Does sourcing campaign cost belong in the deal or in overhead

Closing the books on a quarter of sourcing spend can change the deal answer depending on where the cost gets loaded. Say a campaign runs 3,400 in data and postage over eight weeks and produces one contract that assigns for 9k. Charge the whole 3,400 to that deal and it made 5,600, which raises the minimum acceptable spread. Treat sourcing as monthly overhead and the deal made 9k, with the 3,400 sitting in a marketing line judged once a year. Both are defensible. The per-deal version keeps the operator honest about whether thin assignments are worth the calendar time, and it kills marginal deals early. The overhead version matches how the spend actually behaves, because a list keeps producing for months and a contract in March can come off January mail. Where each one bites: load per deal and an operator will talk themselves out of a 6k assignment that was close to free money on a list already paid for. Run it as overhead and an operator can go a year with a healthy looking deal log and a shrinking bank balance, because nothing in the deal math ever objected. A trailing twelve month cost per contract as the load is a reasonable compromise, though it hides a lot inside an average. Worth hearing how operators doing real volume treat it.