What are Geo Pods?
Geo Pods are the geographic regions Triple Whale uses to run incrementality tests like GeoLift. Rather than using traditional Designated Market Areas (DMAs), Geo Pods are built from U.S. Census Bureau county data and grouped into clusters, then activated at the ZIP code level.
In short: Geo Pods split your ad spend into precise, statistically reliable test and control regions that match how digital platforms actually deliver your ads.
Why we made the switch
Most incrementality testing tools rely on DMAs — a media-market system originally built for TV ratings back in the 1960s. That's a mismatch for how you actually run digital ads today:
Ad platforms don't target by DMA. Meta, Google, and TikTok deliver ads at the ZIP code level — so testing in DMA units doesn't line up with how your spend is actually delivered.
DMAs are too broad. They can lump suburban, urban, and rural areas together even though those customers behave very differently, which blurs your results.
DMAs don't keep up. Their boundaries are fixed and don't reflect population shifts or how you acquire customers today.
Geo Pods solve this. Because they're built from Census county data and activated at the ZIP level, they match how ad platforms actually deliver your spend — giving you tighter, more accurate test and control groups. That precision matters most if your customers are spread across a mix of suburban and urban areas that a single DMA would otherwise blur together.
How Geo Pods work
Foundation: Each Geo Pod is built from one or more U.S. counties, using Census Bureau geographic definitions.
Clustering: Counties are grouped into pods based on population, market characteristics, and statistical fit for test/control matching.
Activation: When you launch a test, ad spend and exclusions are activated at the ZIP code level within the relevant pods, so they match how platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok deliver ads geographically.
It gives you the same test-and-control split DMAs used to provide — just built for how digital ad spend actually gets delivered today.
Where you'll see this
Geo Pods appear in the Incrementality Test Setup Wizard, in step 2 ("Configure Your Experiment") where you choose your primary metric, regional granularity, and test scope. Geo Pods is the default Regional Granularity setting — you can also choose State instead. From here on in the wizard, your regions are shown by name (e.g. Atlanta Ga) rather than by DMA name or number.
What this means for you
No change to how you run tests. Geo Pods work behind the scenes in the setup wizard. You'll see "Geo Pods" when selecting Regional Granularity, but the workflow is the same.
More precise geo exclusions. Because activation happens at the ZIP level, including or excluding regions for a platform is more accurate than with DMA-based approaches.
No action needed. Existing tests keep running as configured. New tests will use Geo Pods automatically.
FAQ
Do Geo Pods replace DMAs entirely in Triple Whale?
Yes — for incrementality testing, Geo Pods are now the standard geographic unit across the platform.
Will my historical test results still be valid?
Yes. This change doesn't affect past results — it applies to how new tests are set up going forward.
Can I see which counties/ZIPs make up a given Geo Pod?
Not directly in the product — Geo Pods are shown by name (e.g. Atlanta Ga) rather than by their underlying counties or ZIPs. If you need that level of detail, reach out to your Triple Whale team and they can provide it.
Does this affect MMM or MTA in Compass?
No — Geo Pods are specific to geo-based incrementality testing and don't affect MMM or MTA methodology in Compass.