When something is overwhelming and complex, people
gravitate to simple solutions. For example, free trade and immigration are
messy issues at the forefront of this year's presidential race. Yet 'build a
wall' has emerged the fix-all campaign promise from a leading candidate.
Knee-jerk answers to nuanced problems are easy to mock, but
a similar thing happens in marketing all the time. 'Which part of the media campaign
worked best? Well, the empirical multi-touch attribution model is pretty
complicated, so what's the last ad someone saw or clicked?'
Google, among others, has built an empire based on being the
last click before a sale. It's easy to justify pouring money into the marketing
channel that has the clearest direct link to revenue, even if a TV ad drove
that search query in the first place.
---by-Kofy-Hagan.jpg)
