Learn honest measurement

Plain-language guides to the ideas behind HonestTag: how first-party tracking works, why attribution models disagree, what your real acquisition numbers are, and how to act on them. Definitions up top, worked examples, and honest tradeoffs, with no vendor math. Every metric HonestTag shows has a guide here. New to the vocabulary? Start with the glossary.

The metrics

• What is MER?

  Marketing efficiency ratio: total net revenue over total ad spend. The slow company scoreboard, why it beats ROAS, and which MER to judge acquisition by.

• What is NMER?

  New-customer marketing efficiency ratio: new-customer revenue divided by ad spend. Why blended MER flatters your ads, with a worked example showing how far apart the two can drift.

• What is NCAC?

  New-customer acquisition cost: what you actually pay for each genuinely new customer. Why blended CAC understates it, and how to pair NCAC with margin and payback.

• What is AOV?

  Average order value, computed honestly: ex-tax, net of discounts and refunds. How blended AOV sets HonestTag's suggested NCAC ceiling.

Attribution

• What is first-party tracking?

  Why third-party measurement broke, what "first-party" actually means on a Shopify store, and where server-side tracking fits in. Plus the tradeoffs nobody puts in the sales deck.

• What is first-click attribution?

  Crediting the click that created the customer instead of the one that closed the sale. How it works, when it beats last-click, and what it deliberately ignores.

• Attribution models, compared honestly

  First-click, last-click, any-click, and the models we refuse to fake. Why HonestTag reports one stated model and shows the rest as a read-only comparison.

• New vs returning purchase signals

  Classified purchase events your bidder can optimize on, so prospecting budget stops re-converting customers you already own.

• Running HonestTag alongside your current tracker

  Keep the tool you have and compare. The one setting so nothing counts twice, what the first 30 days look like, and what to compare after.

Judgment, with evidence

• Verdicts: Scale, Hold, or Cut

  The weekly verdict on every channel and campaign, computed by published rules with the exact numbers shown, and "No verdict" when the evidence floor is not met.

• Campaign matching and unmatched spend

  How platform campaigns join to your orders through UTM tags, why unmatched rows exist, and why an honest campaign table always adds up to your channel topline.

• Click-to-order lag

  Your buyers take days from click to order. Measure the real distribution per channel and judge spend on the right day, not the platform's day.

Customer value

• Cohort payback and LTV by channel

  Does a customer ever repay what you paid? Cohort curves, payback months, and the channel cut with its 30-customer honesty floor.

• LTV projection from your own cohorts

  Projecting a young cohort from the median path of your older ones: clearly marked, floor-gated, and never blended into actuals.

• The glossary

  Every term HonestTag surfaces, defined in two to four plain sentences, with links to the full guides. Bookmark it for your next ad review.