Data-Driven Thinking Archives

Goodbye, Outcomes Era? Nah. In 2026, It’s Picking Up Steam

Since I coined the term “Outcomes Era” in November 2024, it’s drawn both fervent support and sharp criticism. Companies like Viant, tvScientific, Permutive and Chalice have adopted it. Industry figures such as Terry Kawaja have used it to frame the ad tech moment. Others, however, argue the Outcomes Era is already fading. But the evidence […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

Ad Tech Doesn’t Just Have A Transparency Problem. It Has A Courage Problem

What type of leadership and attitude do we need to innovate in digital advertising and ad tech? We work in a highly polarized industry where our methods of tackling fraud and providing transparency are shaped by conflicting and self-interested business models. And the industry leaders who loudly and publicly advocate for their interests seem to […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

Your ‘First Of Its Kind’ AI Platform Probably Isn’t The First – And You Don’t Have To Pretend It Is

Don’t ask whether any other company has created a similar product to yours; the answer is probably yes. But there are other ways to stand out.

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Data-Driven Thinking

When The Last Click Disappears: How AI Shopping Breaks Attribution And Rejuvenates Brand-Building

For the past three decades, most of digital advertising has revolved around one obsession: performance. Marketers leaned on channels that could prove conversions: search ads, programmatic retargeting and affiliate links. A purchase trackable to a click was gold. Multi-touch attribution (MTA) models thrived. Conversely, brand-building was often dismissed as harder to justify next to the […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

How To Tell If An AI Vendor Will Still Matter In Two Years

Remember the Cinnamon Challenge, when people filmed themselves trying to swallow a spoonful of ground cinnamon in under a minute? For a short window in the early 2010s, it was everywhere – until it was gone. Now, it’s mostly remembered as one of those “What were we doing?” internet moments. And don’t get me started […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

AI Is Bringing MFA To Social Media. Here’s How Advertisers Can Avoid It

AI has changed content creation overnight. What once required time, skill or a production budget can now be spun up in seconds. That’s led to an explosion of low-quality, made-for-advertising (MFA) content, not just across obscure websites but on social platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Meta. For years, MFA was a mostly web-based problem: cheap, […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

Broadsign’s Big Move Isn’t The Endgame. It’s The Opening Gambit

Broadsign’s acquisition of Place Exchange last week is a defining moment for programmatic out-of-home (OOH). But it is not the endgame; it is merely the setup. The OOH stack is being rebuilt from the inside out. The final owner is not yet in the room. When you look at the sequence of recent deals, the […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

CTV Is Less Transparent Than YouTube. That Should Alarm Everyone

YouTube is more transparent than CTV. Let that sink in. In 2025, the fastest-growing segment in programmatic media is now less transparent than the walled garden we have spent the last decade criticizing for opacity. And the consequences are already showing up in the market. Look where the major media companies landed this quarter. Disney […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

Self-Driving Advertising Is A Myth: Why Automation Can’t Replace Creative Judgment

Generative AI is the new ad land obsession: a shiny promise of a fully autonomous world of self-driving advertising. But behind the hype lies the costly delusion that automation can replace judgment and more content somehow means better marketing. We’ve entered the age of machine-made abundance, where content can be generated faster than it can […]

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Data-Driven Thinking

Why Weakening CIPA Would Hand Big Tech A Free Pass On Data Abuse

Private right of action isn’t just a talking point for future privacy laws; it’s already law. The California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) has included an individual’s right to bring a civil suit since 1967. With privacy under unprecedented attack by data brokers and social media, it is the wrong time to weaken these protections, […]

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