Steve Rekuc

Steve Jobs said it well: "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done."

Every yes is a no to something else. Most founders say yes too often. Even if you're young and early in your journey. Judgement is a muscle you want to develop early.

@JeremiahPrummer Yeah, we were doing well this year, but really saw things jump up about a month ago. I hope this metric stays higher. Consumers also looking to spend more than the last 2 years

This new rolling 28 day chart from @RSteveData is 🔥 Really interesting trend here and good to see we're meaningfully above 2025 numbers so far this year.

From this week's DTCCI.co data, we saw a dip in Future Purchase Sentiment. Perhaps higher gas prices have consumers pulling back a little. More in the @dtcindex Thanks to @JeremiahPrummer @TaylorHoliday @CommnThreadCo @KnoCommerce

@TaylorHoliday I think there maybe brands where Incremental Attribution works better for than others. There was a notable attribute for brands that had a lower CPA with IA.

NOW the important trade off to be transparent about... These campaigns currently have a 133% HIGHER CPA than standard campaigns. This is why I tend to criticize the focus on CPMr as a value add metric to focus on. The idea that colder customers become more expensive to acquire is obvious and often where people get stuck. We should always be in pursuit of acquiring the next most profitable incremental purchase regardless of whether they have been reached before or not. That said, I think there is a good chance that the incrementality factor on these campaigns would be higher than standard on our next test is to dive into that hypothesis. Would love to get more incrementality tests setup reach out if you are interested.

A compelling case for more Incremental Attribution in your ad accounts. Maybe. I know many people are concerned with driving access to more NEW CUSTOMERS on meta. In a test across 13 accounts we found that IA campaigns delivered a 68% average reduction in CPMr (cost per 1,000 unique accounts reached) vs. standard This is helpful for brands that are concerned with rolling reach and or potentially brands with longer consideration periods. IA reach is efficient, several accounts delivered 3–6x the reach per dollar vs. standard spend. Now that IA supports cost controls, the risk of testing is lower than it's ever been. If you have an account with higher frequency or wanting to expand rolling reach this is a good test to launch. But there is a catch....

@oliviaakory @AaronOrendorff @mikebeckhamsm @Seanfrank @JasonPanzer @mbertulli @codyplof @couuor *meta acq (thanks autocorrect)

@oliviaakory @AaronOrendorff @mikebeckhamsm @Seanfrank @JasonPanzer @mbertulli @codyplof @couuor I was showing Incrementality Factor histogram for the main channels: meat acq, Google NB, YouTube, and AppLovin. Then this sheet to tie it all together: using expected value to determine which channels to test first.

What ad channel should I test first in Incrementality Testing? We will be sharing a spreadsheet to help you figure that out. Sign up for the Operators Ads Masterclass on March 18th: 9ops.co/xt41am

@AaronOrendorff @oliviaakory @mikebeckhamsm @Seanfrank @JasonPanzer @mbertulli @codyplof @couuor 😂 I didn't mean to preempt giving her a hard time. I'm happy to coordinate content.

@RSteveData @oliviaakory @mikebeckhamsm @Seanfrank @JasonPanzer @mbertulli @codyplof @couuor I ran out of time today to give Olivia a hard time about how prepared you are 😂 I’ll Slack her your stuff tonight or tomorrow morning!

@oliviaakory @mikebeckhamsm @Seanfrank @JasonPanzer @mbertulli @codyplof @couuor Yes.

@RSteveData @mikebeckhamsm @Seanfrank @JasonPanzer @mbertulli @codyplof @couuor should we coordinate? haha

@JeremiahPrummer @dtcindex @TaylorHoliday @KnoCommerce @CommnThreadCo Yeah @JeremiahPrummer I think there people react differently than what we think to news / international conflict than we might think. Same 2 weeks saw a drop in Economic Sentiment.

@RSteveData @dtcindex @TaylorHoliday @KnoCommerce @CommnThreadCo I mean that's good news! We could use some more good news...

From this week's DTCCI.co data, Future Purchase Sentiment continues to look strong for the last 2 weeks; some other metrics did dip - those are covered in the @dtcindex newsletter. Thanks to @TaylorHoliday @JeremiahPrummer @KnoCommerce @CommnThreadCo

I'm honored to be included in this event. I'll have some data for you all

Finished calculating the DTCCI.co for this month and it looks about +5% up from March 2025. More about this in the @dtcindex and some more details in LinkedIn: linkedin.com/posts/steve-re… Thanks to @TaylorHoliday @JeremiahPrummer @KnoCommerce @CommnThreadCo

@Tina_Donati @dtcindex @JeremiahPrummer @TaylorHoliday At least the consumer last week were thinking about spending more aggressively in the future than they had in the previous 2 years around this time. We'll see if that persists through the next few weeks.

@RSteveData @dtcindex @JeremiahPrummer @TaylorHoliday Whoa! What do you think this means?

I normally don't care about weekly values of the Future Purchase Sentiment, but this most recent read jumped up above the previous 2 years. We are seeing similar positive signs among other metrics as well. More in the @dtcindex Thanks to @JeremiahPrummer @TaylorHoliday @KnoCommerce @CommnThreadCo

@oliviaakory haha He had George to pick on and a point to make about IMR.

@RSteveData i told Taylor he was way too easy on me

"This is the idea of progressive truth. We’re trying to be more right over time while accepting that we’ll never be definitely right." If you are trying to operationalize incrementality in your organization, I think this is one of the best conversations you will find. I had a lot of fun recording IRL with @TaylorHoliday and @Davisg207 , and want to shoutout Dr Tarek Benchouia, @anmarabduljawad and Colby McDermott for running one of the best and most sophisticated testing programs I've ever seen over the past year. Link to the full episode in comments wherever you get your podcasts.

@oliviaakory Great episode and less contentious than I expected.

FULL EPISODE: YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=UcWj2b… Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eco… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1gMYS2…

This metric in the DTCCI.co continues to be a positive signal (among others) from our survey with @KnoCommerce Thanks to @JeremiahPrummer @TaylorHoliday @CommnThreadCo More charts in the @dtcindex