Table 12 Sept 2026From “What is incrementality?”

Why do observational attribution dashboards report phantom returns?

Table 1Why do observational attribution dashboards report phantom returns?

Distortion mechanism	Underlying behavioral cause	Dashboard consequence	Strategic commercial impact
Intent Harvesting	Retargeting bids aggressively on users already in checkout	Reports astronomical ROAS (e.g., 1,500%)	Starves top-funnel acquisition of growth capital
Activity Bias	Users browse actively across the web during high buying intent	Ads served during purchase surges claim causal credit	Mistaking correlation for advertising persuasion
Cannibalization	Paid search ads intercept users seeking direct brand domains	Paid clicks substitute 1-to-1 for free organic clicks	Converts free organic navigation into recurring cost
Cookie & Device Breakage	Cross-device paths cause false unexposed misclassification	Disregards long-cycle offline relationship building	Overweights short-cycle digital retargeting
Platform Self-Reporting	Ad networks grade their own performance with view-throughs	Total claimed conversions exceed total company sales	Inflates reported demand beyond real cash inflow

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Source: Table from this essay. Sources and interpretation are given in the article.

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From the essay

From the research bench

What is incrementality?

Incrementality isolates the true causal revenue lift produced by commercial interventions relative to an unexposed counterfactual baseline.

2 Sept 2026

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Isoglu, S. (2026). Why do observational attribution dashboards report phantom returns? [Table]. isoglu.com. https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-what-is-incrementality-fig02/

BibTeX

@misc{isoglu-2026-what-is-incrementality-fig02,
  author = {Isoglu, Sinan},
  title = {{Why do observational attribution dashboards report phantom returns?}},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Table 1, isoglu.com},
  url = {https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-what-is-incrementality-fig02/},
  note = {From the essay {What is incrementality?}}
}

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  <figcaption>Table 1: Why do observational attribution dashboards report phantom returns?. Source: Table from this essay. Sources and interpretation are given in the article. <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-what-is-incrementality-fig02/">View exhibit</a>.</figcaption>
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