TLDR Tech / Marketing
The W3C Is Making A Critical Mistake About Measuring Advertising Effectiveness
The W3C's proposed attribution standard risks entrenching one of digital advertising's most persistent measurement problems by implying that attribution systems can identify which ads and creatives perform best. Attribution observes exposures and subsequent behavior but does not estimate whether advertising actually caused a conversion, making it structurally biased toward channels positioned closest to purchase activity. Brand-building media like television, audio, and out-of-home are systematically undercredited because their effects are delayed and probabilistic, meaning advertisers optimizing against attribution signals risk steering spend toward demand harvesting rather than demand creation.
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