Marketing Analytics and Attribution

Aim: Grow the Business → Objective: Reach $10M ARR by FY27 →
Initiative: Build a marketing analytics and attribution system that
tells you which dollar produces the next dollar of revenue

Fits well at: sub-$5M businesses where every marketing dollar matters
and there's no analyst to assemble the picture. Also valuable at $5M–$25M
where the channels have multiplied but the measurement hasn't kept up.

What this is

The discipline of measuring what marketing actually produces — funnel
definition, source attribution, CAC by channel, LTV by cohort, payback
period. Without it, growth investment is faith-based: you spend, you hope,
you check revenue a quarter later and guess which spend mattered.

This initiative answers one question: "Which marketing dollar produces the
next dollar of revenue?" It connects marketing activity to pipeline to
closed revenue to lifetime value, channel by channel, so you can double
down on what's working and cut what isn't — with data, not intuition.

What "done" looks like

• A defined marketing funnel with named stages (impression → visit →
  lead → MQL → opportunity → customer) and clear stage-entry criteria

• Source attribution on every lead — how they found you, first touch and
  last touch, with multi-touch weighting where the data supports it

• CAC computed by channel, refreshed continuously from accounting and
  pipeline data

• LTV by acquisition cohort, updated monthly as retention data matures

• Payback period by channel — how many months until a channel's
  customers repay their acquisition cost

• A channel-level P&L: spend, leads, conversions, revenue, margin — per
  channel, per month

• A weekly marketing performance dashboard the founder actually checks

• A standing Monday brief summarizing the prior week's channel
  performance, prepared by the marketing agent

The work, decomposed

• Sub-objective: Define the funnel → name the stages, set entry
  criteria, instrument the transitions

• Sub-objective: Instrument attribution → capture source on every
  lead, define first-touch and last-touch rules, store the data

• Sub-objective: Connect spend to revenue → pull marketing costs from
  accounting, tie them to channels, compute CAC

• Sub-objective: Build cohort analysis → group customers by
  acquisition month and channel, track retention and LTV over time

• Sub-objective: Compute payback → CAC ÷ monthly gross margin per
  cohort, by channel

• Sub-objective: Stand up the dashboard and brief → live views for
  daily use, weekly summary for the Monday brief

How it runs in HAPPEE

Agents involved

• Marketing agent. Owns the analytics system end-to-end. Defines
  funnel stages, maintains attribution rules, compiles the weekly
  performance brief, and surfaces anomalies ("paid search CAC jumped 40%
  this week — here's why"). Posts the Monday brief in #marketing.

• Finance agent (Alex). Pulls marketing spend from accounting by
  channel, computes blended and channel-level CAC, builds the cohort LTV
  model, and flags channels where payback exceeds the threshold.

• Sales agent. Ensures source attribution is captured on every lead
  entering the pipeline. Tags opportunities with the originating channel
  so closed-revenue attribution flows back to marketing.

Where the work lives

• Accounting — marketing spend by channel, categorized in the chart
  of accounts so cost-per-channel is always current

• Directory — leads and customers with source attribution fields
  (first touch, last touch, channel)

• Tracker — pipeline with channel attribution on every opportunity,
  enabling closed-revenue-by-channel reporting

• Financial Models — cohort LTV model, channel-level P&L, payback
  calculator with scenario branching (what if we 2× paid search spend?)

• Analytics time-series — impressions, visits, leads, MQLs,
  opportunities, customers — by channel, by week; CAC, LTV, payback —
  by channel, by cohort

• Dashboards (Live Views) — marketing performance dashboard with
  channel breakdown, funnel conversion rates, CAC trend, LTV by cohort

• Knowledge Base — funnel definitions, attribution rules, channel
  playbooks, experiment logs, weekly brief archive

• Channels — #marketing for the Monday brief, experiment results,
  anomaly alerts

Rhythms

• Daily — marketing agent monitors channel metrics and surfaces
  anomalies worth same-day attention

• Weekly — Monday brief: prior week's channel performance, funnel
  conversion rates, CAC movement, any experiments concluded

• Monthly — cohort LTV refresh, payback recalculation, channel-mix
  review with reallocation recommendations

Data flows

• Marketing spend (accounting) + leads by channel (directory) → CAC by
  channel

• Leads → pipeline stages → closed revenue → revenue attributed by
  channel

• Customers by acquisition cohort → retention curve → LTV by cohort →
  payback by channel

• Channel metrics → analytics time-series → dashboard → Monday brief

• Experiment outcomes → channel playbook updates → spend reallocation
  decisions

Before HAPPEE vs. with HAPPEE

Day in the life

Monday, 7:15am. The founder opens #marketing and finds the Monday brief
already posted. Last week: paid search generated 34 leads at $127 CAC
(up from $98 — the marketing agent flags a competitor bidding on the
brand terms). Organic content produced 22 leads at $14 CAC, with 3
converting to opportunities. The referral channel delivered only 4 leads
but two are already in late-stage pipeline. Below the summary, a
channel-level P&L shows that organic content's 90-day payback is 2.1
months while paid search has crept to 4.8. The marketing agent recommends
shifting $2K/month from paid search to content production and proposes
an A/B test on the landing page to recover paid search conversion. Alex
has updated the cohort model — Q1 customers are retaining 12% better
than Q4, and LTV is trending toward $4,200. The founder approves the
budget shift, greenlights the A/B test, and asks the marketing agent to
make the Monday brief a standing item. Done. The loop is closed.

Related Initiatives

• Build an outbound sales motion
• Customer success and expansion program
• Pricing and packaging refresh

Features in play: Accounting · Directory · Tracker · Financial Models · Analytics & Dashboards · Knowledge Base · Channels · Agents · Notifications · Imports