Horizons Pod
Horizons Pod
Podcast Description
Join Nate Desmond as he dives deep into modern marketing. Each week, you'll hear war stories and tactical breakdowns from the operators who've scaled products from zero to millions – from consumer apps saving tens of millions in acquisition costs to B2B companies charting their course to $100M+ in revenue.
This isn't theory – it's a weekly masterclass in growth strategy, featuring makers and marketers who've built the products you use daily. Each episode unpacks the hidden mechanics behind viral loops, marketplace dynamics, enterprise sales motions, and acquisition strategies that actually work.
Subscribe at: https://horizonspod.com/ horizonspod.substack.com
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast covers a variety of topics related to growth marketing, product-led growth, community building, and data-driven decision making. For example, episodes include discussions on the mechanics of viral loops, analysis of successful marketing strategies from companies like Uber and Lucid, and techniques for effective product management. Other themes include scaling revenue, customer acquisition strategies, and mastering marketplace dynamics.
Subscribe at: https://horizonspod.com/
Join Nate Desmond as he dives deep into modern marketing. Each week, you’ll hear war stories and tactical breakdowns from growth operators who’ve scaled products from zero to millions – from consumer apps saving tens of millions in acquisition costs to B2B companies charting their course to $100M+ in revenue.
This isn’t theory – it’s a weekly masterclass in growth strategy, featuring makers and marketers who’ve built the products you use daily. Each episode unpacks the hidden mechanics behind viral loops, marketplace dynamics, enterprise sales motions, and acquisition strategies that actually work.
Listen now on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.
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Jake Barnett is a marketing data expert and founder of Day1Data who previously led customer data foundations at Farfetch, helping optimize their $300M marketing budget through advanced analytics.
Here’s some of my takeaways from this week’s episode…
1/ 📊 Perfect is the enemy of profitable: No attribution model tells the complete truth, but some drive real business value. Focus on models that get used daily and match your business context (e.g., last-touch for pure DTC, multi-touch for omnichannel).
2/ 💰 Scale before sophistication: MMM isn’t for everyone. Three key criteria: spending >$50-100k, diverse media mix, and clean historical data. Start with simpler incrementality tests if you’re not there yet.
3/ 🎯 Competitors are conversion killers: Rival spending typically causes 10-20% revenue decline in emerging markets. Established brands with strong market share face less impact from competitor spending.
4/ 🏪 Physical retail = stealth marketing: Store presence creates significant halo effects for DTC brands. Many successful companies treat retail as an advertising channel rather than a pure revenue play.
5/ 📈 Brand + Performance = Winning combo: Performance marketing borrows demand from the future while brand builds it. Modern scale-ups increasingly blend both approaches rather than going pure-play performance.
6/ 🧪 Test design trumps analysis: The best incrementality tests start with strong pre-testing power analysis. Choose consistent test markets without noise and secure leadership buy-in before launching.
7/ 👥 Change management > tech implementation: 70% of marketing transformation is about managing people, not implementing solutions. Align attribution methodologies across teams and secure executive sponsorship.
8/ 📱 Daily tracking needs quarterly context: Use MMM for strategic planning (quarterly/annual) and traditional attribution for daily optimization. No single tool handles everything perfectly.—
Where to find Jake Barnett:
* Company: https://day1data.co.uk/
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-barnett-37980abb/
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In this episode, we cover:
00:00 Introduction and Marketing Attribution Philosophy 02:30 What Makes Attribution Models Useful 04:00 Explaining Media Mix Modeling (MMM) 06:30 Experience at Farfetch with MMM 09:36 How Marketers Should Evaluate MMM Reports 13:46 Handling Data Quality Issues 20:20 Brand vs Performance Marketing Balance 25:38 Data Quality and Common Issues 29:06 B2B Marketing Measurement Challenges 34:21 Different Approaches to MMM Implementation 41:42 Impact of Competitor Spend 47:13 Brand Building vs Performance Marketing 51:45 Human Side of Marketing Transformation 57:13 Storytelling and Visualization in Marketing Analytics 1:00:00 Incrementality Testing Best Practices
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Obligatory disclaimer: I’ve worked at YouTube and Google for about a decade in various marketing teams. Nothing I say in my personal spaces is necessarily endorsed by them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit horizonspod.substack.com
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