This really gets to the heart of the issue. Optimizing for clicks can improve campaign metrics while moving further away from real business outcomes. As measurement evolves, the focus has to shift from volume to signal quality because better decisions start with more trustworthy signals.
I really strongly believe that if we ignored clicks, we start to get much closer to a source of truth, and our attribution models would naturally evolve to improve. It's such an easy metric to track, but it's also so gameable across the supply side of the ecosystem and an easy hook for a demand-side platform to overly lean into and a quality signal that just is not aligned to outcomes at all. Measurement certainly has to evolve, but improving measurement is easier said than done in the age of privacy, so I fear that we're into a round robin without some marketing teams really grabbing the bull by the horns when they go into the boardroom.
Appreciate the perspective, Mike. It's interesting how often "easy to measure" gets mistaken for "best to optimise." The more gameable a signal is, the more important it becomes to validate its quality before feeding it into optimisation and attribution.
This really gets to the heart of the issue. Optimizing for clicks can improve campaign metrics while moving further away from real business outcomes. As measurement evolves, the focus has to shift from volume to signal quality because better decisions start with more trustworthy signals.
I really strongly believe that if we ignored clicks, we start to get much closer to a source of truth, and our attribution models would naturally evolve to improve. It's such an easy metric to track, but it's also so gameable across the supply side of the ecosystem and an easy hook for a demand-side platform to overly lean into and a quality signal that just is not aligned to outcomes at all. Measurement certainly has to evolve, but improving measurement is easier said than done in the age of privacy, so I fear that we're into a round robin without some marketing teams really grabbing the bull by the horns when they go into the boardroom.
Appreciate the perspective, Mike. It's interesting how often "easy to measure" gets mistaken for "best to optimise." The more gameable a signal is, the more important it becomes to validate its quality before feeding it into optimisation and attribution.
Absolutely agree. Easy to capture and gameable probably go hand in hand too!