Teaching about the latest methods and madness in digital media is what we are about at Rooster. But, despite all of the nifty digital tools available to all of us, there remains a serious blind spot for marketers in digital: Measurement with a purpose.

There are plenty of metrics, reports, calculations and analytics. But there is a systemic lack of action based on the numbers. We live in an era where a report at the end of the month is still standard. Sometimes, it's a wrapup report at the end of a lengthy campaign. And only 10 percent of people actually look at the reports, and those people are deemed cutting edge.

The whole process needs to be changed.

  • At the front end, it needs to move to outcome-based pricing models. Items that are $100 cpm should perform better than those that are $20 cpm. Often, then don't.
  • In the middle, it needs to be changed to automated optimizations. Relying on human intervention when the systems can do the work is insane.
  • At the back end, it needs to be changed to include analysis, not lines of metrics in a spreadsheet.

It's time to clean up this mess and get to a place where digital is absolutely ready to be.

MEDIA: It should come to no surprise to you that the political ad spending is going to be going through the roof, possibly exceeding $6 billion by 2020. $1.2 billion of that will likely be in digital. The reason this all matters is if you are buying broadcast or digital and have elements you must have, lock them in early or your rates will possibly skyrocket as inventory dwindles. MORE

ATTRIBUTION/PRIVACY: Apple will finally eat the cookie if their plans to launch a multi-app login feature through an upcoming iOS update. Worse for marketers, Apple has little concern about advertising. MORE ... YouTube will pay a multi-million-dollar fine and possibly block ads on pages where children might be. MORE ... The Internet Advertising Bureau is asking for CCPA modifications. MORE ... Want to know what the Internet thinks about you? Check it out here. MORE

PROGRAMMATIC: The Trade Desk is pushing for transparency guidelines to be passed but Google is pushing back. Who wins when these two giants are colliding? Google, probably. MORE ... Maybe the challenges we face were of our own creation. In a thirst for scale, we forced the vendor stack to allow the black hat inventory, creating all of the brand safety and low quality issues. MORE ... The top ag brand spenders in programmatic so far this year (among the $10.18 million spent) -- 1. Syngenta Crop Protection 15.3%, 2. John Deere 14.24%, 3. Worksaver 10.6%, 4. John Deere Sprayers 7.1%, 5. HarvXtra 4.4%. Source: Media Radar.

SOCIAL: Do you spend two hours and 22 minutes on social media and messaging each day? MORE ... Want your ads to perform better? Have a better headline, take advantage of the unique aspects of the platform, target and hashtag aggressively and make the copy work in the platform. MORE ... In case you are wondering why privacy groups are loudly fighting against the many data points available to the giants, it's to avoid a real Big Brother existence. MORE ... TikTok is the hot social channel to talk about but unless you are openly targeting teens (and probably even if you are) stay far away. MORE ... The history of social media infographic looks back all the way to 1997. MORE ... Snap is stepping up in adoption and among marketers. MORE ... Are you desperately looking for a non-Facebook, non-Twitter, non-Instagram, non-Snap marketing opportunity in social. Reddit and Quora are low competition options with reasonable audiences. Here's a chart comparing them from Social Media Today. MORE