Blended Truth First.
Then Scale, Hold, Cut, Test.

Blended truth is the operating center of paid allocation. MER and the over-attribution gap sit above summed platform ROAS when the question is where the next dollar goes.

• Summed ROAS overstates. Category reads place about 20 to 40 percent typical overstatement when summed platform ROAS is treated as true paid contribution.
• Claimed revenue can exceed the store. Under separate attribution windows, the sum of platform-claimed revenue can exceed actual store revenue by about 40 to 120 percent.
• MER is attribution-invariant. Total revenue divided by total marketing spend from the store does not depend on which platform claimed the sale. Blended ROAS is the paid-only close proxy.
• Use each number for its job. MER for weekly budget health, incrementality (including geo holdouts) for causal truth, platform ROAS for in-channel creative compare.
• Break-even is margin math. Break-even ROAS equals 1 divided by gross margin; high-margin categories often land contribution break-even near 1.8x to 2.1x after variable costs.
• Harvesting looks efficient. Retargeting and brand search commonly report strong ROAS while harvesting demand created elsewhere; prospecting carries more of the honest new-customer cost.

The pattern is especially sharp for brands whose demand is earned-media-led. When press, affiliates, and community create purchases, ad platforms still claim credit inside their windows. The owner who reallocates on platform ROAS alone can cut the prospecting that feeds the machine and keep the harvest campaigns that look efficient on paper.

Paid Media Intelligence is the diagnose layer. It drafts a reviewable allocation brief. It leaves budgets and creatives untouched.

• Perception. Reads live ads (Meta today; multi-platform aggregate path in flight) plus store revenue of record through the commerce connector, with optional analytics.
• Blended truth. Computes MER and over-attribution against platform-reported value, then ranks Scale / Hold / Cut / Test moves with basis and confidence labeled.
• Cadence. Monthly dispatcher plus on-demand runs from the workspace or Assistant (confirm-first). Every brief lands in the review queue.
• Owner approval is the architecture. You (or your agency) apply approved moves in the ad accounts. Canopy stays recommend-only.

Media buying and creative production remain operate spend. Day-to-day optimization stays with the team or agency that owns the accounts. The brief gives lean teams a standing allocation read on the diagnose layer.

Blended-truth allocation puts Scale and Cut decisions on the revenue the store actually booked. Canopy reconciles ad spend and platform-attributed value against that store revenue of record and hands Scale / Hold / Cut / Test moves, labeled and ready, for your review.

A professional Meta or Facebook ads audit typically takes days to about two weeks from access to a written prioritized plan, with some consultant audits quoting a 14-day turnaround. Paid Media Intelligence returns that same reconciled read in about 1 to 3 minutes, with a median run near 2.9 minutes.

A paid Meta ads audit typically costs $250 to $1,000 at the mid-tier, and a forensic or consultant review with store and analytics reconciliation often runs $1,500 to $5,000. The same reconciliation on Canopy runs 10 credits, about $7 to $13 of included plan value depending on your plan.

Running the same read monthly and on demand keeps the number current as spend and store revenue shift, and every brief lands in the review queue for your approval before anything changes.

The discipline adds an allocation read to the stack you already run. Your ad accounts stay yours. Your agency relationship stays yours when you have one. Your team's time moves up to the calls that need a human.

You approve everything.

Canopy never mutates budgets. Creatives stay untouched. The review queue is where every brief waits. Human control is the architecture.