Three Advertising Buckets
Fund direct return, incremental demand, and broad awareness in sequence.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 99%
The Three Advertising Buckets framework divides investment by both purpose and measurability. The first bucket is direct ROAS: attributable advertising that captures existing demand and should be funded while it remains profitable. The second is incrementality: still response-oriented, but measured through lift because the campaign creates demand that converts elsewhere. Filling this bucket should eventually enlarge the capacity of the first. The third is broad brand awareness, where the primary objective is market coverage, message exposure, eyeballs, and engagement rather than a defensible ROAS. Marketers fill the buckets in a sensible sequence but maintain an ongoing balance between incremental demand creation and brand presence instead of allowing easily measured direct response to consume the entire budget.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain as Kieran Flanagan's explicitly named “old school Kieran buckets framework.”
Core principles
- 01Capture profitable demand before pursuing less-direct returns.
- 02Incremental investment should create demand that enlarges direct-response capacity.
- 03Brand awareness deserves a separate engagement objective.
- 04The three buckets require balance rather than a single universal metric.
How to run it
- 1
Fill Direct ROAS
Spend as much as can be invested profitably in attributable demand-capture channels. Track marginal return rather than relying only on the blended average.
Pro tip Prioritize placements returning roughly three to five dollars for each dollar where the economics support that benchmark.
Watch out Do not force additional spend after the profitable audience is saturated.
- 2
Fill Incrementality
Invest remaining growth budget in response-oriented campaigns whose impact appears indirectly. Measure their contribution with conversion lift studies and indirect ROAS.
Pro tip Look for evidence that this bucket increases the future capacity of direct-response campaigns.
Watch out Do not reject the bucket merely because users fail to click the original placement.
- 3
Fund Brand Awareness
Allocate resources to broad market coverage and repeated message exposure without pretending every impression has a direct return.
Pro tip Use reach, relevant eyeballs, engagement, and message penetration as the operating indicators.
Watch out Do not disguise pure awareness as precisely attributable performance marketing.
- 4
Balance the Portfolio
Review saturation, incremental lift, audience growth, and brand engagement together. Shift investment as the capacity and contribution of each bucket changes.
Pro tip Begin funding the second and third buckets before the first is completely saturated.
Watch out A rigid sequential interpretation can postpone the demand creation needed for future growth.
In the wild
A company first funds profitable search and retargeting until marginal ROAS begins to decline. It then expands social-video campaigns validated through regional lift studies and reserves a smaller allocation for podcasts and billboards that spread its core message. As awareness and incremental demand rise, profitable search volume expands.
→ Each investment receives a goal and measurement method suited to its actual marketing role.
Common mistakes
Putting Everything Into Direct ROAS
This maximizes immediate measurability but can exhaust existing demand without creating a larger market.
Demanding ROAS From Pure Brand Activity
The brand bucket is designed for coverage and engagement, so false precision distorts its purpose.
Treating the Buckets as Isolated
Incrementality and brand activity should create demand that later enlarges direct-response opportunities.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for companies with profitable acquisition channels and additional budget available for market expansion.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for companies that have not yet validated their offer or established any repeatable acquisition path.
From the transcript
“Let me give you the old school Kieran buckets framework.”
“And so you have three buckets. The first bucket is your direct ROAS bucket, and you want to fill that up.”
“Like the direct, the indirect incrementality, and then the brand. The first two are ROAS, but one's direct, one's indirect, and the brand is engagement.”
From the episode
ROAS Is a Trap: How Smart Marketers Really Drive Growth