PAPERBOAT / THE DECISION DESK
Marketing Decision Tools
A report should lead somewhere.
Use these free workbenches to define the evidence a marketing decision needs and examine whether a proposed experiment can collect enough of it.
BRING THIS TO THE MEETING
The decision.
What could change after the evidence arrives?
The counting rule.
What exactly goes in the number?
The unresolved part.
What would make the answer misleading?
By Robert Urban
Start before the dashboard becomes the argument.
A team can agree that marketing needs to improve while disagreeing about almost everything that would count as improvement. One person wants more inquiries. Another wants better-fit accounts. A third wants proof that the new offer caused the change. Those are different questions, and they need different evidence.
I built this collection for the moment when a broad request needs to become a usable assignment. The tools work locally in the page, with no email gate. Their outputs are documents for discussion: a measurement brief, an experiment sample plan, an interview discussion guide or a proposal-scope comparison. Bring your definitions and assumptions, then keep the output with the decision it is meant to support.
Which question is unresolved?
“What are we actually counting?”
Choose the Campaign Measurement Plan Builder. It asks for a decision, primary measure, counting rule, evidence source, owner and review window. Missing answers remain visible instead of becoming an impressive-looking blank spot in a dashboard.
The output: a downloadable brief that a marketer, analyst and commercial lead can read against the same definition.
“Could our test detect the change that matters?”
Choose the Marketing Experiment Sample Planner. For a two-group conversion-rate design with equal allocation, it estimates observations per group from a baseline, comparison rate, significance level and planned power.
The output: a downloadable sample plan showing the difference you entered, the required observations and the design assumptions. The optional traffic calculation estimates sample accumulation, not a guaranteed test duration.
“What happened from the customer’s side?”
Choose the Customer Interview Guide Builder. It prepares neutral starter questions and follow-ups around a decision stage and an evidence gap. Use it when you need to understand a recent experience before deciding what to change.
The output: an editable discussion guide you can revise and download, with space for the participant’s account to challenge your assumptions.
“Do these proposals promise the same work?”
Choose the Agency Proposal Scope Comparator. Read two or three proposals across deliverables, revisions, costs, access, reporting, responsibilities, exclusions and handoff. Keep the proposer’s wording beside the questions it leaves open.
The output: a scope comparison and clarification list. It preserves different billing bases and obligations without inventing a winner score.
A better offer, or a faster follow-up?
Imagine a fictional commercial-service business considering a new inquiry form. The team says it wants “better leads.” Before comparing versions, it needs to decide what a qualified inquiry means, when qualification happens and which records belong in the denominator.
The measurement brief can expose a problem that a form redesign would never solve: one group of inquiries has been reviewed promptly while another is still waiting. Counting unreviewed inquiries as failures would mix customer behavior with an internal delay.
Once the outcome and review window are defined, the sample planner can help the team examine a proposed conversion-rate experiment. It still needs a suitable assignment unit, randomization and an analysis plan. If those conditions do not fit the situation, the useful next step may be improving the records or conducting a different investigation.
The tools have done their job when the team can name that next step and explain why.
What belongs beside the exported plan
An assumption with an owner. If the baseline comes from last quarter, record why it is relevant to the audience and offer being tested now. An old number can be useful context without becoming a promise.
A decision with a boundary. “Increase the budget” leaves too much open. A bounded change states how much, where, for how long and what would trigger another review. Write that in your own project record.
A distinction between more activity and better outcomes. A form can attract more submissions while creating more work for sales. Decide which observation answers the commercial question, then preserve the other observations as context rather than quietly exchanging one for another.
If the question spans measurement design, data quality, reporting and interpretation, my marketing analytics and reporting advisory page explains how I help. The broader services page connects that work with strategy, visibility and execution.
A few useful boundaries
Do these tools connect to my analytics or CRM?
No. You enter definitions or planning assumptions yourself. These tools do not inspect your accounts, install tracking or import customer records.
Which should I use first?
If you need to understand a customer experience, prepare an interview guide. If you need to measure an outcome, define the counting rule before estimating an experiment sample.
Does completing a plan approve the campaign?
No. A completed plan records what you entered. The responsible team still needs to review the evidence, design, operational constraints and decision before acting.
Have the report, but not the answer?
Tell me what decision is waiting, which evidence you trust and where the disagreement starts. That is a more useful opening than choosing a new chart.