Well, I almost agree. Except that it is really, really tough to make an automated system that takes decisions for optimizing the “site” and the “creative” part of the campaign with out the involvement of humans. I feel there are way too many parameters with varying degree involved in this. The system should submit its best possible solutions and leave the final step of decision making whether to follow them or not to the humans, like Jonathan said, “helping us aim better”.

Suhail
Secondary sales tracking

The basics, the “art, not science” is not what Darren can add. He can add rigorous research too the contributions of the artists. The art produced can and often does have unintended effects beyond the dreams of artists. What Darren can find, is what that effect is, how strong, significant, and predictable it is, and whom it most effects. That knowledge is powerful, and totally outside of the realm of human artistic abilities.

I can not do what you do, Mr. Taylor, but I do know that the human responses to it can be measured. We can never know the true response, or effect, but we can measure it with a surprising accuracy. (at lease, some of us can).

The business is not all science – and that's the beauty of it. We still need art to create a message that resonates with specific audience segments. A world where creative directors paired with data analysts is not that far off, and in some cases, it's here today.

RE: NYTIMES.com article

I hate to break it to you, but advertising metrics have been around a long time. In the 1930's advertisers would use split runs in newspapers to generate the exact same type of metrics. There is always some smug “numbers” guy spouting off the same assured speech about how this is route to success…until it turns out that it isn't. The “big idea” and “catchy phrase” the article so condescendingly refer to are persuasion. Persuasion is the business of advertising and it happens to be an art, not a science. The difference between a price off and a free T-shirt is a false choice. The real choice is imagination or the same old tire tricks that everyone else is doing. If you are going to work in advertising, you need to understand the basics.

Totally agree that algorithms will ultimately do a much better job optimizing than humans — but only if the media strategists/analysts set up the media plan to test and optimize against the right variables.

I think the biggest obstacle towards future-perfect optimization is the lack of supply-chain integration between clients and buying partners. We need clients to share realtime sales data with media buying agencies/exchange partners. To achieve better integration we'll need serious security, confiendiality, and privacy protocols in place.

Once we get to that point, the game changes dramatically.

But to get there, we need humans, not computers

As Darren mentioned, you make a great point with the view-through vs. click-through conversion. Even if you optimized off a specific action, instead of clicks, and allowed for view-through and click-through conversions, you would have to consider the view-through delay. If most of your conversions came from view-throughs, and the average view-through conversion took 7-10 days, it would greatly limit your ability to optimize.

Interesting to see how you and Darren think differently about paperwork getting in the way of optimization…..in my experience, it really depends on how specific the contract is. If you wanted, you could issue a contract with specified impressions by day, by creative size, and by section/target. Or you could just list one line item for the entire campaign. It depends on how much freedom the planner wants to give the account manager to optimize the campaign without having to consult the planner and revise the paperwork.

“What does it mean to say we 'optimize' online marketing? To many, it connotes some sort of 'improvement', but it is far more than a fancy word for 'improvement'. 'Improvement is a lnear, single step in making something better, while 'optimization' is a mathematically rigorous evaluation of the full range of practical options leadin gto the selection of the best available choice.

Here is a good example: Painting a house is not the same as optimizing its resale value (though it helps). If no attempt is made to evaluate the full range of alternatives for spending time and effort on the house, you're merely improving (without 'optimizing') the price your house will bring.”

The distinction between improvement and optimization is important. Given the complexity of point #3, I would say that humans can improve, technologies can optimize.

Media is already optimized to a certain degree, since ad networks already have the algorithms to optimize. So individual network buys are optimized in silos, but the overall plan is only improved. Optimizing across networks will bring huge gains, especially if you get a user-level view of interactions across the multiple high-overlap networks with multiple creative messages. As Jonathan and Darren mentioned, the creative is important too.

You raise some great points to consider. Here are some questions/thoughts based on your notes:

1. Multi-variate testing and optimization is great in theory, but you need to truly separate out specific audiences in order to make it most effective. You raise a great point about “click-based optimization” – clicks vs. view-thru's are different but treated either exactly the same or similar with many brands.

2. Contracts and paperwork get in the way of some optimization, but I've found that Ad Networks are able to optimize within their infrastructure without much paperwork, if any. It's up to the yield manager and publisher/network to make a campaign “work.”

3. Agreed that auditing and universal tech allowing a close-eye on campaigns and companies like DoubleVerify are leading the charge here and providing some forward thinking agencies and clients.