such as Instagram, WhatsApp, chat, smart contact forms, and email, allowing businesses to manage customer support inquiries all in one place. This makes it easy for customer service reps to respond using autogenerated replies that can be modified as needed.
🚀 Customizable and Scalable Solutions
Supermoon allows users to set custom templates for common customer inquiries, which can be auto-replied based on detected use cases. The pricing structure is based on AI-generated responses, making it adaptable for businesses during peak seasons.
🖱️ User-Friendly Interface
The onboarding process is straightforward, requiring only the upload of an FAQ page to start. The clean user interface and dashboard provide insights into performance metrics and customer satisfaction, enhancing the user experience for customer service teams.
🔁 Continuous Improvement of AI Responses
As the platform is used, Supermoon learns from interactions, allowing the AI to improve and provide increasingly accurate answers over time, resulting in enhanced service quality for users.
💰 Way cheaper than it should be and the pricing model is usage-based which is almost always my favorite!!!
Check out the walkthrough and let me know what you think 😃
Upcoming Events
I’ll be in Miami all week!
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