Misunderstood Marketing - : We used to buy "eyeballs." Now we must buy "signals." If you don't know the difference, your 2026 budget is already wasted.

From 'Idea Machine' to Strategic Advisor: How I Help Leaders Navigate the AI Shift

I thought I had to be the "idea machine." I was wrong. The real value is in being the bridge between code and commerce. Early in my career, I made a classic mistake. I thought leadership meant being the "Idea Machine." I kept generating concepts until I simply ran out of fuel. I was lucky. I had a strong network of peers who let me lean on them. Today, my role has flipped. As a Principal Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group , I get to be the sounding board for C-level leaders who are navigating the same pressures I once felt. ❖ The Counseling Sessions: "Geek to English" When I sit down with executives, the biggest challenge isn't the technology itself; it's the translation of that technology into business outcomes. This was the core theme of my keynote at the Progress Data Platform Summit 2025 . In this session, I outlined the three critical shifts leaders must make: 1. From "AI Features...

We used to buy "eyeballs." Now we must buy "signals." If you don't know the difference, your 2026 budget is already wasted.

December 07, 2025

The "Signal War" is Here: Why Programmatic Advertising Just Changed Forever

Thank you for stopping by. If you are a Marketing Leader or CEO, you likely view "Programmatic" as a line item for efficiency—a way to automate ad buying. The latest data from eMarketer and LiveRamp suggests that view is dangerously outdated.

Programmatic is no longer just about automation; it is about survival in a signal-starved world. The report identifies a critical pivot point we are facing in late 2025: the move from "Scale" (buying everything) to "Signal" (collaborating to find the truth).

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The Crisis: Signal Loss is Real

For a decade, we relied on third-party cookies to track users across the web. That infrastructure has crumbled. "Signal Loss" refers to the sudden blindness marketers face—we can no longer easily see who saw an ad or who bought the product. This leads to wasted spend and vague ROI.

The Solution: Data Collaboration

The report highlights that the antidote to Signal Loss is not "better tracking," but Data Collaboration. This means:

First-Party Data: using your own customer lists (safely hashed).
Clean Rooms: matching your data with a publisher's data (like a Retailer or NBCUniversal) in a secure environment where no PII is shared.
The Result: You stop guessing. You match your "Signal" with their "Signal" to prove the ad worked.

Why CEOs Should Care (It's Not Just Tech)

This is a financial issue. If your team is still buying open web programmatic inventory without a Data Collaboration strategy (like LiveRamp's RampID), you are buying "ghost impressions." You are paying 2024 prices for 2015 visibility.

The growth areas identified—Connected TV (CTV) and Retail Media—are 100% dependent on this collaboration. You cannot effectively buy ads on Disney+ or Amazon without a strong data signal strategy.

Marketing Leaders: Ask your agency one question today: "What percentage of our programmatic spend is authenticated via data collaboration?" If the answer is "I don't know," you have a leak.

Sources

eMarketer. "Programmatic Advertising Forecast and Ad Tech Trends H1 2025." Insider Intelligence, 31 Oct. 2025, cloud.insight.insiderintelligence.com.

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Featured Post

From 'Idea Machine' to Strategic Advisor: How I Help Leaders Navigate the AI Shift

We used to buy "eyeballs." Now we must buy "signals." If you don't know the difference, your 2026 budget is already wasted.

The Crisis: Signal Loss is Real

The Solution: Data Collaboration

Why CEOs Should Care (It's Not Just Tech)

Sources

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