DecisionLabs is the gateway. Applied decision science, growth architecture, advantageous positioning, and acquisition strategy. Every commercial engagement at Contact Labs starts here.
DecisionLabs sits at the top of every CLG engagement because commercial outcomes trace back to the decisions inside them: who to acquire, what to promise, how to convert, which buyers to keep. The lab applies the DIRECT methodology (licensed under credit to Direct Intelligence) to those decisions, and routes findings into the executional labs across Marketing Science and Contact Craft. The intent is that no client leaves DecisionLabs without knowing which lever to pull first, and why.
The Behavioural Decision Audit. Two to four weeks. The diagnostic that starts every CLG engagement and routes to the executional labs.
Explore decision science →The Customer Journey Blueprint. Six to eight weeks. Designs the buyer, customer, and value journeys that CLG or the client's own team then executes.
Explore growth architecture →Competitive positioning, category definition, and proposition architecture. The strategic work that determines what the market hears when the brand speaks.
Explore positioning →Channel selection, buyer routing, lead magnet architecture, and offer design. The upstream strategy that determines whether the executional labs have anything worth executing.
Explore acquisition strategy →Every commercial CLG engagement starts with the Behavioural Decision Audit. The audit maps buyer decisions, identifies where they break down, and produces a prioritised route through the executional labs. From there, the work is delivered across Marketing Science (SearchLabs, DataLabs, PRLabs, InsightLabs), Contact Craft (SalesLabs, ServiceLabs, LifecycleLabs, ContentLabs), and the other Strategic Foundations labs (StandardsLabs, AILabs, CreativeLabs).
The point of running DecisionLabs first is that it removes the guesswork about which lever to pull. Clients frequently arrive convinced they need more traffic when the actual problem is conversion, or convinced they need automation when the actual problem is positioning. The audit is designed to answer that question with evidence before spend is committed.
Most commercial underperformance is not an execution problem. It is a decision problem masquerading as an execution problem. Marketing spend that fails to convert is usually spending against the wrong buyer, or against the right buyer at the wrong decision point. Sales pipelines that stall are usually stalling because the offer does not match the buyer's decision architecture. Retention leaks are usually the accumulated cost of decisions made months earlier during onboarding or first use.
DecisionLabs works upstream of the executional labs to fix these decisions before spend commits to them. The disciplines in the lab (decision science, growth architecture, advantageous positioning, acquisition strategy) map to the four upstream questions any commercial engagement needs to answer: how do buyers decide, what journey do we want them to take, why should they choose us, and how do they find us.
DecisionLabs applies the DIRECT methodology, a framework developed and licensed by Direct Intelligence that codifies the six variables running through any commercial decision: decision architecture, information processing, rational analysis, emotional awareness, confidence, and translation to action. The framework is used inside CLG as an operational lens rather than a research construct: every audit, every blueprint, every positioning exercise runs through those six variables to make sure nothing gets missed.
B2B decisions run through buying committees, not individual buyers. A typical enterprise decision involves six to ten stakeholders, three or four distinct evaluation stages, and multiple rounds of internal-consensus-building between them. Every step introduces friction. Every stakeholder introduces a different set of decision criteria. Most B2B commercial programmes fail because they were designed for a buyer that does not exist, at a decision moment that never happens.
DecisionLabs runs a B2B Behavioural Decision Audit that maps the actual buying committee, the actual decision stages, and the actual friction points across the buyer journey. The output identifies which stages are eroding conversion, which stakeholders are being missed, and which decision variables (information, confidence, translation) need the most work. Findings route into the executional labs: SalesLabs for pipeline and outbound, ContentLabs for stakeholder-specific collateral, StandardsLabs for the certifications that clear procurement gates.
The B2B Customer Journey Blueprint (delivered under Growth Architecture) then designs the target buyer journey, from first touch through commercial close and into onboarding. The blueprint specifies the interventions, the content, the sequencing, and the measurement. It is the deliverable clients frequently bring in-house to run against, and the anchor document that governs the executional labs that follow.
Consumer decisions happen in seconds and are heavily influenced by cognitive shortcuts, emotional state, and contextual cues. The variables that determine whether a consumer buys, subscribes, upgrades, or leaves are often not the variables the brand is optimising for. Most B2C acquisition programmes lose ground to friction the brand does not see, and most B2C retention programmes lose ground to disengagement the brand does not measure.
DecisionLabs runs a B2C Behavioural Decision Audit focused on the specific decisions that determine consumer commercial outcomes: first-touch attention, category consideration, brand selection, first purchase, repeat purchase, and lifetime value trajectory. The audit reveals where friction hides, where messaging misses, and where the emotional weight of the offer is being under-used or over-claimed.
The B2C Customer Journey Blueprint designs the consumer experience across acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, and lifetime value. The blueprint specifies the touchpoints, the personalisation, the sequencing, and the measurement. It routes into the executional labs across LifecycleLabs (customer journeys, automation, engagement analytics), SalesLabs (conversion programmes), and ServiceLabs (retention and complaints).
For B2C brands operating at scale, DecisionLabs also runs Advantageous Positioning as a category-definition and proposition-architecture exercise. The output is a positioning that survives contact with the market, and a proposition architecture that CreativeLabs and ContentLabs then execute across brand, campaign, and content.
The Behavioural Decision Audit takes two to four weeks and produces the map that determines everything else CLG delivers for you.