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Agency CEO launches public apology campaign for inflated ROAS metrics

Performance marketing agency Silverback Strategies launches Last Click Addiction campaign as CEO Neil Welsh apologizes for industry's reliance on broken attribution models.

Luis Rijo

• 12 min read
Agency CEO launches public apology campaign for inflated ROAS metrics

Silverback Strategies CEO Neil Welsh launched a public apology campaign on November 5, 2025, admitting that performance marketing agencies have "f***ed up" by enabling platforms like Google and Meta to take credit for revenue they never actually drove.

The Reston, Virginia-based agency unveiled its "Last Click Addiction" campaign with a confession-style video where Welsh states: "I, um… I fed up. The performance marketing industry as a whole, fed up." The campaign represents what the agency describes as the first time an agency CEO has publicly apologized for feeding attribution problems that have plagued digital marketing for more than two decades.

According to the press release distributed on November 6, 2025, the campaign addresses what Welsh calls the "misalignment tax" – wasted time, spend, and trust that accumulates when CEOs demand growth, CFOs require proof, and CMOs struggle to demonstrate marketing value. Platform-reported metrics frequently show impressive numbers while actual revenue tells a different story.

Breaking down last-click attribution

Last-click attribution assigns 100% of conversion credit to the final touchpoint before a purchase, regardless of how many other marketing channels influenced the customer journey. A customer might discover a brand through a podcast advertisement, see billboard placements, receive direct mail, attend an event, and search on Google before purchasing – but the paid search ad that appeared during that final Google query receives complete credit for the sale.

This measurement approach has persisted throughout digital advertising's growth. Platforms have built entire business models around last-click attribution, with Google's "paid channels last click" model specifically crediting 100% of conversions to the last Google Ads interaction.

The technical implementation creates systematic biases. According to Silverback's campaign materials, "platforms hooked us. Agencies enabled them." Marketing professionals optimized campaigns based on metrics that looked effective in dashboards while actual business performance remained flat.

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Industry measurement problems

Digital advertising experts have warned that inflated ROAS metrics mislead marketers about campaign performance. Platform-reported return on ad spend frequently overstates advertising impact through attribution methodology flaws, view-through crediting issues, and audience targeting strategies that focus on users already familiar with brands.

Alexandra Fusco, Director of Marketing at ThoughtMetric, explained in July 2025: "Inflated ROAS is one of the biggest traps in performance marketing. We've seen how much clarity improves when you move beyond platform-reported numbers and start looking at clean data that actually reflects customer behavior."

The attribution gap creates substantial measurement distortions. Research from Kochava published in September 2025 found that marketing mix modeling revealed 35% higher incremental impact for TikTok campaigns compared to last-touch attribution. This measurement difference demonstrates how attribution methodology selection directly impacts perceived channel effectiveness and subsequent investment decisions.

View-through attribution compounds these problems. This measurement approach credits conversions to advertisements that users viewed but never clicked, often overestimating actual campaign impact. Meta announced significant restrictions to view-through attribution windows in October 2025, eliminating 7-day and 28-day view-through windows while maintaining only 1-day view windows alongside click-based attribution.

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The campaign's intervention approach

The Last Click Addiction campaign launches with multiple components. A confession video series features Welsh apologizing for industry measurement failures. An interactive "ROI Reality Check" tool helps marketers identify budget waste. Educational resources guide companies toward what Silverback terms "modern measurement" approaches.

The campaign website, accessible at lastclickaddiction.com, frames marketing measurement problems using addiction recovery language. Testimonials describe executives who cut billboard advertising, eliminated television campaigns, and reduced brand-building activities after paid search received inflated conversion credit. When those supporting channels disappeared, lead generation dried up entirely.

"Someone Googled us after seeing a billboard, a direct mailer, two TV spots, and a lunch-and-learn with Gloria Estefan," one testimonial reads. "Our paid search ad got the credit. So I cut the billboard. Killed the TV. Never called Gloria back. Then the leads dried up."

Silverback tested this messaging with webinars attended by more than 150 mid-market CEOs and executive leadership teams. According to the press release, nearly all participants reported that finance leaders frequently challenge marketing reports, but almost no one questions the attribution models themselves.

Welsh positions the campaign as an industry-wide intervention. "Google and Meta trained the industry to grade their own homework, and for years, we all went along with it because the last-click attribution numbers looked good – but now even Meta and Google are admitting that marketing measurement needs to shift away from last-click," Welsh stated in the announcement.

Toward modern measurement approaches

Silverback advocates for what the agency describes as modern measurement protocols, specifically highlighting incrementality testing and marketing mix modeling. These methodologies previously remained accessible primarily to Fortune 500 companies due to cost and complexity barriers.

Incrementality testing measures advertising's true causal impact by comparing performance between exposed and unexposed user groups. This experimental approach isolates advertising effects from organic conversions that would occur without marketing intervention. Google reduced incrementality testing budget requirements to $5,000 minimum in May 2025, utilizing Bayesian methodology to deliver insights with substantially less data than traditional approaches required.

Marketing mix modeling analyzes historical data patterns to identify relationships between marketing activities and business outcomes while considering external factors including market conditions and seasonal variations. The methodology provides capabilities to track complex interactions across multiple channels that last-click attribution misses entirely.

Industry research published in October 2025 found that 46.9% of marketers plan to increase investment in marketing mix modeling over the next 12 months, representing the highest investment priority among measurement methodologies. Another 52.0% indicated they use incrementality testing and experiments, reflecting industry-wide adoption of multiple measurement approaches.

Platform-provided attribution remains the most common methodology at 65.8%, but marketers increasingly supplement it with advanced approaches. This shift reflects growing recognition that single-method measurement creates blind spots in understanding actual advertising performance.

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Platform attribution model changes

Major advertising platforms have themselves acknowledged last-click attribution limitations through recent product changes. Google introduced platform-comparable conversion columns for Demand Gen campaigns in March 2025, featuring 100% last-touch attribution specifically to enable performance comparisons against paid social platforms like Meta and TikTok.

The implementation marked a significant policy reversal. Google had deprecated most attribution models in 2024, pushing advertisers toward its Data-Driven Attribution model while claiming alternative approaches lacked accuracy. Digital marketing consultant Rémi Kerhoas noted that Google required last-touch models for top-of-funnel campaigns to demonstrate competitive performance against social platforms.

Google's Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager 360 received attribution enhancements on November 6, 2025, the day after Silverback launched its campaign. The updates focused on improving conversion attribution accuracy through expanded click identifier support and enhanced measurement capabilities.

These platform modifications suggest recognition that attribution methodology directly affects perceived advertising effectiveness. When Google needs to compete with social platforms for awareness campaign budgets, last-touch attribution returns to product offerings. When optimizing performance campaigns within Google's ecosystem, data-driven attribution receives priority.

The C-suite measurement gap

Silverback's campaign emphasizes measurement disputes between marketing leaders and finance executives. The press release describes "measurement theater that flatters platforms, props up agencies, and misleads clients" as creating what the agency terms the "misalignment tax."

CEOs demand revenue growth. CFOs require proof that marketing spend drives business outcomes. CMOs present platform-generated dashboards showing impressive metrics. Yet when revenue remains flat or declines, those dashboards become evidence of marketing's failure rather than attribution methodology problems.

Welsh stated that the campaign aims to "start an honest conversation" rather than create C-suite conflicts. "Everyone wins when measurement is honest: the CEO is happy when the CMO's marketing spend matches the CFO's revenue trends, and when customers get ads that aren't just noise, they're more likely to convert."

This misalignment creates significant business consequences beyond wasted advertising spend. Research from TransUnion and EMARKETER published in October 2025 found that internal stakeholders question marketing metrics in 60.2% of organizations. For 28.6% of marketers, this skepticism puts 11-20% of budgets at risk.

Measurement confidence has stalled despite data abundance. The survey of 196 marketing professionals showed 54.1% reported no change in their measurement confidence compared to the previous year, while 14.3% said confidence actually declined. Only 61.7% maintain confidence in their performance metrics.

Agency accountability questions

Silverback's decision to publicly apologize raises questions about agency incentives in perpetuating attribution problems. Performance marketing agencies typically optimize campaigns to improve platform-reported metrics, which directly affects client retention and contract renewals. Welsh acknowledges this dynamic in the campaign messaging.

"We're not trying to start a fight in the C-suite with the Last Click Addiction campaign, but we are trying to start an honest conversation – agencies should be doing work they're proud of and brands should see results they believe in," Welsh stated in the press release.

The campaign represents unusual positioning within the agency industry. Most performance marketing firms emphasize their ability to drive platform-reported results rather than questioning the measurement frameworks underlying those results. Silverback's approach suggests that attribution methodology problems have become severe enough to warrant public accountability rather than continued quiet optimization.

Welsh founded Silverback Strategies in 2007 after experiencing attribution frustrations while working as a marketing director. According to biographical materials, he built the agency specifically to address disconnects between agencies that discussed clicks and impressions while clients focused on revenue. The company has received recognition as an Ad Age Best Place to Work, Inc. Best Workplace, and Washington Post Top Workplace.

Before entering marketing, Welsh sold used cars – an experience he describes as "a crash course in human behavior, persuasion, and grit." The campaign's confrontational messaging style and direct language reflect this background in fields requiring straightforward problem acknowledgment.

Measurement infrastructure requirements

Implementing incrementality testing and marketing mix modeling requires substantial technical capabilities beyond platform dashboard access. Organizations need comprehensive data collection across all marketing channels, statistical analysis expertise, and infrastructure to process historical performance patterns.

Newton Research launched integration with Snowflake Cortex AI on November 4, 2025, enabling brands to run media mix modeling and incrementality analysis directly within secure data environments. This accessibility improvement addresses traditional barriers including cost, specialized expertise requirements, and implementation time.

The IAB released measurement frameworks for commerce media campaigns on November 6, 2025, establishing requirements that incrementality models must satisfy to claim causal validity. The guidelines emphasize that incrementality represents an ongoing process rather than one-time testing, as changes in competition, consumer behavior, and marketing tactics shift outcomes over time.

Prescient AI announced what it termed the first fundamentally new marketing mix model since the 1960s in July 2025. The Miami-based company emphasized independence from media selling operations to address growing concerns about measurement objectivity as major advertising platforms develop their own MMM solutions.

Platform developments have reduced some technical barriers. Google's Meridian marketing mix model became available as open-source software in January 2025, employing Bayesian causal inference methodology that combines prior knowledge with real-world data. The platform provides access to core MMM data including impressions, clicks, and cost for Google media.

Industry response implications

The Last Click Addiction campaign launches during heightened focus on advertising measurement accuracy. Privacy regulations, cookie deprecation, and platform policy changes have forced marketing professionals to reconsider attribution approaches that relied on individual user tracking.

Over a quarter of marketers (26.5%) express dissatisfaction with their current measurement technology stack, according to the TransUnion research. This dissatisfaction prompts shifts toward long-term, holistic measurement strategies combining multiple methodologies rather than relying exclusively on platform-provided attribution.

Nearly half (46.9%) of marketers plan to increase investment in marketing mix modeling over the next 12 months, with another 34.7% planning increased multitouch attribution investment. These represent the two most reliable methodologies according to industry assessments, reflecting recognition that single-attribution approaches create systematic biases.

Brian Silver, Executive Vice President at TransUnion, noted: "Marketers have access to more data than ever before, yet effective and trustworthy measurement is getting harder—not easier—to come by. The days of monolithic measurement are over. The most effective measurement strategies are going to feature AI-enabled data collection and data management, which will serve as a foundation for bringing together core methodologies, like MMM, MTA, and incrementality testing."

The campaign's success depends on whether marketing professionals acknowledge attribution methodology problems rather than continuing to optimize for platform-reported metrics that overstate campaign performance. Silverback positions itself as offering measurement approaches that provide what the agency terms "honest" attribution, though implementing these approaches requires substantial investment beyond typical agency relationships.

Welsh serves as Programming Leader for the YPO Digital Campus and will soon serve as Assistant Learning Officer of the YPO Marketing Network, positions that provide platforms for promoting measurement methodology changes to executive audiences. The campaign rolls out through paid and owned media channels including thought leadership, industry events, and client education programs.

Timeline

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Summary

Who: Neil Welsh, CEO and founder of Silverback Strategies, a Reston, Virginia-based performance marketing agency that works with mid-market clients. Welsh founded the company in 2007 after experiencing attribution frustrations as a marketing director.

What: Silverback launched its "Last Click Addiction" campaign featuring a public apology from Welsh for enabling platforms like Google and Meta to take inflated credit for conversions. The campaign includes confession videos, an interactive ROI Reality Check tool, educational resources, and advocacy for incrementality testing and marketing mix modeling as alternatives to last-click attribution.

When: The campaign launched on November 5, 2025, with the press release distributed on November 6, 2025. Silverback tested campaign messaging through webinars with more than 150 mid-market CEOs and executive leadership teams before the public launch.

Where: The campaign originates from Silverback's Reston, Virginia headquarters but targets the broader digital marketing industry. Campaign materials are available at lastclickaddiction.com. The initiative focuses on mid-market companies that typically lack access to sophisticated measurement approaches used by Fortune 500 enterprises.

Why: Last-click attribution has enabled platforms to take credit for revenue they did not drive for more than 20 years, creating what Silverback terms the "misalignment tax" – wasted spend, time, and trust between CEOs, CFOs, and CMOs. Platform-reported metrics frequently show impressive numbers while actual revenue tells a different story. Welsh stated that agencies should perform work they are proud of and brands should see results they believe in, requiring honest measurement approaches rather than continued reliance on attribution models that overstate advertising impact.