Baseline Revenue
Baseline revenue is the portion of total revenue not explained by paid marketing spend. It includes organic demand, brand equity, repeat customers, word-of-mouth, and halo effects. It represents the sales velocity your business would maintain if you turned off all ads tomorrow.
The Short Version
Baseline Revenue is what you earn for free. It measures your brand's intrinsic power.
Visual Explanation
GA4 Can't Measure Incrementality
Why the world's most popular analytics tool is blind to the world's most important metric.
Prerequisites
The Fear of Unattributed Sales
Marketers are often terrified of sales they can't 'track'. They try to force every sale into a channel bucket using attribution.
This leads to ignoring the healthiest metric of all: Brand Equity. If your baseline isn't growing, your business isn't sustainable.
How it works
Isolate revenue days/periods with zero or low spend (intercept)
Model the contribution of non-media variables (seasonality, trend)
The remaining consistent volume is Baseline
Common Misconceptions
Treating Baseline as 'Lost Data' (It's not lost, it's Organic)
Thinking Baseline is constant (It grows with brand awareness)
Crediting Baseline to Retargeting (A common attribution error)
Frequently Asked Questions
QDoes SpendSignal try to lower my baseline?
No! We want your baseline to grow. High baseline means you are less dependent on paid ads, which increases your overall business valuation.
QIs baseline the same as 'Direct' traffic?
Similar, but broader. Baseline captures Direct, Organic Search, Word of Mouth, and even offline conversion impact that tracking pixels miss.