“Performance” is stupid.

Or at least extremely badly misunderstood. Let’s remind ourselves, what is the definition of “Performance”. The one closest to the marketing context we use “performance” in is:

“a task or operation seen in terms of how successfully it is performed.”

Similar words include “capability”, “power”, “operation”, “potential” and others.

So when, where, how and most importantly, WHY did we start distinguishing marketing efforts as being “performance” and “other” or “brand”? Doesn’t all marketing, or any action for that matter, need to perform?

It seems that “performance” has slowly enveloped anything that can be easily measured (emphasis on easily) and put it all in one smug, self-satisfied bucket.

If the short term success can be easily measured, then it’s performance. If you have to make assumptions or something more complex than simple arithmetic while calculating it - then it’s “branding”, or in the words of the most delusional performance marketers - bullshit.

But there’s a problem.

Measuring the most easily trackable metrics puts us in a race to the bottom.

First of all, short termism.

It rules here. If you measure what happened today, if you only take the data that seems the most obvious and easily accessible and try to optimize for tomorrow. There is no room for doubt here. There’s no way to think big. Or bigger than the data from yesterday + X% tells us. No room for imagination, because clearly, all we need is in front of us in the excel report.

That’s fine(ish) if you only care about the next six months. If you want to squeeze every possible outcome of your dropshipping product or strange, borderline scammy service and close up shop and leave town once the public gets wise to it and the 1 star reviews start pouring in.

Not ideal by any means, but fine.

But if you want the product or service you’re creating to last longer, grow into something bigger, establish a connection with your audience… If you want to create a brand that is recognized…

In that case, simply iterating on whatever worked yesterday is not enough.

Another way of putting it would be - do you want people to buy only when you advertise, or do you want people to seek out your product?

If you focus your ads ONLY on making them buy, you’ll never get the latter.

Second of all, channels

Again, same story, different outcome. When we measure only what’s the most obvious, only what’s easy to capture and quantify, we get ourselves into a situation where it’s really hard to justify working with any other media than the ones that can offer us clear numbers. Outdoor, TV, AR filters/lenses, anything audio… How do you get CPAs or CTRs or even CPMs on most of those? And if it doesn’t get measured (easily), it doesn’t get managed…

I’m not saying your brand needs TV, but are search ads really the only option?

And finally, creativity.

I’m not talking about “let’s win a Lion” perception of creativity in this case. Far from it. I’m simply saying that solely relying on the easiest to measure numbers completely robs us of a way to stand out. We optimize ourselves into the lowest common denominator. Ending up faceless and forgotten:

First we decide to measure, which is amazing. So cool! We try to measure the tiniest details and get tired.

Then we decide that it’s too hard to measure EVERYTHING, which is fair enough.

Then we choose the easiest metrics to measure, which is not ideal.

And then, the worst thing happens. What gets measured gets managed. And not in a good way. We lose sight of the bigger picture. Playing with A/B tests that “prove” that a pink background sold more units than a yellow one last week, we get so caught up in the details that we completely lose our brand. If we’re not stupid, we shouldn’t forget about the brand though. Otherwise, when the ads stop, the sales stop. And if the ads get more expensive, or there’s another competitor doing the same A/B tests a little bit better this week… Well, we’re fucked.

To sum up. Stop f***ing around and pretending that “performance” is about measuring clear links between your banner ad and sales only. EVERYTHING is performance.

There’s order which we all strive for so often. Numbers and clear “if this then that” outcomes.

There’s chaos which we usually avoid. Unpredictable. Scary. Strange. And very necessary. Even if in small doses.

Finding balance between the two is our main goal.

Science of business is scaling, but the art of business is meaning. Without meaning, we are going to be competing on a platform of facelessness. The content we create for creation's sake will be useless, as the only differentiator will be speed.

And AI will be able to do things much faster than you.

Have fun measuring!

Bonus:

There’s a lot of very smart people arguing in favor of this, but here are a couple of my favorites:

A paper by V. F. Ridgway (not about marketing, but management more broadly) from 1956 titled “Dysfunctional Consequences of Performance Measurements” that argues that what gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms our goal to do it.

It obviously does not advocate on not measuring. Instead, choosing carefully what needs to be measured and what results matter - that should be the goal.

And obviously, Les Binet and Peter Field’s classic “The long and short of it”. If you’re not going to be bothered to read the book, at least read this article - an interview with them after ten years of publishing the book. Or listen to the accompanying podcast. It’s really interesting, I promise. You're not that busy.

I leave you with this sad quote from the interview:

“A lot of people in marketing weren’t even aware of what was going on. Behind their marketing world this heavy sell was going in at the C-suite, and companies were pulling money out of brand building and developing their own performance marketing operations, and marketing was missing out on that budget. So that became the rally cry as it was going on in a rather clandestine manner.” ??????