The promise of Andromeda's AI brain sorting through a billion users to find your customers on auto-pilot sounds quite enticing. But I could not help wondering: is this actually a good thing for brands?

I ask because I have spent 10 years tracking Meta campaign performance against actual orders, and four things have stayed true the entire time.

Meta overstates its ability to drive immediate bottom-of-funnel sales.
Meta understates its ability to drive top-of-funnel cold traffic that leads to new customers.
Meta shows a lot more ROAS when you widen the attribution time window.
Meta's Conversions API is heavily optimized for immediate sales on the default setup.

With Meta now all but forcing advertisers into Advantage+, or switching it on behind the scenes if you do not read the fine print, it is time to use actual data, not opinion, to work out how advertisers should really use Advantage+, and when to stick to their manual guns instead.

So I had the fearless Wicked DB team pull the data on 55,661 Meta campaigns, comparing January through May 2024 against 2025, to finally get to the bottom of a few things. Let's dive in.

Topics: Wicked Reports marketing attribution ROI Meta Advertising nCAC Meta Advantage Plus Campaing Advantage+ vs Manual Meta Campaigns

4 min read

iOS 26 and Tracking : What Marketers Need to Know

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Oct 7, 2025, 10:45:24 AM

iOS 26 and Tracking Parameters: What Performance Marketers Need to Know

Every new iOS release sets off the same alarm across the performance marketing community, and iOS 26 is no exception. For marketers, agencies, and analysts, the fear is always the same: will my tracking break, and will I lose visibility into what is actually driving results? Here is what iOS 26 changes, who it affects, and why it matters more for the ad platforms than it might for you.

THE GOOD NEWS FIRST
If you use Wicked Reports, iOS 26 does not break your attribution. Our tracking methodology is built on first-party, server-side data rather than the fragile URL identifiers Apple keeps targeting, so it remains intact. The ad platforms are a different story, and understanding why is the key to adapting well.

Topics: Wicked Reports Apple Privacy First-Party Data iOS 26 Tracking Parameters Marketing Attribution

5 min read

Meta Advantage+ vs Manual : 55,661 Campaigns Analyzed

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Jun 10, 2025, 11:10:12 AM

Meta Advantage+ vs Manual: What 55,661 Campaigns Reveal About nCAC

The promise of Meta's Andromeda AI brain sorting through a billion users to find your customers on auto-pilot sounds enticing. But is it actually good for brands? I have spent 10 years tracking Meta campaign performance against actual orders, and four things have stayed true the entire time:

Meta overstates its ability to drive immediate bottom-of-funnel sales.
Meta understates its ability to drive top-of-funnel cold traffic that leads to new customers.
Meta shows a lot more ROAS when you widen the attribution window.
Meta's Conversion API is heavily optimized for immediate sales on the default setup.

With Meta now pushing advertisers hard toward Advantage+, and switching it on behind the scenes if you do not read the fine print, it is time to settle this with actual data instead of opinion. So I had the Wicked DB team pull 55,661 Meta campaigns and compare January through May 2024 against the same window in 2025. Here is what the data shows.

Topics: Wicked Reports marketing attribution ROI Meta Advertising nCAC Digital Marketing Insights

8 min read

How to Calculate Your True New Customer Acquisition Cost (nCAC)

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on May 16, 2025, 7:33:23 PM

Calculate Your True New Customer Acquisition Cost (nCAC)

If you run paid acquisition for a brand or an agency, you already know the goal: bring in new customers profitably. The problem is that the number most people use to measure that, the cost per acquisition their ad platform reports, is quietly lying to them. It blends new customers and repeat buyers into one figure, which makes acquisition look cheaper and easier than it actually is. The metric that tells you the truth is your new customer acquisition cost, or nCAC. Here is what it is, how to calculate it, and how to use it to grow.

Topics: Wicked Reports New Customer Acquisition Cost (nCAC) Data New Customer Acquisition Cost (NCAC) lower nCAC

5 min read

Is New Customer Growth Killing Your Profit? LTV : nCAC

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Apr 25, 2025, 9:06:55 PM

Is New Customer Growth Killing Your Profit?

New customers feel like winning. The dashboard climbs, orders roll in, and it looks like growth. But here is the uncomfortable question most brands never ask: is all that new-customer growth actually making you money, or is it quietly costing you more than it brings in? Growth and profit are not the same thing, and confusing them is how brands scale their way into trouble. This is about the number that tells you which one you actually have.

Topics: Wicked Reports Attribution Health LTV:NCAC Ratio New Customer Acquisition Cost (NCAC) Google Analytics 4 vs. Attribution Tools

7 min read

Stop Wasting Your Marketing Budget: Master Attribution

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Apr 25, 2025, 8:54:04 PM

Stop Wasting Your Marketing Budget: How to Master Marketing Attribution

You have probably heard the old line: "Half my marketing is wasted, I just don't know which half." It was born in the age of newspaper and catalog ads, and you would think all our digital tools would have killed it off by now. Yes and no. The data is far richer, but most marketers still cannot say with confidence which of their efforts actually drive sales. Getting attribution right is still hard. The good news is that it comes down to four connected areas, and if you master all four, you stop guessing at which half is wasted and start knowing. Stumble on even one and the whole picture falls apart. The four are tracking, attribution, analysis, and action.

Topics: Wicked Reports attribution windows Attribution Health multi-touch attribution Marketing Attribution marketing ROI measurement

5 min read

Meta Conversion Attribution : Time of Click vs Time of Sale

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Mar 18, 2025, 9:48:10 PM

How to Optimize ROI With Meta Conversion Attribution

Ever felt confused when your Meta ad spend does not line up with the sales you are actually seeing? You are not alone. It is one of the most common sources of frustration in paid social, and a lot of it comes down to one thing most marketers never think about: when Meta counts a conversion. Understanding that, and specifically the difference between time of click and time of sale, is the key to reading your Meta performance accurately. Here is how it works and how to use it.

Topics: Wicked Reports Attribution Health multi-touch attribution time of click vs time of sale digital marketing attribution models

5 min read

Wicked Reports vs Elevar vs Blotout : How They Compare

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Mar 5, 2025, 6:09:11 PM

Wicked Reports vs Elevar vs Blotout: A High-Level Comparison

People weighing up attribution and tracking tools often ask whether they should use Wicked Reports, Blotout, or Elevar. It is a fair question, and the honest answer is that the three are not really the same kind of tool. Blotout and Elevar sit closer to each other as tracking-infrastructure options, while Wicked Reports does something different and can work alongside either one. Here is a high-level, practical comparison of what each does best.

A note before the details : tracking tools evolve quickly, and the descriptions below reflect how each competitor publicly positioned itself as of writing. For anything decision-critical, check each vendor's current documentation, since their features change. Our aim here is to explain the categories these tools fall into, not to freeze a moving target.

Topics: Wicked Reports Attribution Health multi-touch attribution First-Party Data Marketing Attribution

7 min read

Boost Your Sales with E-commerce Marketing Analytics

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Mar 5, 2025, 10:12:16 AM

BOOST YOUR SALES WITH ECOMMERCE MARKETING ANALYTICS: MEASURE THE RIGHT METRIC FOR EACH CAMPAIGN

Running an ecommerce business means juggling products, site, and campaigns, and eventually every decision comes down to the data. But most ecommerce marketing analytics lead you astray in two specific ways: they judge every campaign by the same metric, and they trust each platform's self-reported numbers. Fix both, and your analytics start telling you the truth. Here is how to choose the right metric for each campaign and measure it against real revenue.

Topics: Wicked Reports attribution windows Attribution Health multi-touch attribution Marketing Automation Data-Driven Decisions

6 min read

Boost ROI with Google Analytics Attribution & Key Event Insights

By Scott Desgrosseilliers on Feb 17, 2025, 6:47:49 PM

GA4 ATTRIBUTION AND KEY EVENTS IN 2026 : HOW TO USE THEM TO DECIDE WHERE TO SPEND

Every ad campaign eventually forces the same decision. Do you pour more budget into it, or kill it? Get that call right consistently and you scale profitably. Get it wrong and you either starve a winner or keep feeding a loser. Google Analytics 4 gives you attribution reports and Key Events that can help you make that call, if you know how to read them and where they stop being trustworthy. Here is how to use GA4 attribution and Key Events to guide spend decisions, and where you still need to look beyond GA4 to avoid an expensive mistake.

Topics: Wicked Reports attribution windows Attribution Health multi-touch attribution Marketing Attribution Meta Ads Manager

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