Strategic consulting led by Avinash Kaushik

Think higher. Decide better.

ZQ Insights helps CEOs, CMOs and their leadership teams with the hardest questions in strategy, marketing and measurement. We bring proven frameworks that change how your organization thinks, so the decisions that follow are significantly better.

Start a conversation How we work
Decision altitude

ZQ Insights works here

  • Better decisionsWhat to do, why, and the profit
  • FrameworksComplex challenges, made simple to evaluate

Where most work stops

  • Point solutionsFix one thing, once
  • DashboardsWhat's moving
  • ReportsWhat happened
  • DataEverything, all at once

Clients include

  • Amazon
  • Lloyds Banking Group
  • HP
  • VF Corporation
  • Coach

Twenty years of original thinking, still in use

  • The 10/90 Rule
  • Win Before You Spend
  • Spike & Sustain
  • Say No to ROAS, Welcome POAS
  • Solving Incrementality
  • Answer Engine Playbook

Approach

Brutal clarity about today. Battle-tested frameworks for tomorrow.

We're usually called in when the stakes are high. Competitors are moving faster. Decisions are still made the old way. The culture is stuck. We start with an honest assessment of reality, including the uncomfortable parts. Then we deliver precise recommendations, anchored in frameworks that bring clarity to complex choices. Each one carries decades of lessons, failures and best practices, and it stays with your team long after we leave.

  • Reality first

    We assess where you actually are: your weakest link and most common practice, not your best day. It can be uncomfortable. It's always where progress starts.

  • Frameworks over fixes

    A fix solves one problem once. A framework gives your whole team a simple, repeatable way to evaluate every problem like it.

  • Judgment above automation

    Platforms and AI now automate much of marketing execution. The advantage has moved to strategy, creativity and human judgment. That's where we spend our time.

  • Three big stories, no appendix

    Every engagement ends with the few moves that matter most: why they matter, what to do, and the predicted impact on profit, measured in a way your CFO will trust.

Services

Strategic counsel for the decisions that shape the business.

No cookie-cutter packages. Every engagement is built from scratch, in partnership with you, around the question that matters most right now.

  • Marketing strategy

    Brand and performance strategy built around customer intent. Where to play, how to win, and how to split investment across brand, performance and channels.

    A question we answerAre we starving the brand while over-crediting performance?

  • Operating model & transformation

    Organization design, decision rights and ways of working for the AI era, including how in-house teams, agencies and platforms should divide the work.

    A question we answerWhich work should our agencies still do, now that platforms automate most of it?

  • AI strategy for leaders

    A clear-eyed view of where AI creates value across your marketing, where it quietly destroys it, and how your senior team should engage with it.

    A question we answerWhere should we bet on AI this year, and where should we wait?

  • Measurement that drives decisions

    KPIs, incrementality and executive dashboards designed for action. The analytics discipline Avinash is best known for, now in service of strategy.

    A question we answerWhich few numbers should our CEO see every week, and what should each one trigger?

  • Executive advisory

    Ongoing counsel for CEOs, CMOs and leadership teams, plus workshops and keynotes that change how senior leaders think about marketing and growth.

    A question we answerWe have a big call to make. Are we even framing it right?

  • Ways to engage
  • Focused strategy engagements
  • Ongoing executive advisory
  • Leadership workshops
  • Keynotes

Frameworks

Simple frameworks for complex, high-stakes choices.

A few of the frameworks clients use most. Each one is applied to your business, and new ones are built for problems nobody has framed yet.

Newest framework

AI-Era Agency Operating Model

Ad platforms have moved to cars. Most agencies are still selling horses. This model redraws who does what across your company, your agencies and platform AI, so you pay less and win more.

−11

Hand to platform AI

  • Account and campaign architecture
  • Bidding and budget pacing
  • Audience targeting
  • Reporting and dashboards
  • and 7 more areas

+3

Your company owns

  • The reward function: what a good customer is worth
  • First-party signal quality
  • Rules of engagement with the algorithms

+7

Your agency adds

  • Strategic analytics
  • Creative relevance at scale
  • Cross-platform intelligence
  • AI and platform steering
  • Independent auditing
  • Edge innovation
  • Brand growth

25–75%lower agency fees, with new sources of growth.65% at one large company. Your savings depend on courage, culture and capability.

See-Think-Do-Care

Audience shrinks as intent grows

Plan marketing around customer intent, not demographics or channels. One framework aligns content, media and measurement across the whole funnel.

Marketing's Purpose × ROI Matrix

ROI clarity × purpose. Funding flows from ROI+

Sort every marketing investment by its purpose and how clearly it pays back. Each quadrant gets its own KPIs, methods and budget rules, so complex portfolios become simple to steer and the hard calls become obvious.

Modern Analytics Maturity Model

Business impact as data moves from frontline to CFO

An honest diagnosis of how much your data actually moves decisions, across leadership, culture and intelligence. Then a clear path up, where each level multiplies the impact.

New frameworks every week in The Marketing <> Analytics Intersect, Avinash's newsletter for marketing leaders.

About

Avinash Kaushik

Principal, ZQ Insights

Avinash is a strategist, author and teacher who works where marketing, analytics and business strategy meet. He is best known for helping leaders replace activity with outcomes, and opinions with evidence.

He has held Chief Strategy Officer roles, and before that was Senior Director, Global Analytics and Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google. He wrote two best-selling books, publishes a weekly newsletter for marketing leaders, and has spoken at companies, conferences and universities around the world. 100% of the proceeds from his books and newsletter are donated to charity.

  • SpeakingHear his latest keynote →
  • PreviouslySenior Director, Global Analytics, Google
  • BooksWeb Analytics 2.0 · Web Analytics: An Hour A Day
  • NewsletterThe Marketing <> Analytics Intersect
  • TeachingAssociate Instructor, University of British Columbia
  • Recognition
    • Founders Award, Google
    • Most Influential Industry Contributor, Digital Analytics Association
    • Statistical Advocate of the Year, American Statistical Association

Contact

Bring us the decision you're wrestling with.

Email us to set up a time to talk. Share the challenge in front of you and what a great outcome would look like.

If our skills can help, we'll propose an engagement and quote built just for you. If they can't, we'll thank you for your time and politely decline.

Email

avinash at zqinsights.com