Independent growth analysis
Before you spend more, know what deserves the investment.
We help leadership teams decide what to change across marketing, sales, and pricing. We evaluate the evidence, compare the economics, and test the changes worth making.
For established companies with teams, agencies, or vendors already in place.
Founder-led. Work directly with Eddie Zaldivar. English & Spanish.
Revenue & Margin Decision Brief
Illustrative format
Decision
Should we raise paid search spend by [X]% next quarter, or put that money somewhere else?
- Evidence
- What the records support, and what is still uncertain.
- Economics
- Gross profit and cost for each option: raise, reallocate, or hold.
- Recommendation
- ActTest firstInvestigate furtherStop
- Test plan
- The metric, the comparison, and the decision rule, agreed before results arrive.
Prior work
Eddie’s prior measurement and media work includes Unilever, Virgin Voyages, HP, Apple, Darden Restaurants, Mercedes-Benz, Diageo, Cisco, and Scotiabank.
Someone is recommending where your money should go. Is it the right place?
Spend
Our agency wants a bigger budget. Will the extra spend pay for itself?
Headcount
Do we need another salesperson, or a better way to work the leads we already have?
Margin
Revenue is up. Why isn’t profit?
Pricing
Are we priced to make money on every order we win?
Have a proposal to evaluate, or a growth problem you cannot yet explain? We start with the business question.
Client work / Auto transport
Not all leads deserve the same investment.
- The question
- The company was competing for purchased leads and facing pressure to lower its fees. Keep competing on price, or invest in its own demand?
- The investigation
- We compared average company revenue per lead by source, counting every lead, including those that never booked, and found the ads were optimized for phone calls rather than the value of the job.
- The decision
- Build direct lead generation (a rebuilt website, SEO, and Google Ads trained on a lead-value signal) and a pricing tool that weighs a competitive quote against the risk of an underpriced order.
The evidence
Average company revenue per lead, by source.
$7
Purchased leads
$35
Directly generated leads
1 dot = $1 of average revenue per lead
The main engagement
Revenue & Margin Diagnostic
A focused investigation of one consequential growth decision.
You receive a recommendation your leadership team can examine: the evidence, the financial case, the alternatives, and the next test or action. Take it to your team, another provider, or a separately scoped implementation with us.
- Fixed scope
- Typically $7,500 to $15,000
- Duration
- Usually 2 to 4 weeks
- after data and access are in place
The decision brief resolves
- Decision
- What are we deciding, and what are the alternatives?
- Evidence
- What do the records support, and what remains uncertain?
- Economics
- What could each option contribute, and what would it cost?
- Recommendation
- What deserves action, testing, or further investigation?
- Test plan
- How will we know whether the change worked?
Fit call
We find the decision worth investigating and whether we are the right people to help. Not a diagnosis on the call.
Implementation & measurement
We work with your team on one defined change and measure it against the scorecard agreed beforehand. Not an agency replacement.
Why independent
The people recommending an investment should not be its only evaluators.
Your agency, team, and vendors bring real expertise. We bring an independent look at the business case. Our findings can challenge the original recommendation, including leadership’s preferred answer.
The diagnostic stands alone. Take the findings anywhere. Implementation is a separate decision.
Fees follow scope. For this work, fees are agreed by scope, not as a percentage of the budget we recommend. Additional work requires separate approval.
Interests disclosed. Including that we may offer to implement what we recommend.
The scorecard comes first. Baseline, costs, and decision rules are agreed before anything changes. Unfavorable results stay on the record.
Reviewable work. You receive the assumptions, calculations, and evidence. When we implement a change, your finance or analytics lead can review our evaluation.
Who you work with
Independent judgment. Direct involvement.
You work directly with Eddie Zaldivar, a data scientist and builder with experience in measurement for national brands. He connects business economics with analysis, designs tests around consequential decisions, and works with your team on a defined implementation.
“He can build just about anything! … he does not stop until he has figured it out.”
Before Zaldivar Labs: questions, and the decisions they informed
Which channels deserved the budget?
A media mix model found video and other non-click channels were under-credited by click attribution. The budget mix changed.
Which channel was doing more than it could show?
The model found one platform driving more registrations than its own reporting could attribute. The media mix changed to make more of it.
What works before going national?
Matched city clusters and a holdout tested billboards, audio, and paid social on a small test budget.
Selected writing
How we think about evidence.
Diagnosis
A list of problems is not a plan
A frozen-food brand was paying for ads to bring in orders that lost money. Six findings, ranked, and what we fixed first.
Measurement
We optimized for phone calls. We got phone calls.
What happens when you tell an ad platform to chase the wrong number.
Attribution
The ad platform says it drove the sale. Did it?
A meal kit launch used matched cities and a holdout to tell channel effects from local demand.
In the community. Zaldivar Labs is the digital and technology partner for the El Camino Fund program run by San Diego Partners for Economic Prosperity (PEP), with support from San Diego Foundation. About the program
This program was made possible thanks to the grant support from San Diego Foundation’s El Camino Fund.
What investment are you weighing right now?
A 20 to 30 minute fit call. If a diagnostic is not the right next step, we will say so.
Prefer email? eddie@zaldivarlabs.com · English or Spanish