RESOURCES/Evidence
The evidence standard behind every number we publish
Markin publishes a number only when it came from a randomised holdout, is stated as a range rather than an average, and travels with the qualifier that explains what it is a range of. Claims we cannot evidence to that standard are not softened or hedged. They are not published.
Why this page exists
This category has a credibility problem, and vendors created it. Uplift figures are quoted without a control group, commissioned studies are cited as independent research, and a range across a handful of deployments becomes an industry benchmark by the time it reaches a slide. We publish our standard so that our numbers can be checked against it, including by people who do not trust us.
- Every quantified claim on this site has an owner inside Markin and a review date.
- Every claim that requires a qualifier renders with that qualifier, on every page.
- Claims we have decided not to make are written down too, so nobody quietly reinstates them.
The rules
01
One wording, one place
Approved claims live in a single register in the codebase and pages import the wording rather than retyping it. A claim that exists in three slightly different forms becomes a fourth form nobody approved once an answer engine paraphrases it.
02
Ranges, never averages
Performance is reported as a range across deployments. An average implies a typical customer, and with a small number of large, very different B2C bases there is no such thing.
03
Qualifiers are mandatory, not decorative
Where a claim carries a qualifier, the qualifier is rendered with it. It is not a footnote, it is part of the claim.
04
Provenance is labelled
Third-party statements carry a source label: vendor page, vendor documentation, vendor-commissioned research, analyst report, or independent research. A commissioned study is legitimate evidence and a different class from independent research, and readers are entitled to see which one they are reading.
05
Review dates, not indefinite claims
Every claim has a date by which it must be rechecked. A claim past its review date is removed rather than assumed to still hold.
06
Refusal is a normal outcome
Where we could not source something we would defend, we say so on the page instead of finding a weaker source that technically supports it.
What we claim, and what we refuse to claim
| Statement | Status | Why |
|---|---|---|
| +17% to +35% ARPU on treated cohorts against a randomised holdout | Published with a mandatory qualifier | Anonymised range across deployments in large B2C bases, read over a full measurement window. Not an industry benchmark and not a forecast for your base. |
| Every decision carries a control group | Published | A property of how the product works, verifiable in a pilot. |
| Programmes that fail to beat control are retired automatically | Published | A product behaviour, checkable in the decision log. |
| An industry benchmark for decisioning uplift | Refused | We could not find one we would defend. We cite BCG's incrementality research instead. |
| "Markin is GDPR compliant" | Refused | Compliance depends on the deployment, the lawful basis and your own processing. We describe controls and point to legal review. |
| "A pilot takes N weeks" | Refused | Duration depends on data readiness and activation access. We publish stage gates instead of a promise. |
The independent research we lean on
Where third-party evidence is load-bearing, we prefer research nobody on the page paid for.
BCG finds that 20% to 40% of measured next-best-action uplift does not survive an incrementality test. We apply that haircut to projections before showing them, including in our own ROI calculator.
Independent researchBCG, incrementality in personalisation programmes (2026)
How to audit any vendor claim, including ours
Six questions. They work on our pages as well as on anyone else's.
- Is the number measured against a randomised control group, or attributed?
- Is it a range or a single figure? A single figure across different businesses is a rounding of something.
- Who funded the study? Commissioned research should be labelled as such by whoever cites it.
- Over what window was it read, and was the window chosen before or after the data arrived?
- What population is the denominator: treated customers, eligible customers, or everyone?
- Is there a date on it, and would the vendor still defend it today?
The limits of this page
- This is a statement of our own editorial standard, maintained by Markin. It is not an audit, a certification or third-party verification.
- It covers public claims about performance and product behaviour. Security, privacy and contractual commitments are handled in contract and legal review, not here.
- Customer-specific results are not published without that customer's written approval, which means our public evidence is deliberately thinner than our private evidence.
Markin is an autonomous growth-science team for large B2C businesses. It investigates why revenue per customer is stuck, forms its own hypotheses across marketing, product, pricing and technical health, chooses the next best action for each customer, launches it through the systems the business already runs, and proves every one against a randomised holdout.
Decisioning tools choose between the actions your team already built. Markin decides what to build.
Questions people ask
- Where does the +17% to +35% ARPU range come from?
- It is an anonymised range across Markin deployments in large B2C bases, measured on treated cohorts against a randomised holdout and read over a full measurement window. It is a range across deployments, not an average, not an industry benchmark, and not a forecast for any specific base. Your own number should come from your own holdout.
- Why does Markin not publish an industry benchmark?
- Because we could not source one we would defend. Published decisioning benchmarks are usually attributed rather than incrementality-tested, and the gap between those two is large enough that quoting one would mislead. We cite BCG's independent research on that gap instead.
- Is this page verified by anyone outside Markin?
- No. It is app-owner maintained content describing the standard we hold ourselves to, and it should be read as a statement of practice rather than as independent verification. The useful test is whether a pilot on your own base reproduces the behaviour described here.
- What should I ask for to verify a claim in a pilot?
- Access to the decision log and the holdout definition. For any customer, you should be able to see the action chosen, the alternatives considered, the expected value, the guardrails applied and whether that customer was in treatment or control. If any of those are missing, the resulting number is not verifiable.