Marketing’s GAAP Moment

Financial reporting has GAAP, auditing has GAAS, and clinical trials have ICH-GCP. Marketing measurement has multiple dashboards, but it’s time for that to change. Discover what a true marketing standard should look like, and why the time to define this standard is now.

Marketing GAAP Moment Internal Cover

The Principles of Marketing GAAP

Every other discipline that produces a number a board relies on has a generally accepted standard for what that number is allowed to mean. Here are the principles that should govern marketing measurement.

Independence

The measurement entity must be independent from the media being measured. A platform grading its own performance is structurally no different from an auditor grading its own books.

Causal Materiality

Only causally measurable outcomes are reportable as marketing performance. Clicks, impressions, and platform-attributed conversions describe activity, not causation, and should not be reported as if they were the same thing.

Audit-Grade Trail

Every reported number must be traceable to its evidence chain in a form an external auditor could review. A traceable number can be reconstructed from documentation alone, on a reasonable timeline.

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