It’s What You Learn After You Know It All That Really Counts - Part 1

I’m clearly not the smartest guy in the room. Heading an advertising agency for the past 30 years and buying just a little north or south of $1B in media, you would think I should have picked up a few pointers along the way. But after speaking to most marketing execs these days, it’s obvious I haven’t!

Here’s a few examples:

Them: Traditional Media is no longer valuable. They need to be able to track 100% ROAS. Since most of these tools are not online digital tools, they have no clear path to connect the spend to the sale.

Me: While being able to guarantee that every cent spent on media will produce sales is the holy grail, we’re not there yet. It’s not the only reason to buy certain medias. For decades companies grew their business from these tools and while they were not able to track them to a data dashboard, it still was effective for them.

Them: No one watches TV, listens to the radio, or pays attention to out-of-home, any longer.

Me: So, while no one can argue that behavioral patterns have changed, especially since COVID, I must assume no one listens to the radio any longer, watches TV or sees out of home. Interesting since our country has never digested more hours of total media and has never traveled more in its entire history than it does now. But I will acknowledge much of this really depends on the brand, the product, and the clientele.

Them: I need data and metrics.

Me: Agreed, but do you know how to interpret what you are reviewing and are you looking for the best key indicators? Are you diagnosing rear view mirror data to recap a buy or using it to help predict future behavior?

Them: I must be able to tie every add to an action.

Me: But you aren’t worried about 40% of the digital ads being fraudulent? Or that AI is creating more sophisticated bots that can trick the webmasters? Do those stats play a role in your metrics and data? Or are you just consumed by being able to marry everything to something, no matter the true integrity of the data?

Them: My entire buy must be tracked back to our ad spend.

Me: Really? Sure, it can if you believe our industry’s self-serving ludicrous metrics.

An Example: In a household where the occupant watched a show while being on their phone, because their IP and device number could be isolated, when that phone walks into a retailer and buys the product that was on during the show 30 days ago, that CTV spot takes credit for that sale.

It gets even funnier. Any product ad during that period will also get credit for that sale. So, 20 ads take credit for the same single sale. Do they really believe that someone sees a spot 30 days ago, remembers it when they walk in to make a purchase? I’m lucky if most people can remember what they did last weekend!

That makes no more sense than a single-occupant household having 5 TV’s on at the same time while they go about room to room, cleaning their house and suddenly they report 5 people were viewing that show! Can anyone say Rentrak or Nielsen?

The problem is becoming clearer and clearer and yet so few see it.

I’ll address all that in my next post. Can’t get too long-winded on these posts. You know, digital best practices and stuff. Who am I to argue! LOL

Until then, be well. 😊