Marketing communication: funding causal roles, not a list of channels.
Evidence status
What was reproduced, and what it does not prove.
The CSV and the Python run verify the total and the illustrative interaction without double counting. They demonstrate neither real incrementality nor causal synergy.
- Technical specification of the communication scorecard, specification in French (opens in a new tab)
v1, 31 August 2026 · CC BY 4.0 · specification in French · Method document written by marketing-mix.net. The figures are illustrative: they are not market measurements.
Key distinctions
Three conditions before calculating.
Role before channel
The same channel can create or capture demand depending on targeting, message and context. Naming the role avoids treating every video as "upper funnel" and every search as purely incremental.
Incremental audience
Gross reach often adds up the same people. The decision must consider deduplicated reach, frequency, out-of-target exposure and additional coverage after the other activities.
Chain of evidence
An early indicator verifies that the role is executed; an intermediate indicator tests the mechanism; an economic measure assesses the effect. Optimising the click alone shifts the budget towards capturing an intention that was already created.
Method
Designing communication as a portfolio of roles
- 01Define the behaviour targeted
State what must change — knowledge, encoding of a benefit, search, trial, choice, repeat purchase or recommendation; define the population and the comparator.
- 02Assign the roles
Give each activity one main role and at most one secondary role; document the dependencies, for example video → brand search → conversion.
- 03Value the useful coverage
Estimate incremental audience, effective frequency, cost per additional person and expected contribution; correct for duplication and for the share of demand that would have been captured without the activity.
- 04Test the system
Use creative tests, holdouts, geo experiments and calibrated models; decide both on the own effect and on the presence of a synergy with the capture activities.
The scorecard of the four communication roles
Four activities are compared on role, incremental audience, signal, expected contribution, dependency and budget decision.
Video
Search
CRM
Retail
Reallocating €600k without sacrificing demand creation
A plan comprises video €240k, search €180k, CRM €90k and retail media €90k. The attributed contributions are €180k, €540k, €260k and €240k, but the incremental estimates are €210k, €145k, €160k and €105k. An experiment shows that removing video reduces incremental search volume by 18%.
System contribution with video: €210k + €145k + €160k + €105k = €620k. Video-search interaction: 145 × 18% = €26.1k, already included in the €620k and isolated for the decision. Reducing video by €80k saves €80k but loses €70k of own effect and about €8.7k of interaction. Net gain: €1.3k. Reducing €60k of search on brand queries loses €22k of incremental effect and frees €38k net.
Attributed ROAS would have removed video. The scorecard keeps a video base and first removes the brand search with low incrementality. The plan reinvests €38k in creative testing, where the value of information is higher.
Acceptance conditions
What must be true to act.
- 01
Every activity has a main role and a compatible result.
- 02
Reach and conversions are corrected for duplication.
- 03
Capture activities are assessed against a credible counterfactual.
- 04
Synergies are isolated before reallocating a component of the system.
Limits
What this analysis does not prove.
- Audience deduplication between platforms often remains modelled.
- Deferred effects are sensitive to the window and to the control of distribution.
- A synergy observed at one level of pressure can disappear at another.
References
Works cited.
- Vakratsas, D. & Ambler, T. (1999), “How Advertising Works: What Do We Really Know?”, Journal of Marketing, 63(1), 26–43.
- Binet, L. & Field, P. (2013), The Long and the Short of It.
- Naik, P. A. & Raman, K. (2003), “Understanding the Impact of Synergy in Multimedia Communications”, Journal of Marketing Research, 40(4), 375–388.