# Case Study: The Account Where 'At Best a Guess' Was the Verdict on Attribution | Crank Source: https://wearecrank.com/case-studies/mens-grooming-attribution-2017 Missing event data, inconsistent tagging, and a trading decision that had been mistaken for a tracking fault. --- Men's Grooming — 2017 Audit # The Account Where 'At Best a Guess' Was the Verdict on Attribution Missing event data, inconsistent tagging, and a trading decision that had been mistaken for a tracking fault. Challenge The audit's own verdict on attribution was blunt: at best a guess. Key event data didn't exist before August, tagging was inconsistent, and server-side measurement was inflating direct traffic while suppressing its bounce rate. Approach Separate what the data could actually support — product category analysis, for instance, only existed for three months of the year — and check whether apparent performance shifts were tracking artefacts or real trading decisions. Outcome One of the clearest findings was neither a tag nor a guess: a delivery cost that rose in step with average order value pointed to an unannounced minimum order threshold — order value rose and conversion fell as a direct, explicable consequence of a decision nobody had flagged to marketing. 01 ## An audit that called its own attribution a guess Key event data did not exist before August, tagging was inconsistent across the rest of the year, and server-side measurement hits were inflating direct traffic while suppressing its bounce rate. Spend allocation decisions made on this data were, in the audit's own words, at best a guess. 02 ## Three months of data standing in for a year Product category information was present in the data for April to June only. Any analysis of what actually sold — by season, by device — had to be confined to that window, or it wasn't analysis at all. 03 ## A trading decision mistaken for a tracking change Average delivery cost rose in step with average order value from mid-year, suggesting a minimum order threshold had been introduced without anyone telling marketing. Order value rose; conversion fell — a genuine business decision, not a broken tag, and one that would have been diagnosed as a measurement fault without checking. ## What a year of unreliable attribution looked like 0 Months of reliable event data before August 3 of 12 Months with usable product category data “At best a guess” The audit's own verdict on attribution 1 Undocumented trading decision, mistaken for a tracking fault Drawn from Crank's account audit conducted in 2017 for this men's grooming brand, before the account was taken on. Client not named. ## Want to know what this looks like in your own account? These findings came from asking straightforward questions before any budget moved. We're happy to do the same for yours. [ Talk to Wearecrank](https://wa.me/447457416922?text=Help%20my%20business)[Get in touch](/contact) [← Back to all case studies](/case-studies)