On The Near Impossibility Of Measuring Returns To Advertising (2013) [pdf]

&gt;Our data sharing agreements allow us to sidestep the intermediate metrics that are often used.<p>I&#x27;ve looked through the paper and this bit showed some inadequacy of the research process. I may agree that branding campaigns are really hard to track and the study conclusions may apply to them. Running branding campaigns without a clear conversion event is dumb though.<p>On the other side of the spectrum performance-driven(cost per action, cost per lead, cost per sale) campaigns that include monitoring of all parts of customer journey* offer precise ROI data that doesn&#x27;t need inference.<p>This study is limited in its scope and doesn&#x27;t take into consideration the best methods for tracking ROI for digital ads, concentrating on still popular but outdated method of branded advertising.<p>*Stimulus-Visit-Lead-Repeat visit-Sale-Repeat sale-Recommendation

1) I&#x27;m suprised that this kind of work is going on at Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, etc. Maybe I&#x27;m just unaware, but I thought that was interesting.<p>2) The conclusion of this paper is daunting. It sounds like it&#x27;s impossible to reliably know if a campaign was -10&#x2F;+10% ROI. Only if the campaign was =50% was it then just &#x27;difficult&#x27; and not impossible.<p>Very cool stuff Randall and Justin.