Why Attribution Needs a Dose of the Past: Founder Breakthroughs Podcast

On a recent episode of the Founder Breakthroughs podcast, Provalytics CEO and co-founder Jeff Greenfield joined host Jeff Durso for a conversation that spanned childhood magic tricks to modern marketing transformation. What began in a Florida magic shop evolved into a career focused on revealing what truly drives results in today’s fractured media environment.

As Greenfield puts it, “The technology is faster, but the fundamentals haven’t changed. People still buy with emotion, then justify with logic.”

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And yet, for many marketers, attribution has become a house of mirrors. Platforms claim credit, budgets get siloed, and decision-makers are left with conflicting data and eroding margins. The cookie era is over—but the confusion it created remains.

Provalytics exists to change that.

A New Measurement Challenge for a Fragmented Era

Jeff Greenfield has spent decades at the intersection of data, strategy, and brand growth. He’s seen advertising evolve from performance-driven direct response to a world ruled by digital targeting and “last-click” logic. But the real shift came when privacy updates and platform restrictions dismantled the old ways of measurement.

“We’re in a walled garden economy now,” Greenfield explains. “Amazon, Walmart, TikTok, Meta—they all let you advertise, but they don’t let you connect the dots.”

This is the daily reality for modern CMOs:

Marketplace teams operate in silos, disconnected from brand and DTC teams
Data from Amazon can’t speak to what’s happening on Walmart or a brand’s own site
Upper-funnel efforts (like CTV, podcasts, or influencers) get undervalued due to flawed attribution models
Retail media networks prioritize their own ad revenue—not advertiser insight

The result? CMOs and CFOs are left with fragmented data, unclear ROI, and an urgent need for measurement that actually reflects reality.

Old-School Thinking Meets Modern Power

Provalytics isn’t trying to reinvent measurement from scratch—it’s updating what already works.

“Our approach is to take proven methods like marketing mix modeling and Bayesian inference,” says Greenfield, “and modernize them with today’s computing power and privacy standards.”

Instead of relying on tags, cookies, or individual tracking, Provalytics uses statistical modeling to understand how channels interact over time—whether it’s the long-tail lift of a TV ad, the compounding impact of influencer marketing, or the unexpected synergy between podcast placements and in-store sales.

This approach delivers cross-platform clarity in a way platform-specific tools never can.

And it’s built for real-world use: privacy-safe, platform-agnostic, and designed to support clear conversations between marketing and finance.

What Marketers Can Do Right Now

Greenfield offered clear takeaways for brands ready to modernize their measurement:

Stop chasing last-click attribution—it overvalues closers and undervalues creators
Treat retail media as a fulfillment layer, not a demand engine
Reframe your channels: Amazon is not your marketer, it’s your distributor
Invest in upper-funnel impact—like connected TV, podcasts, influencers, and digital OOH
Bridge brand and performance to uncover true campaign ROI across platforms

“Measurement is not about perfection,” Greenfield says. “It’s about progress—getting closer to the truth every month.”

Attribution is a CFO Conversation

Greenfield knows that great marketing doesn’t just need creative ideas—it needs numbers that make sense to finance. That’s why Provalytics is built to serve not just media buyers, but executive leadership.

“You can’t sell better measurement to someone who already looks good on paper,” he says. “But if your numbers don’t add up—if you know your performance is being under- or over-reported—we’re the solution that brings truth to the table.”

At Provalytics, we help brands take control of their media strategy, eliminate noise, and finally give credit where credit is due.