Question 1

What is net promoter score, and is it useful?

Accepted Answer

A single-question metric — how likely are you to recommend this, on a scale of 0 to 10 — reduced to a score by subtracting the percentage of **detractors** (0–6) from the percentage of **promoters** (9–10), ignoring the 7s and 8s entirely. It is enormously popular and its evidential basis is **considerably weaker than its adoption suggests**.

**Why it became ubiquitous:** one question, so response rates are high; a single number executives can track; comparable across an organisation; and an original claim that it correlated with growth better than alternatives.

**The substantive criticisms:**

**The growth claim has not replicated.** Independent research has repeatedly failed to confirm that it predicts growth better than other satisfaction measures, and the original analysis has been criticised on methodological grounds. **This is the central problem**, because the growth link is the entire justification for preferring it.

**The arithmetic discards information.** Grouping 0 and 6 together as equivalent, and ignoring 7s and 8s, throws away most of the distribution. Two organisations with very different customer bases can produce identical scores.

**Cultural response bias** is large. Some cultures rarely use extremes, which makes international comparison close to meaningless.

**Gaming.** When staff bonuses depend on it, you get the widely observed pleading for tens, which corrupts the measurement and the relationship.

**Stated intent is not behaviour.** Saying you would recommend something is not recommending it.

**What it is genuinely useful for:** **tracking your own trend** over time with consistent methodology; and — most valuable of all — as a **prompt for the follow-up question**. "Why did you give that score?" produces the qualitative material that actually tells you what to fix, and many organisations collect it and never read it.

**Better alternatives** depending on purpose: customer effort score for transactional interactions, which predicts loyalty well; actual **retention and repeat purchase**, which is behaviour rather than intent; and referral rates, which measure the thing NPS asks about.

**Use it as a conversation starter, not as a target.**

Question 2

What is a north star metric, and how do you choose one?

Accepted Answer

A single measure a whole organisation aligns around — chosen because it captures the value customers actually receive, so that improving it necessarily means the business is working. The problem it

Question 3

How does influencer marketing actually work?

Accepted Answer

A brand pays someone with an audience to feature its product — and the mechanics of pricing, contracting and disclosure are considerably more structured than the casual appearance suggests. The

Question 4

What is the difference between brand and performance marketing?

Accepted Answer

Performance marketing aims to produce a measurable action now. Brand marketing aims to build memory and preference that makes future actions more likely and cheaper. Performance marketing is search

Question 5

What is lead scoring, and does it actually work?

Accepted Answer

Assigning numerical values to leads based on who they are and what they have done, so sales attention goes to those most likely to buy. It works when built on evidence and fails — commonly — when

Question 6

Why do marketing and sales teams disagree about leads?

Accepted Answer

Because they are measured on different things and, almost always, have never agreed a written definition of what a qualified lead is — so each is optimising honestly against incompatible targets. The

Question 7

What is churn and why does it matter more than growth?

Accepted Answer

Churn is the rate at which customers stop paying you over a period. It is the counterweight to acquisition, and it determines whether growth compounds or leaks away. Two measures, and the difference

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