# The ROAS Trap: Why Better Numbers Don’t Always Mean Better Growth

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/humans-of-growth-stories-strategies-behind-business-growth-business-development-7523269/the-roas-trap-why-better-numbers-don-t-always-mean-better-growth
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/humans-of-growth-stories-strategies-behind-business-growth-business-development-7523269/the-roas-trap-why-better-numbers-don-t-always-mean-better-growth.md
Podcast: [Humans of Growth: Stories & Strategies Behind Business Growth & Business Development](https://stenobird.com/podcast/humans-of-growth-stories-strategies-behind-business-growth-business-development-7523269)
Published: 2026-06-11T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://perisson.podbean.com/e/the-roas-trap-why-better-numbers-don-t-always-mean-better-growth/
Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/spbgbufefv9uxmui/Scott_WickedReports.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/humans-of-growth-stories-strategies-behind-business-growth-business-development-7523269/episodes/the-roas-trap-why-better-numbers-don-t-always-mean-better-growth
Duration seconds: 1651

## Resource

Your best-looking marketing campaign might be the one quietly killing your growth.Most businesses look at ROAS, cost per lead, and in-platform ad reports and assume they know what’s working. But those dashboards are often rewarding the easiest conversions, repeat buyers, retargeting, brand search, while the campaigns actually creating new demand get ignored or killed too soon.And that’s how companies end up recycling the same customers instead of growing.In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Scott Desgrosseilliers, founder of WickedReports.com, to break down why most businesses are using the wrong scoreboard for marketing attribution, and how to figure out which campaigns are actually driving revenue growth, new customer acquisition, and long-term customer lifetime value.Scott walks through part of his Five Forces Framework for measuring marketing performance, why in-platform ROAS can mislead business owners and agencies, how to think about top-of-funnel marketing, and why the cheapest customer is not always the most profitable customer.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why most businesses are measuring marketing attribution with the wrong scoreboard✔ The problem with in-platform ROAS, and why Meta, Google, and Amazon often take too much credit✔ Why new customer acquisition needs to be measured differently than repeat purchases or retargeting✔ How cheap customers can quietly hurt customer lifetime value and long-term profit✔ Why the first product someone buys can determine whether they become a high-value customer✔ The difference between first-click attribution, last-click attribution, and multi-channel attribution✔ Why top-of-funnel marketing gets under-credited, and why killing it too early can stall growth✔ The “scale, chill, kill” framework for deciding wh…

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