Experience

Remember those times as a kid when you got into trouble for doing something dumb?

As we left the Principal’s office, my mother used to ask me: “If your friends told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”

Of course my answer was always “no”. 

But that wasn’t the point my mom was making. Whatever I’d been doing that she didn’t want me to, she was telling me that I needed to make up my own mind. 

That I always needed to understand the ‘why’ behind what I was doing.

It’s a lesson that has stuck with me. 

On my bedside table sits a copy of Claude C. Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising (first published in 1923). Yeah, I’m that geek. 

A hundred years ago, Hopkins pushed ‘split testing’ via newspaper coupons. Fast-forward to now, and we call it ‘test-and-control’ in digital ads.

But guess what? This scientific approach to advertising is dying.

The reason? 

AI.

To be more precise: blind faith in AI.

Meta just dropped new features in its Advantage+ suite, promising fewer manual tweaks and more “actionable recommendations”. Meta's updates reflect a shift towards AI-driven systems, minimizing human intervention.

Here is my read on Meta’s update to its algorithms: increasingly, the machine’s telling your media team how to manage your millions of dollars in ad investments (that the CFO will be quizzing you about in your next ‘friendly’ tete-a-tete).

Of course, automation saves time. I’m not a Luddite!

But if digital marketing is an analogy for life, letting algorithms do all the thinking is like letting your GPS plan your next road trip. You might miss out on the scenic route. Or worse, end up in a ditch. 

Do you care enough to drive your own campaign – and truly be in charge of the ad investments that you are a steward of? Or are you going to let autopilot quietly crash your next quarterly review? 

Reflection

I am not against using automation in advertising. 

I am, however, against blind faith – whether it’s in passively relying on anyone else’s algorithms or in my kids’ mindless consumption of their TikTok feeds. 

I want a hypothesis. Every time. (My brilliant team will tell you.)

It’s like that paleo diet I tried when I got into CrossFit a decade ago, back when I still lived in New York City. My ‘my ancestors never ate pasta, so neither will I’ hypothesis turned me into a perpetually hangry caveman.

Those expensive German cars we bought with my wife? Another hypothesis: ‘German engineering is better’. Turns out it’s better at draining my wallet, because the PCV valve malfunctioned ($3,582.20), or the drivetrain mounts are leaking ($2,967.34). 

Same goes for digital ad investments. 

Without a clear ‘why’ we’re just letting someone else (aka Meta’s Advantage+ or Google’s PMax or any other piece of tech) make decisions for us.  

That’s kind of like letting a machine pick your college, your partner, where you work, or what shoes you buy. (It’s actually worse than just flipping a coin.) 

And in digital marketing (just like in life), lack of that clear ‘why’, is a fast track to regret.

Where are you mindlessly hitting ‘auto’ these days – in your digital advertising or in your life?

Action

Here’s a plan to taking back the wheel – and maxing RoAS from your digital ad investments:

1. Step Outside Your Comfort Zone – Next time you toggle a setting in Meta’s Advantage+ or Google’s PMax or any other algo, or see your media team present last week’s results, ask: “What hypothesis are we testing and why?”
   

2. Learn a New Skill – The ‘why’ behind hypotheses gets real – with test matrices. Claude Hopkins pushed them a century ago; they still separate mediocre digital marketers from unstoppable ones.
   

3. Create More Value – Yes, what I am saying is that algorithms alone will not magically fix your RoAS. When your team and your competitors are using the same exact algorithms to beat each other, they both lose, and the ad platform wins. I’ve watched giant brands pour millions down the drain with “set-it-and-forget-it” automated campaigns. They get 20 cents back on $1 invested. Instead, use Human Intelligence as your unfair advantage. Test relentlessly and aggressively to get order of magnitude increases in RoAS.
   

4. Move Up Faster – If you can show the CFO why your ads work, your job (and salary) prospects skyrocket. After 25 years, I’ve seen that the best marketers aren’t just doing better; they’re explaining better because they know what levers drove higher RoAS and growth in revenues.
   

(By the way, these four steps make up my Return on Marketing Career (RoMC) framework—more on that here.)

References

If you’d like to discuss your career journey with me one-to-one, please feel free to email me at [email protected] or message me on LinkedIn.

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