The Competitive Intelligence Report from Social Commerce News gives brands a practical framework for understanding what their marketing actually caused and where the next dollar should go.

In this episode of Verified: The Social Commerce Podcast, David Vanderveen and Peter Griscom break down the difference between attribution and incrementality and explain why platform-reported ROAS can create an incomplete picture of performance.

They walk through how demand moves across TikTok, Instagram, Amazon, DTC and other channels and how operators can account for halo effects and cannibalization along the way. The conversation also covers geo tests, holdouts, a 90-day measurement roadmap, AI agents for continuous testing and the data foundation brands need before pursuing CAC financing.

The report is designed as a working operator resource: build the baseline, run the tests, calibrate the results and use the findings to make better allocation decisions.

Chapters

0:00 The Competitive Intelligence Report from Social Commerce News

1:48 Attribution vs. incrementality

4:05 Where did the sale actually come from?

6:36 Why platform dashboards can mislead operators

7:54 How Meta and TikTok take credit for conversions

9:50 Measuring demand across multiple channels

11:16 Choosing where to spend the next dollar

14:46 The false confidence of closed-loop social commerce

15:36 Measuring halo effects and cannibalization

16:20 Demand creation vs. demand capture

18:08 How to design an incrementality test

21:07 Why one test is only one data point

22:09 The 90-day measurement roadmap

24:08 Common incrementality testing mistakes

27:51 How much should brands spend on testing?

28:51 Short-term ROAS vs. long-term brand building

31:01 Finding repeatable signals in the noise

33:55 Using AI agents for continuous testing

36:55 Why measurement matters for CAC financing

41:09 Growth requires constant experimentation

43:48 Why your business can never be treated as static

46:26 Awareness, engagement and conversion across channels

48:49 How to use the Competitive Intelligence Report from Social Commerce News

Download the Competitive Intelligence Report from Social Commerce News and find every episode at SocialCommerceNews.com/verified