No doubt about it: Direct response marketers bankrolled the real-time bidding revolution, while brand dollars keep fuelling growth on the reservation side. That is set to change. Specialist exchanges and supply-side platforms open new doors to media that is biddable, targetable and capable of moving a brand. Last month I wrote about the fallacy of [...]

Digital marketing is at risk of becoming a demand-harvesting machine. We’re getting so good at finding audiences that will obligingly convert that we sometimes forget the point of advertising: to change the way people think or act. The combination of tempting economics and easy measurement continues to fuel the growth of digital, but all too [...]

Ad viewability is technically and logistically bewildering. If you need proof, read Jeremy Stanley’s excellent two-part overview of the space on this site.  Today though I’d like to set aside the discussion about nested cross-domain iframes, how many seconds are enough, and so on. Instead I want to explain why viewability is important, and why [...]

“The great thing about digital is that you can measure everything.” Right? For two decades, digital marketers have operated in a quantized world. A digital world, you might say. You either converted or you didn’t. You clicked or you didn’t. You either have a cookie or you don’t. A paid search conversion came from a brand term [...]