You’re still here. That means something.

Maybe you're a glutton for punishment. Maybe you're still trying to decode last week's chart labeled “incremental attention velocity per attributable pixel.” Or maybe—just maybe—you like your adtech news with a shot of espresso and a punch to the ego. Either way, I'm glad you're here.

Every week, I try to untangle the spaghetti mess we call an industry. Sometimes it’s a rant. Sometimes it’s a meditation on marketing’s midlife crisis. Sometimes it’s just me, screaming into a Slack channel about attribution models that are more delusional than a Hollywood reboot.

What’s this week?? None other than Anthony Katsur, back on the show for the third time—because, apparently, he just can’t quit us. Either that or he enjoys subjecting himself to my questions like a man who enjoys hot sauce on open wounds.

Honestly, I’d have him on every week if I could. He’s blunt, brilliant, and willing to say the quiet parts out loud—often with a side of New York sarcasm that makes me feel seen.

Tomorrow’s episode isn’t just another industry download. It’s personal. And it hit me in a way I didn’t expect. Not as an editor. Not as a marketer. As a human.

So let’s begin. Let’s close out one season, open another, and remember why we keep showing up: not for the charts, not for the dashboards, but for the people.

Stay bold. Stay curious. And know more than you did yesterday.

By the time you finish this sentence, five dashboards will have been refreshed, three ROAS numbers will have “miraculously” climbed, and someone at a holding company will declare a video campaign successful because a 17-year-old in Tulsa accidentally tapped a TikTok ad before swiping to cat content.

Welcome to the era of measurement theater — where every chart looks like a victory parade, but somehow everyone feels like they just lost.

Let’s call this what it is: a full-blown crisis of marketing faith. Campaigns are showing 400% increases in attention metrics and “lift” that’s allegedly defying gravity itself. But behind the scenes? CMOs are clutching their stomachs like they just downed gas station sushi, whispering the same quiet panic: None of this feels real.

Every dashboard today is dressed like it’s heading to prom. ROAS is glowing. Engagement is sparkling. Attention metrics are practically levitating. And yet no one — not even the people who made the dashboards — trusts a damn thing on them.

Why?

Because we’ve gamified the entire ecosystem. Metrics have become the product. Not the campaign, not the creative, not even the audience impact — just the numbers we can shove into a PowerPoint to get through QBRs without losing headcount.

We used to use KPIs to understand performance. Now they’re just points on a scoreboard no one remembers agreeing to. Marketing has become a game of “optimize the number” — even if that number means nothing.

CTR? Just crank up the clickbait.
Viewability? Stick your ad on a meditation app splash screen.
ROAS? Let’s conveniently forget to factor in COGS and cannibalization.

Let’s be blunt: impressions and likes are the cotton candy of marketing — fluffy, sweet, and nutritionally worthless. They look good at the fair, but you wouldn’t build a business on them. Yet we keep chasing these sugar highs while ignoring the steak: retention, customer LTV, actual revenue impact.

Remember when multi-touch attribution was supposed to be the Messiah of marketing? Yeah, instead we got a choose-your-own-adventure novel where every channel gets to write itself in as the hero. Google says it won. Facebook says it won. The DSP says it won. Your CFO looks at the sales numbers and mutters, “Did anyone actually win?”

When everyone’s getting bonuses based on “engagement,” suddenly scrolling past an ad at 2am while half-asleep counts as a win. We’ve redefined success so many times it now includes failure.

Marketing teams are under pressure to show results every quarter — so we chase the metrics that spike fast and crash even faster. Like a Tinder date who seems charming until you realize they “don’t believe in shampoo.”

A 4% lift in brand favorability? Compared to what? Against what baseline? Is that good, bad, or just a rounding error? Data without context is just performance cosplay.

Let’s be wild and radical and… measure things that matter?

Let’s stop confusing platform metrics with business health. Focus on actual results — customer acquisition cost, incremental revenue, LTV, churn reduction. If it can’t survive a finance team interrogation, toss it.

Who cares if a million people saw your ad if none of them remembered it? Track what lingers, not what flashes. Time spent, return visits, brand recall — those are the grown-up metrics.

Get out of the spreadsheet cave. Talk to your customers. Run incrementality tests. Measure sentiment. Watch someone actually use your product. Real insight doesn’t always come from a bar graph — sometimes it comes from a raised eyebrow in a usability test.

We’re not in a measurement revolution — we’re in a metrics mirage. And just because the mirage comes in a slick dashboard with animated charts doesn’t mean there’s water in the desert.

Marketing doesn’t need more data — it needs better questions.

So the next time someone walks into the room boasting a 312% increase in “attention velocity” or some other freshly minted KPI, ask the only question that matters:

“And what did it actually do for the business?”

If the answer is a shrug and a “but look at the trend line,” congratulations — you’re not measuring success. You’re starring in a very expensive performance of Marketing: The Musical.

Stay bold. Stay curious. And maybe turn off the dashboard for a minute. You might just learn something.