How do I keep putting marketing budget where it actually pays off?

You use analytics to know what works and put budget where it pays off. That's the whole game, and most marketers never get there; they spend on habit and hope. Making decisions from evidence instead of instinct is a real discipline. Recognize that the clarity you have is something you built. The risk when your numbers are good is trusting them too completely. Attribution is always a little imperfect, and the channels that look best today can be riding a wave that's about to break, or quietly stealing credit from work you'd cut. Data-driven is strong until the data quietly goes stale. Keep questioning your own winners. Now and then, test whether the channel you're confident in still performs when you change it, and watch for the slow-building bets that your short-term numbers undervalue. Staying sharp means auditing your best guesses, not just acting on them. You're doing the hard part, keep it honest.