Hasta La Creative!

The old saw about

advertising — that we know half of it is worthless, but we don’t know which half — is an anachronism on the Internet, where data analysis allows us to measure the real value of online ads. Those metrics tell us that the value of consumer data in advertising is growing dramatically, and that smaller publishers are seeing some of the greatest benefit from that growth.

What’s curious is that in the face of these objective metrics, opponents of interest-based advertising continue to argue that it doesn’t provide value. It is impossible to have an intellectually honest discussion about relevancy and interest-based advertising, without acknowledging the simple mathematical truth that it generates a great deal of revenue for a vast number of publishers.

Jason Kint’s recent piece, “Behavioral Advertising Might Not Be as Crucial as You Think,” was nominally aimed at debunking a DAA-supported study, published by economists Howard Beales and Jeff Eisenach earlier this year but is rife with questionable conclusions. What makes the article so disappointing is that it detracts from the legitimate discussion we should be having about how best to provide users with greater privacy and control over data in the era of relevant advertising.

Continue reading at AdAge.com