The Marketing < > Analytics Intersect, by Avinash Kaushik
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TMAI #458: Impressions Suck.  - P1.

[ Web Version ]
Excluding those under the age of 16, about 4 billion people use the internet on planet Earth.
If you take all the digital ad impressions reported by ad platforms, and apply them to 4 billion people equally… Each person would be assigned 10,800 ad impressions per day!

If you possess hyper processing vision, 😊, each of those 10,800 ad impressions might take you 2 seconds to process.

That computes to 6 hours Per Person Per Day dedicated to solely to viewing ads. 

[10,800 ads × 2 seconds = 21,600 seconds per day.]

You have much to do each day: 
  • Bathe. Work. Read. Gossip. Commute. 
  • Exercise. Help kids with homework. 
  • Correct the person using the wrong punctuation on the internet. 
  • Deal with that one co-worker who is your secret nemesis. 
  • Worry about the existence of Marks & Spencer after that insane hack. 
  • Tinder. Parents. Oranges. Freaking AI. 
  • Politics. Protests. Pre-texts. 
  • So. So. So. Much. More.
You don’t need much persuading to accept that there are zero humans spending 6 hrs/day watching ads. Not even those whose full-time job is making ads.

And, yet, this preposterous Impressions metric is on your CMO Scorecard. Your media Agency’s fancy schamcy tool is using it to power media planning. Even worse, the tool’s using CPMs (IMPRESSIONS!) to decide where to spend your money – No, no, no Snapchat is more efficient with CPMs of $2 vs. TT’s CPMs of $5!  Even worse than worse, Impressions are the hero of your CMO Brand Scorecard (or it’s even more questionable cousin “Video Views” – look into that if you need a good cry).

It is extraordinary that this never standardized, easily questioned, Impressions/Views Ponzi scheme cooked up by Ad Platforms and Agencies seems to run the advertising world.

It rules, and ruins, advertising (effectiveness and efficiency) globally.

☹️

[Note: At the end of this newsletter, please see the math for the 6 hrs/Person/Day computation by Jacob Sanders. I’ve included Jacob’s links to each vendor’s official claims: GDN (1 Trillion+ impressions delivered/month!), Meta (190 Billion!), RTB (5 Trillion+!).]
What the Heck is an Impression?

In the age when we had three TV channels, no remotes to fast-forward anything, and all advertising was an undistracted forced view: An Impression was a proxy for how many people saw your ad. To account for the fact that we huddled with our families around the black and white TV, multipliers were added. Impressions became: How many people saw our ad?

Today, an impression is anything an Ad Platform wants is to be.
Meta & Google Ad Impression count.
[Image Credit: Krzysztof Bycina]

On Meta's platforms, as long as 1% of the ad is visible for any duration (0.00001 seconds), that is reported as an “impression”.  Importantly: You are charged for that “impression.” 

Meta and Agency W, with their AI-Powered Scalable Automated 2.6-Million API Integrated Global Media Buying Platform, hope that you don’t think too much about what a bunch of BS this is. As long as your Meta CPMs are $0.25 are below your PC Mag CPMs of $0.35, that is all that matters re why spend on Meta ads. And also: Please send the 3% Agency Fees over with your Cost of Ads.

Other ad platforms have the shame to do a little better.
Still, step back, apply some common sense and you'll notice how scammy the whole thing is.

An impression today is simply: 

The firing of an ad platform pixel indicating the microscopic visibility for a microscopic amount of time.

Notice, I did not say visibility of an ad. 

The computation of impression is in some way tied to an ad being delivered somewhere, above or below the fold, but what’s actually being tracked is that pixel. [A little 1 pixel invisible image being delivered by the Ad Platform when your ad is being called from the server.]

An impression today is 7.2 billion miles from the how many humans saw our ad of the TV world we started with.

That it means so little, that it is measured in such a corrupted manner, that it is basically a ponzi scheme*, is the fault of Marketers. They ultimately pay for it. They have the power to not accept crap. They have the power to spend their money wisely. They have the power to be curious. They don’t. A CMO’s email just arrived celebrating the “video views” as the primary indicator of the campaign’s success. 😢

[Note: I know what a ponzi scheme is! I needed something that represents unsavoriness.]
Why did we end up with Impressions as the currency?

Once upon a time, 20 million people visited HotWired.

HotWired said to AT&T: We can show your ads to 20 million people, and we will charge you $1 Per Thousand People who see your ad.

The first bill AT&T got was for 180 million Impressions! [Multiple page views, multiple times per day, by multiple humans.]

AT&T never asked how 20 million became 180 million. And, we were off to the races! 

Since it was easy to trade on activity, and there was little to no way of measuring any digital outcome, Impressions, the most primitive activity metric known to humankind, became the currency of advertising.

AT&T did not have the opportunity to ask: How come you delivered 180 million Impressions/Day, and only 1,800 people came to att.com to see our brochure?
Corrosive Business Problems Created by Impressions.

Today, 31 years after the first Display ad was delivered, the butterfly effect created by an obsession with Impressions has created four underappreciated, deeply corrosive, problems.

Collectively, they harm the art and science of Marketing in profound ways.

Since knowing is the first step, let’s get to it.

#1. An activity-centric advertising world.

Impressions are somewhat related to an ad being delivered (an invisible pixel being fired). It is essential to appreciate the harmful incentives created by a focus on Impressions/Views.

I have a thousand examples. Let me share one, a conversation the other day:
  1. We have never had Brand Lift on your Ad Platform.

  2. You have a massive relevant audience. I want our advertising with you to deliver business impact. 

  3. I want to stop buying ads on tiny screens. Let’s buy ads on the biggest devices, TV. My hypothesis is that all that real estate allows more undistracted attention focused on our creative.

  4. Combined with my Frequency-centric media plan, this will ensure persuasion, and deliver Brand Lift.
The first words from the Ad Platform Representative:
  • I do not recommend that. Your CPMs will shoot up. From $7.5 to $13.
I want to emphasize this is someone I respect and appreciate.

They were focused on the impact of my decisions on the activity-number. That the new strategy would (finally!) have a shot at delivering business outcomes was not on their horizon.

I don’t blame them.

It is what Agencies tend to trade in (efficient activity!), it is what Agencies negotiate (efficient activity!), it is what Agencies prioritize as “value” (efficient activity!). This is a harmful incentive.

I am inherently allergic to being activity rich and outcomes poor.

My reply:
  • If this high CPM gives me a shot at delivering a business outcome… I prefer that over lower CPMs and no business outcome.
And, that’s precisely what we did. We paid more, reached fewer people, but did so with an eye on persuasion, and we delivered +4 Lift in Purchase Intent! We did not Reach a billion people with a spray of uncontrolled Impressions. But, of the ones we did Reach, we delivered a solid Number of People Lifted result. Outcomes over activity.

Let me ask you: What are your Video and Display campaigns being planned to deliver?

I bet, it is activity. CPMs.

I bet, you strip back the fancy fonts and clip art on your Agency sides, spray and pray rules your world?

That in turn creates zero incentives to do advertising that demonstrates to the humans at the end of your ads: We give a sh1t about your precious attention, as we interrupt you.

Because that would require an obsession with outcomes. Which in turn would force thinking about relevance, intent, moments of truth, radically better creative, and so much more. We do none of that.

End Result: Lots of Impression. No business impact.

Whose fault is this? Chief Marketing Officers of the world. Activity-centricity would die if they insisted on outcomes-centricity. That insistence would also create incentives for better advertising that clearly demonstrates we value your attention.

[Premium Subscribers: Please see TMAI #416: Rock Creative Pre-Testing - The Right Way. It outlines why activity-centric Pre-Testing results in low-impact Marketing – and how to do outcomes-centric CPT.]
Next Week!

There are three more corrosive problems to explore: 

#2. Impenetrably complex execution. 
#3. Horribler Media Plans.
 #4. The corruption of MTA & MMMs by Impressions. 

Wrapped in there… How “View-Thru Conversions” end up being an expensive scam, without trust, but verify.

And, while I’m including solutions to the problems already, I’ll share four superseding recommendations that will help you address the strategic challenges.

As you think about your present and future, especially for Brand Marketing, I offer that these two TMAIs have enough problem identification and solutions shared to transform your career.

If you are not a Premium Subscriber, you can sign up here.
Bottom line.

I hope you’ve come to appreciate the strategic implications of something so tactical.

I hope I’ve created an incentive to dig a bit deeper to understand the corruption, and elevate the altitude of what you repor, thus incentivize better behavior by your Ad Platform, Agency, and internal teams.

It is better to trade off activity for outcomes.

Carpe diem.

Avinash.
PS: Super helpful links from an excellent analysis by Jacob Sanders. 

Below are estimated monthly impressions from major players:
  • Google Display Network (GDN): ~1 trillion+ per month (Source: Google Ads reports)
  • Facebook & Instagram: ~190 billion per month (Meta reports)
  • TikTok: ~80–100 billion per month (Industry estimates)
  • YouTube: ~40–50 billion per month (Google Ads data)
  • LinkedIn: ~10 billion per month (LinkedIn Ads reports)
  • X (Twitter): ~30–50 billion per monh (Ad revenue reports)
  • Amazon Ads: ~20–30 billion per month (Amazon Ads insights)
  • Programmatic/Real-Time Bidding (RTB) Networks: ~5+ trillion annually (Industry sources)
  • Connected TV (Hulu, Roku, etc.): ~100 billion+ annually (eMarketer & ad tech reports)
  • Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH): ~50–100 billion annually (Statista & ad agency reports)
 Jacob’s analysis also includes the computation of the Ad industry wanting us to believe that humans spend 6 hours per person per day watching digital ad impressions.
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