Tuesday Thought: Babies & CTRs

Whattup team Let Me Think!

We’re up to 127 readers, and man, you all are in for a treat tonight.

First, you get to hear a bit about Roger Evoy. Roger is today’s sponsor. He’s one of my former clients, and now he’s paying ME instead of the other way around.

In all seriousness, Roger is smart, driven, thoughtful, and collaborative to work with. He’s also a tortured Philly sports fan, which as a tortured New York sports fan, makes him easier to relate to. Check out Roger and holler at him if you wanna talk anything from media to James Harden.

Sponsors are LINING UP. We have a few in the hopper. Get in while supplies last. $3.81 is the new rate. @danny-weisman.

I’m still wrapping my head around this PENN / ESPN / Barstool stuff, so expect that to be the topic of a future newsletter.

Onto to the thought…

Tuesday Thought

Baby benchmarks. A few years ago, I worked on an agency account that was very territorial between the creative and media teams.

It was very Sharks and Jets, a marketing turf war.

Media wasn’t allowed to get along with the creative team, and vice versa.

During a digital reporting presentation, our team was running through the campaign numbers. Things were great, we said. Metrics were, relatively, through the roof. Click through rates were at an all time high.

The creative lead squinted. “What’s the click through rate?” she asked.

We responded with the number. Given that the standard display banner click through rate is 0.10%, maybe we said, I don’t know, it was 0.20%.

She paused. And then she said “why do we care about such a small number?”

Our team and media clients got out the swords and shields and mounted a defense. No! we said. You don’t understand!

And we said a bunch of other bullshit that in hindsight, made no sense.

I’m having a baby. Well, my wife is. I probably buried the lead in this newsletter.

Our little girl is set to come in mid-October.

There have been tests done along the way. A lot of things my wife can’t eat or do. A lot of things to adhere to and follow.

But a lot of this experience has been people telling us, we don’t have to worry.

Why? Because the odds of some things are very low, they say. That they’re so unlikely to happen, that there’s such a small chance, we needn’t worry.

I’ve been reading Expecting Better by Emily Oster. I’m a neurotic Jew, what can I say?

She does a good job outlining just how unlikely some of these things are to happen. Usually the percentage is less than 1 in 100.

Recently, I read a chapter about the likelihood of the baby being born every week before 40 weeks. My wife is approaching 29 weeks.

The chances of her having the baby this week is 0.24%.

Basically, an outperforming click through rate.

And it dawned on me.

The same numbers that other professions cite as being evidence of a very unlikely event, we champion as something that shows what we’re doing is working.

For them, the number represents validation that it is so small not to matter.

For us, the number represents validation that it is significant.

I don’t want to work in an industry whose metrics for success are the numbers other industries point too as microscopic and insignificant.

Let’s stop caring about 0.1% and 0.2%. Because the truth is, its 0.1% or 0.2% of a very big number. Instead, let’s start highlighting and focusing on the millions of people we’ve reached, the millions of people we’ve influenced, the millions of people we’ve gotten to take an action.

It won’t solve world peace, but it might solve a marketing department turf war.

Stay think-think-thinkin,

Danny