> One, you presume that advertisers are incredibly naive and don't measure returns. Working in digital media (in Australia) I would say this is actually accura

> One, you presume that advertisers are incredibly naive and don't measure returns. Working in digital media (in Australia) I would say this is actually accurate.... People measure returns not on the impact on sales because its difficult to account for... people are using metrics such as "likes" and size of the email list to know if a campaign is working. The top advertisers do measure the impact down to the user... but most are not willing to pay the money it costs to gather and analyse the data. Instead they follow the trends, under the impression that if everyone else is doing it, it must be right. Part of the problem is that - Most companies run digital through a different team from press, broadcast and other media. - The digital team is almost always very lightly funded compared to the other mediums (its also cheaper to run). Due to the lighter funding it tends to have the more junior marketers. - Many companies run each brand in their portfolio through a different marketing team, so that your dealing with small teams (3-10) of people even for large national brands. - These people are typically not mathematically and technologically trained and typically work with outside vendors to do their work. Don't overestimate the value of facebook ads, they work really well for certain things (some impulse buys, things on the facebook platform, etc), but It doesn't work well (at the moment) for many other products (expensive, niche). Facebook has a lot of potential to adapt this going forward but I am thinking that people are betting on facebook like its a sure thing and am not yet convinced they will pull it off.