What a methodology document quietly reveals
Four things a methodology document gives away without meaning to, including who wrote it and which question the product was originally built for.
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By Joris van Huët, Founder & CEOUpdated 3 min read
A methodology document gives away four things it did not set out to disclose. All four are readable in fifteen minutes.
The four
| Signal | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Who it was written for | Whether the company expects buyers to read it |
| Which question it answers first | What the product was originally built to do |
| Where it gets specific | Where the team's actual expertise is |
| What it avoids naming | The boundary the company is uncomfortable with |
Who it was written for
A document full of formal notation with no worked example was written for peer credibility rather than for a marketing manager. A document with a worked example and no method at all was written for a sales conversation. The useful ones do both, and the ordering tells you which audience the company actually serves.
Which question it answers first
Products carry their origins. A tool built for credit allocation will explain how credit is divided before it explains what anything is compared against, because allocation is what it does. A tool built for causal estimation will lead with the comparison.
Neither is wrong; they are different instruments. But the ordering tells you which one you are buying regardless of how the marketing frames it. The distinction is in what multi-touch attribution never measured.
Where it gets specific
Documents are vague where the team is uncertain and precise where the team is strong. A section with exact definitions and numeric thresholds is a section somebody has argued about internally. A section of adjectives is not.
Read the specificity gradient rather than the claims, and you learn where the product is actually good.
What it avoids naming
Look for the absent section. No stated limits. No definition of the measurable floor. No description of what happens when coverage is low. Each absence is a boundary the company would rather not discuss, and each one is a question worth asking directly.
What this does not tell you
Whether the method is accurate for your business. No document can, which is why the checks in using the methodology doc to design your own check matter more than the reading.
Reading ours the same way
The method is on how it works. Causality Engine reads one file, the Attribution paths export from GA4, and shows what each channel caused next to what last-click gave it. The limits are stated: observational rather than experimental, blind to anything outside channel-level data, and unable to answer questions about individuals.
Input is a Google Analytics export you produce; €99 for a first read, refundable within 30 days, no questions asked.
The exercise worth doing
Read two vendors' documents back to back and note only where each gets specific. That comparison is more informative than either document alone, and it takes half an hour.
Related answers
Frequently asked questions
What can I learn from a vendor's methodology document?
Who it was written for, which question the product was originally built to answer, where the team's expertise actually sits, and which boundary the company avoids naming. All four are readable in about fifteen minutes.How do I tell what a tool was really built for?
By which question the document answers first. A tool built for credit allocation explains how credit is divided before saying what anything is compared against. A causal tool leads with the comparison.What does vagueness in a document indicate?
Documents are vague where the team is uncertain and precise where it is strong. Reading the specificity gradient rather than the claims tells you where the product is genuinely good, which the marketing page will not.
Go deeper: Causal attribution, explained.
Sixty-second versions of these ideas: Causality Engine on YouTube Shorts.
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Keep reading
Terms in this article
- Ad SpendAd Spend is the total amount invested in advertising campaigns. It is measured against Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to evaluate campaign effectiveness.
- AnalyticsAnalytics is the systematic computational analysis of data. It reveals customer behavior and measures campaign performance.
- AttributionAttribution identifies user actions that contribute to a desired outcome and assigns value to each. It reveals which marketing touchpoints drive conversions.
- CausalityCausality is the relationship where one event directly causes another, essential for identifying specific actions that drive desired outcomes in marketing.
- ClickClick is the action a user takes to interact with a digital advertisement, redirecting them to a website or landing page. Clicks are a fundamental metric for measuring ad engagement and a primary input for click-based attribution models.
- Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic.
- Multi-Touch AttributionMulti-Touch Attribution assigns credit to multiple marketing touchpoints across the customer journey. It provides a complete view of channel impact on conversions.