Every day, marketers face the same basic question: How much should I spend to get a specific offer in front of a specific consumer (or specific type of consumer), and what is my expected return on that investment? How should I allocate that spend by type of offer & distribution channel, and how does expected efficiency and ROI differ by type/channel?

For example, if you type “warm winter socks” into Google, you will be greeted with a plethora of ads for that product type. When this description was written, one ad was from HeatHolders. How much did HeatHolders pay to show me that ad? How much did they pay when I clicked on it? What is their expectation of the percent of people who see the ad that will click on it, and the percentage of those that click who will actually buy? How much did they spend to create the ad/offer? How much did they spend to target it, and how much to deliver it? How many data sources did they utilize, and how robust was their targeting?

That is a single example based on a search query, but illustrates our vision of how to build out a model of unit-economics in the marketing space. The results will look quite different for app-based digital ad delivery, TV, radio, print, direct mail, couponing, etc. This research will require both bottoms-up and top-down analysis.