Level 5 - Advanced Hunting & Diagnosis

Goal: Revisit topics from earlier levels but go deeper. This is the “spiral” approach—same topics, more sophisticated understanding.

You’re now an expert. Keep sharpening.

Overview

This level revisits concepts from Level 2-4 but with much greater depth and sophistication.

You’ll learn:

Multi-touch customer journeys (not just first-touch)
Advanced isolation methods (landing page vs traffic quality)
Schema evolution and debugging (tracking breakage)

This is where you become an expert hunter.

Modules

Module 5.1 - Advanced Attribution (Multi-Touch Journeys)

Lessons:

Lesson 5.1.1: Understanding full customer journeys (FB → SMS → Email → Direct → Sale)
Lesson 5.1.2: First-touch vs last-touch vs multi-touch attribution models
Lesson 5.1.3: Exercise - Analyze one sale with multiple touchpoints

Based on: Encyclopedia - Practical Examples (Multi-Touch Attribution Analysis, November 20th Sales Investigation)

Advanced concept: See the full journey from original ad through retargeting to final conversion. Understand contribution of each touchpoint.

Module 5.2 - Traffic Quality vs Landing Page (Advanced Isolation)

Lessons:

Lesson 5.2.1: Hold page constant, vary traffic
Lesson 5.2.2: Hold traffic constant, vary page
Lesson 5.2.3: Multi-step validation (does traffic quality persist through subsequent steps?)
Lesson 5.2.4: Exercise - Run isolation analysis on your data

Based on:

Encyclopedia - Thinking Flows (Advanced Thinking Flow: Isolating Landing Page vs Traffic Quality)
Encyclopedia - Practical Examples (Traffic Quality Persistence)

Advanced skill: Definitively diagnose whether low conversion is a page problem or traffic problem. Check if traffic quality persists through multiple funnel steps.

Module 5.3 - Schema Evolution & Debugging

Lessons:

Lesson 5.3.1: How schema changes tell a story
Lesson 5.3.2: Tracking changes over time (changelog practice)
Lesson 5.3.3: Debugging tracking breakage
Lesson 5.3.4: Exercise - Review last 3 months of events, identify schema changes

Based on: Encyclopedia - Event Schema (Understanding Parameter Evolution)

Advanced skill: Track schema evolution over time. Spot when parameters disappear or change unexpectedly. Debug tracking breakage.

Key Advanced Concepts

Multi-Touch Attribution:

User journey: FB ad (Day 1) → SMS (Day 3) → Email (Day 5) → Direct purchase (Day 7)
First-touch: FB ad (acquisition)
Last-touch: Direct (not useful)
Multi-touch: FB 40%, SMS 30%, Email 30% (algorithmic)
For acquisition analysis: Use first-touch

Isolation Method:

Test 1: Same page, different campaigns → Different conversions = traffic issue
Test 2: Same campaign, different pages → Different conversions = page issue
Test 3: Check Step 2 → 3 conversion by original traffic → Confirms diagnosis

Example:

Campaign A on Page X: 5% conversion
Campaign B on Page X: 44% conversion
Step 2 → 3 for Campaign A: Still low
Step 2 → 3 for Campaign B: Still high
Diagnosis: Traffic quality issue (not page)

Schema Evolution:

2025-11-01: Added content_ids to purchase events
2025-11-05: Changed quiz_version from number to boolean
2025-11-10: Added affid parameter for all sources

Changes tell story of system updates
Track these to understand historical data

Level 5 Complete (Ongoing)

After this level, you’re an expert. You understand:

Full multi-touch customer journeys
How to isolate page vs traffic issues definitively
Schema evolution and how to debug tracking breakage

You’re now a “great hunter”—you own the data completely.

What’s Next?

Continuous learning:

Apply these skills to real campaign optimization
Teach these concepts to others (that’s when you truly master them)
Keep exploring the Encyclopedia for deeper dives
Build your own case studies and examples

You’ve completed the curriculum. Now go build.