Cannibalization vs. Organic Growth Across Creation Sources

Scenario

Management observed strong revenue growth from one creation_source (a channel by which revenue‑generating units such as orders/ads/subscriptions are created). They want evidence on whether this growth is cannibalizing revenue from other sources versus reflecting net organic growth.

Assumptions (for clarity):

• creation_source identifies mutually exclusive channels (e.g., API, mobile, web, partner) for the creation of monetizable objects.
• Revenue can be measured over time (e.g., by week) and aggregated by unit (e.g., geo/market or user cohort) and source.

Question

Design an analysis to determine whether next year’s revenue increase for a specific creation_source (call it Source A) is offset by declines in other sources. Your approach should aim for causal evidence rather than correlations.

Consider methods such as:

• Randomized traffic re-allocation or holdouts
• Difference-in-differences with control groups
• Fixed-effects panel regressions and event studies
• Time-series regression/VAR
• Instrumental variables or synthetic control