How the Sausage Gets Made: Digital Marketing & Attribution

Direct response is where most of the money is in digital advertising, which makes sense—direct response drives real outcomes for brands, and it’s highly measurable. Direct response lends itself naturally to the internet, where attribution is easier than with TV or physical advertising like billboards.

Let’s talk about advertising. First, it’s helpful to distinguish two types of advertising: direct response and brand advertising. Direct response is advertising where the user has already indicated some purchasing intent that the ad simply tries to satisfy. You have a lawnmower shop in Newark and are looking for new customers; a person in Newark ty... See more

Advertising at its core is a market for attention. In any future version of the internet, I’d expect markets for attention to pop up. It’s a natural barter between one party with a surplus of attention and another party with a deficit. It particularly makes sense for direct response advertising. An auction for purchasing intent is a very good way t... See more

Meanwhile, the more recent rise of social media — plus digital publishing and the continued growth of e-commerce — has given brands strong incentives and tools to build direct relationships with their clientele, skipping the retail middlemen and keeping the rest of their margin.

But I absolutely loathe the term content marketing because it sounds so contrived. It sounds like something planned and measured and designed where I don't think that's where the interesting lessons are. I do not think, what is it that the audience exactly wants to hear? That's not where you're gonna get the good stuff. I think the good stuff comes... See more

Because the early edges that some early digital marketers were able to exploit have been competed away, “old school” method are making a come back (direct mail)