Stop Grading Your Own Homework: The Case for Independent Attribution in Media
Why We Don’t Believe in a Single Source of Truth: Smarter Attribution for Smarter Media Investments
In journalism, one of the first rules is simple: get multiple sources. One quote isn’t a full story. One version of the truth isn’t enough. That same principle applies to media strategy, especially when the stakes are high and the spend is real.
At Campfire, we think of media the same way a good advisor thinks about your financial portfolio. It’s not about chasing short-term wins or trusting a single performance chart. It’s about building a well-balanced plan, managing risk, and understanding where—and how—each part of your investment is working.
Attribution is how we do that. But we don’t believe in relying on one platform, one model, or one internal dashboard to guide those decisions. Because in our experience, the moment you stop questioning is the moment you start wasting money.
Media Isn’t a Bet. It’s an Investment.
If your financial advisor told you they only trust one source of reporting and it just happens to be from the platform they invest most of your money in—you’d be right to ask questions.
The same applies to media.
Every dollar spent is a decision. And if you want to drive growth, not just activity, you need to understand which parts of your plan are actually creating value. That requires looking at more than what a platform says. It means digging into independent data, examining your CRM, running lift tests, and paying attention to patterns across channels.
Because real attribution is about evidence not anecdotes.
We Believe in Cross-Examination, Not Self-Reporting
We’re clear about this with clients: our job is to design and manage a smart cross-channel strategy. But when it comes time to go deeper into attribution, we bring in specialized partners.
We’ve built a bench of attribution experts who focus solely on helping brands validate their media investments. This is a different skillset than planning, buying, and audience research, and intentionally, in most cases, it sits outside of the media agency relationship.
Why? Because even with the best intentions, there’s a risk in letting the same team that bought the media also interpret its success. That’s when confirmation bias creeps in. That’s when channel-level nuance gets lost. And that’s when brands start optimizing around what looks good in a dashboard and not what’s actually driving business outcomes.
When you go deeper, there are always pockets of inefficiency. Channels that underperform. Tactics that look good on paper but don’t deliver where it counts. You don’t find those by grading your own homework. You find them by opening the books and letting independent analysts follow the trail.
Attribution Isn’t About Credit. It’s About Clarity.
We don’t chase platform-reported ROI. We build confidence by triangulating performance across:
Platform data (yes, we still use it—but we contextualize it)
CRM matchback and zero/first-party insights
Geo-lift studies, incrementality testing, and holdout campaigns
Multi-touch attribution models (where reliable)
Independent analyst reviews and third-party validation tools
Our role is to make sure the media plan is aligned with business goals and flexible enough to shift when the data says so. But the final say on ROI? That should come from someone with distance from the media budget itself.
Strategy Without Accountability Isn’t Strategy
We care deeply about making media work harder. That means holding every channel accountable—not just for how it looks in a report, but for what it returns to the business.
Because this isn’t just about impressions, clicks, or brand lift. It’s about value. It’s about growth. And it’s about treating media the way it deserves to be treated: as a long-term investment that, like any smart investment, needs ongoing evaluation, rebalancing, and a clear-eyed look at performance.
We don’t take shortcuts. We ask better questions. And we’re not afraid of the answers.
That’s how smarter attribution leads to smarter strategy. And that’s how we help our clients spend with confidence, not just convenience.
