Performance marketing is coming for everyone

In a few years, the currency wars might look "silly"

Last week, I made the trek out to Sandpoint, Idaho, to attend the Kochava Summit. It was an illuminating event, particularly as it was not my usual crowd.

Kochava is a measurement and attribution company, which while pushing into CTV, has deep roots in mobile marketing. The event was filled with many mobile-first businesses, ranging from big media companies to retailers to an independent publisher who produces apps designed to help hunters stay off protected land.

In my typical advertising circles, I’m used to talking to ‘TV People’ about streaming and AVOD, or ‘Banner People’ - who talk about fill rates and bid density. This show was filled with "‘App People’ who speak the language of app installs.

These folks think very differently (cookies? who cares?!) And by all appearances, they are slowly coming for the rest of the industry.

One of the things that struck me is that even though this was the world of the cookieless web, they don’t seem handcuffed by measurement. Rather, everything is viewed though a performance lens - including several of the big traditional media executives who were there. Outcomes aren’t a goal - they rule.

And if you think about it, the TV business is quickly becoming an App Business - and that promises to color every aspect of the industry’s decision making. Including of course, measurement.

Which made me wonder whether these conversations we’ve been having about new currencies and panels and new ways to track reach and frequency are going to look pointless if a few years, especially as performance media takes over, and more of these kinds of executives take on leadership positions.

For example, even the traditional media companies at the Summit, (I won’t say who, as the event was mostly off the record) talked openly the need to move their own colleagues past old-school thinking regarding measurement and branding.

They boasted of bringing more performance metrics to their platforms, which is leading to thousand of new, smaller advertisers.

“Regarding outcomes, we want to really flip the script,” said one attendee. “It feels a little disorienting - after simplicity of TV.”

If more of this philosophy takes hold (driven by the improving performance power of AI), who is going to care about reach and frequency and impressions? One ad buyer from a performance shop at the show put, it’s going to be hard going forward to, “spend more or  less in a channel we don’t have measurement in.”

"If we just take cues from the last five years, TV Is going to move toward performance,” said Jake Richardson, headed of connected TV, Moloco. “Every single channel has followed the same path of digitalization: first, automate execution via programmatic, and then optimize for performance. TV will be no different.”

As I wrote about last week, that’s exactly what’s behind Walmart’s $2.3 billion acquisition of Vizio. The big box retailer wants to bring commerce and accountability to TV, much like Amazon. If anyone can make a market like his happen, it’s those two commerce giants.

All of which promises to upend how TV advertising works. Which won’t be easy for incumbents.

"When you look back at the rise of programmatic execution in CTV, much of this came at the expense of agency linear teams who either didn't want to learn a new technology, or who didn't need to pay attention to those smaller internal teams... until they did,” Richardson said. “

How do you change someone’s mind who’s been looking at reach and frequency for 30 years? Well, if we look at many of the programmatic teams at agencies and brands, those teams learned the new digital execution paradigm, so that when that shift did occur, linear teams needed them. This same transformation is going to take place across the industry in performance - growth and user acquisition teams are going to be in the driver's seat when it comes."

Certainly, take all of this with a grain of salt - since these App People may be somewhat biased. Still, you have to wonder, what will be media companies need third party measurement for down the road, if all its doing is counting impressions - when outcomes will clearly drive the business.

I asked Kochava CEO Charles Manning about this during a live podcast interview I recorded at the summit. He called the currency wars a “fruitless wrestling match.”

“What the [advertiser] cares about if they’re really thinking about their business is the outcome,” he said. “Did if drive the things that I care about?…you’ve got this potential remit Game of Thrones opportunity amongst professionals in the ad buying business who can say, I’m going to take over that [measurement] remit because I’m better positioned to do so, and they’ll have a really good argument to do that.”