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- [00:07]
A
Measurement and attribution aren't new, but they've never been more in flux. In this episode, Yousef Kattan, founder and CEO of Truth Marketing, joins us to unpack the shifting ground beneath modern measurement. From the fading dominance of last Click to the rise of modeling, AI driven insights and privacy first strategies. Yousef explains why the industry is smarter than ever, yet still far from a single source of truth. He shares how agencies can educate clients, navigate regulation, reconcile platform discrepancies, and build internal measurement muscles that are future ready if measurement feels messy. This conversation's for you. Well, Yousef, thanks for joining me to talk about all things measurement and attribution today.
- [00:45]
B
Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
- [00:47]
A
So, as the founder and CEO of Truth Advertising, how big of a priority is solving for measurement and attribution?
- [00:53]
B
Oh man, I think it's probably one of the biggest ones. You know, the space is evolving quick, where I feel like we could measure a ton of stuff. So we ran to it and probably ignored the things that we should have, which was building brands because it was just easy to measure. And I think as we've evolved, we're seeing that, you know, whether it's gdpr, right, or just different legislation or the types of clients that you're managing, it's getting harder, I think, to place tags and pixels and you know, last click isn't as important as it once was. Like we know that there's a full funnel approach and so finding the right tool, the right environments is immensely important. And I think clients just, even if they don't know they want it, we've got to guide them down that path to make sure that they're empowered to go grow brands appropriately. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a big deal. It's a very, very big deal, more so than ever.
- [01:37]
A
Measurement and attribution is nothing new, but it's constantly evolving. How would you define this moment or this state of measurement and attribution that we're in today?
- [01:48]
B
I think it's in flux, right? So I think you've got a generation of professionals that have been measuring off last click. Google gets all the credit, right? Meta gets all the credit. Walled gardens. Then you've got these environments that are very much full funnel, call it mid funnel, upper funnel, types of tactics that we are now. I think a lot smarter in the way we can see activity. And so whether that's multi touch attribution, right now you've got agile mmms, right? I grew up in not dating myself, but I used to use a media mix model back in the day and you were waiting six months to find out if you did good or not. And at that you're probably risking your job and your livelihood. Now we've got agile mmms that educate us quick, allows us to be nimble in the decisions that we need to make. Yeah, look, I think with the tools that we have, I think we will get better, I think we will get smarter, I think we will put emphasis in the things that we should get away from. Just again this lower funnel environment that just gives us a result until we run to it. And I also think that we're going to have to pivot because the environment's dynamic. I'm of the thought that over the next five years, federally, we won't be allowed to do quite a bit from a measurement standpoint. Right. I think we're going to find collecting any level of data is going to be limited, if any. I think as simple as putting a GA code on a site, whether that's on the brand side or from the government. I think we're going to be limited from a privacy standpoint. So the faster I think we can get to modeling, the better it'll be.
- [03:07]
A
So you mentioned last click attribution as one thing that clients have been hung up on and for some of them they're still trying to sustain it despite the fact that we're in this cookie less future allegedly at this point in time. Are there any other myths that you think clients are hanging on to as it relates to measurement and attribution that they are struggling to understand the state of where we really are at when we think about this category.
- [03:32]
B
I think we have a ton of clients that think that measurement is a one to one kind of solution. Right. Unless you have a product that's on sale online and you are literally clicking and buying off that environment, that's as close as you're going to get to like let's call it 100% reality. I think the modeling of the environment that we're in, whether that's traffic and retail. Right. So we've got a ton of retail clients, so store traffic's a big deal that we measure against, but it's modeled data. They want to take that as fact. We've got to continue to educate them. No, it's directional. It's telling us what's pulling at what level, the things that we need to understand and how do we kind of optimize off of that and then helping them understand that last click again is something that Makes us feel good because there is a direct correlation with specific types of categories or verticals, but that there's a lot that's happening before that user, that consumer hits that last click. And you've got to give equal value and weight to those environments. I think it's more of an education process with clients. I think learning while you're still trying to grow and provide results to an organization is scary. You've got to be able to move them quick, show them proof fast, and ultimately not. Right. Sabotage the business. And so I think that's for them, the biggest deal is how do I go defend this internally? When we've been showing them a dashboard for the last five to 10 years, it shows that Google search is the way to go. Right. And you've got to be able to kind of educate quick and move them down that path fast.
- [04:47]
A
I've got sort of an unfair question for you.
- [04:50]
B
Great.
- [04:50]
A
Based on where we're at right now, if you were to look at a scale of 1 to 10, how challenging of a state of measurement and attribution are we in today?
- [05:01]
B
That's tough. This is a tough question. I would tell you. I mean, I still think we're on the positive side. I give it 7, 8. The only reason I say it's like we're way smarter today than we were last year and two years ago and five years ago and 10 years ago. And so as long as we continue to evolve with intelligence, I will always give it a positive score. I mean, it wasn't too far back where you were putting your finger in the wind and hoping to God that the wind caught you. Right. And that you sold the product you were trying to sell or that awareness group. Now we, we are fairly close to understanding those things a lot faster. And because of the environments we in, we can pivot a lot quicker. Whether that's messaging, whether that's the channel selection, whether that's audience selection. I don't think we're in a bad place. I just think we are in a place of growth and in knowledge capturing that we just never have been. And we're learning on the fly. Like anyone that tells you that it's got it figured out, I'd run fast because no one really does.
- [05:50]
A
I should have clarified the scale point system. I'm guessing you gave it a seven or eight, meaning that seven, eight being we're in a more favorable position versus like one being deeply unfavorable. So when we do look back at the past and there was much more, let's Call it leniency slash. There wasn't as much regulation, therefore we had so much visibility into pii. Was that not in fact more desirable? What is it that we have now besides the fact that there is a lot more regulation? We do know more, but this infrastructure that we've been so dependent upon, don't you still have clients who say we really actually like that a lot better?
- [06:27]
B
Yeah, but I think it comes from a lack of knowledge. Right. I think there is this, this environment in our world that's there is just pure ignorance. Call it naiveness. Right. In the world. And so, yeah, look, I think there was things that we could get away with, like just because we could do it, didn't mean it. That was right. So I think there is an ethical practice that we've got to get to in our business. You know, we, we are fortunate enough to manage a healthcare brand and a large insurance company and we are limited. We, I mean there is no first party data being used. Right. You can't leverage just about anything. But in turn what it's doing is it's making us so much smarter about the business because we can't depend on these tools that we've had at our disposal. A brand is not going to evolve. Continuing to talk to the same audience as they've always talked to. That's what we try to tell people. So that's great. You got first party data, we're going to leverage it, but I can't go continue to grow the people that already know us. We've got to be able to get outside of that. And the way you do that is exploring other ways to measure other environments to test. But if you're locked into historical or legacy thinking, you're not going to move forward. And I think that's, that is the biggest part of challenging what I would say the norm or the client side norm of like, well, no, look, we know it works, but we want you to be smarter for us. It can't be both. And so what works today is not going to work tomorrow. We know that that is the nature of our business. How do we evolve quick to get there? And you're going to have to take a little bit of risk and you're going to have to open up your knowledge base to other environments. And whether that's attribution or measurement or just channel selection, like whatever it is, but it all does come from this environment of I think our tools and our resources and our knowledge today are 10 times greater than they were. I'm telling you, like A year ago. The discussions we're having today are much richer. And the people that want to go back to it, I think I'd be scared. Don't rest on what you know. I think you've got to evolve.
- [08:02]
A
You mentioned that you've become more knowledgeable and you have a responsibility to educate your clients on the limitations. How often are you encountering a client? Let's say they are in the healthcare space or some other type of space that is really strangled by regulation. And they may say, uh, I don't like your answer. So I'm gonna go ask somebody else who's giving me a more attractive opportunity to continue to measure in ways that I find favorable. How do you. I don't wanna say negotiate, but how do you handle those circumstances where they feel the information you're sharing with them maybe is just not putting them the direction that they would like to go in?
- [08:36]
B
Yeah, look, I mean, I think we all get into situations where we hear things we don't wanna hear. I think that's just our job as a partner. And so you've probably leaned into truth for a reason. We try to operate a certain way. We will tell you how it is we know, and we say this in the pitch process, like we're going to challenge you and you're going to hear things you don't like. But ultimately, I think that's what you're needing. We always say, if you need someone just to go do work, we can find great people that can go do that all day. And so we will guide people, we will bring experts to the table. We don't believe that measurement should be owned by the agency fully. But I think there is a process and a responsibility for us to manage it because it's what we are there to do. But we are big on bringing third parties into the conversation. We want to be audited as much as the client probably wants to audit their environments. So if that is a feel that the client has, we will tell them that they can go and find someone else to work with if they feel that that's what's necessary. But we are not gonna steer you down a path just because you think that's where we need to go. So we ultimately are responsible to the brand and to the expectations of which we were hired against.
- [09:35]
A
How have to the other side of that question, how have client expectations shifted in the direction of really having a more realistic understanding of privacy and platform restrictions?
- [09:46]
B
I think it's been positive. Right. It's frustrating. I think we go back to, like, we were able to do a ton of things that we can't do now. But I think clients are, are leaning in. I think they are, from a forward facing standpoint, wanting to learn and understand what they can do and what they can't do. And we're finding ourselves having to talk a lot more with legal. Right. We've got a ton of financial services and fintech type clients too, where before you'd go and put together a recommendation. Well, now we're talking governance and compliance and we're talking about things that maybe even a year ago we weren't. So I think clients understand that their role is to be responsible with the brand and what they're tasked to go do, but do it in a way that, that protects, I think, everybody, right? Their consumers, their environments. I think everyone right now is walking on eggshells because I think we're still learning what that means and I think we've got a moving goalpost with a ton of that stuff. But yeah, I think clients are very open to it. I think they have to be.
- [10:35]
A
I always like to ask people who run agencies about the legal side of things. Like you said, you've learned a lot more about the legal side, but at the end of the day, I believe that you're not Yusuf Katan jd, You're not Yusuf Katan at law. But sometimes it feels like people are coming to the table and asking you questions that go beyond the scope of what you or your team would naturally be knowledgeable about. What does that look like when you talk about legal too? Are we talking about their legal teams? How far can you take them and how do you establish the boundaries?
- [11:03]
B
Yeah, so in the agency, we've got obviously an ad ops team, we've got a data team, and we have an advanced measurement team. So literally under advanced measurement, they are literally handling these types of situations. Fortunately for me, I don't have to manage a ton of those. Right. Like I'm there and I'm learning as much as anyone else. We've got experts that can manage, let's say, a portion of that conversation. I think when it starts to get into legalities and the types of compliance which evolved by the way, by vertical and brand, then we pull in our experts and so we've got a group that we leverage, a law firm that is specifically knowledgeable in this space that we bring to the table and say, hey, this is a situation we're in and yeah, we've got to be careful. We can't go and try to solve things that we don't fully understand. I think that line gets drawn. I think it's just in different places with different brands in different situations. Right. Like I said, healthcare, that line gets drawn way, way sooner. Fintech a little later. Right. In retail, maybe there's a line drawn, maybe there's not. Just depends on what we're trying to accomplish.
- [11:57]
A
More broadly speaking, when it boils down to educating your clients about measurement and attribution holistically, what does that education story look like today? Obviously, it has to be more sophisticated, but what are some of the manifestations that your teams have to bring to the table so that clients are being educated with the level of sophistication that this demands?
- [12:16]
B
Yeah, I think it's the whys. Like, why are we doing this? Everyone can be comfortable and we can continue to go down the path that we've been in. And for the most part, I don't think anyone will necessarily raise their hands and throw a fit. I think people would be like, okay, numbers are great. As long as numbers are great, measurement's great. It's when numbers are bad and we tend to question everything. So I think what we want to make sure and do is make sure that they understand the whys. We're going to take them down this path. It might not be something we activate in the next six months or a year, but we've got to get you there, and this is why. And so it could be smaller brands, it could be big brands. And I think today the advanced measurement environment is accessible. Before it was, you're talking Fortune 100, maybe. Now you can take a regional brand and you can get them set up in an MTA environment, an MMM environment, where they're getting insights that a brand like theirs would never have gotten a few years back. And so I think once they understand that piece, what they find is you're empowering them to go have conversations internally to the CFOs and the CEOs that are saying, well, video and audio don't work. Well, no, they absolutely do. And this is the proof behind it. And this is the measurement environment that we're looking at to help us understand. I think that's the biggest thing. It's like, let's plan for the wise. We're going to empower you before you even asked. But on the flip side of that, you know, I kind of alluded to this earlier. I don't empower you and get you to a place of health. Right. Even though the business is thriving today, it won't always thrive. That is Just a reality that's security not only for this brand and for you, but it's security for the agency. Right. Because we've been a good partner, we want to make sure that we're with you from a longevity standpoint. And so we don't care. Call it in the short term. You really want to think long term for you as well. And so that's what we're tasked with. And I think, again, clients are more than open to understanding where they need to get because they're getting questioned every day by the CFOs and CEOs of the world.
- [13:53]
A
We spoke a little bit earlier, at least there was the mention of the cookieless future slash, death of the cookie. It still pops up here and there. I know you said you have solutions in place, but are there some of the most common solutions that are popular when we talk about a replacement for the death of the cookie? Is it identity graphs? Is it clean rooms? Is it modeled attribution? I know you mentioned MTA and some other things, but what. What is coming up the most frequently across categories?
- [14:21]
B
All of it. I mean, it really is. And I think it goes back to, I think, where the knowledge state is with a client, I think their maturity level with the environment. And so it's everything from, okay, if we're going to get to this place where we're going to leverage your data, is it clean? Right. And so what does that look like? How do we start that process if it's more on the measurement side? And how do we get to a smarter place? Well, what do those tools look like? I think that's a hard question because I think it literally is a different answer for every single brand that we manage. It's funny, I sat on a stage three years ago called Digital Fight Club in Dallas and I thought this whole story about the future and how it was going away two months from that point, we were still managing them. And I think I don't even know the vendor, and I'm talking big vendors know how to get away from it fully because of the repercussions that might come from an investment standpoint, from a knowledge standpoint. So that's a tough one. It's a tough one because I think it just, it varies based on brand and need at that point.
- [15:11]
A
I've got another multi touch attribution question for you. Do you think that MTA models are still viable in 2025 or is the industry very much moving towards this new hybrid approach towards.
- [15:22]
B
Mmm, I think they are. I don't think that should be your, your only call it measurement environment. I think you know what we talk about internally a ton is MTA is, is, is great. It is very media focused on. Right. So you can't go and put in macroeconomic, call it factors that are very important to the environment. I always joke if I had a model that was built around the big beautiful bill and what that was going to do to our business, I'd want to be able to flip that lever on and understand. Right. The efficacy of something like that at a macro level and how it impacts our business. MTA can't do that. And so I think that's the beauty with these agile mmms that are coming out. Right. So you got the lift labs of the world, the ARIMAs that are producing a real time tool that allows you to model in different factors. Now you're operating what I always say is like in an environment where you're playing chess and not checkers and you can really think big. So MTA today, absolutely, I think is still a very viable tool or a way to go measure but it kind of goes back to the same thing. Right. You're dealing with a global pixel four to five years. I don't think MTA will be, could be sooner. So yeah, I think that the closer that we can get to a model that supports the business and the knowledge behind it, the better. It's got to be a model that everyone's bought in on, that can vary and that can be optimized. But I think it is valid today. I don't know if it will be tomorrow. Right.
- [16:34]
A
But yeah, we'll keep our eyes open for that. It is inevitable that if I'm going to talk to you about measurement and attribution that I'm going to have to bring up AI. I think maybe it's poked into this conversation a few times. What do you see? AI most likely reshaping in measurement. Is it going to be creative performance insights? Cross channel attribution? Predictive modeling? One of them. All of them.
- [16:54]
B
It's probably all of them. I think the, just the ability to react quicker. I, I think you said something right now on messaging. The ability to go and learn what's working and at what level and then adjusting to it quickly has been difficult. Right. So I might come back and say, hey, this type of spac and this type of message is really pulling. How do I go get more assets that mirror this? Well then you've got a creative agency scrambling to go build. You've got clients that are trying to get Approvals in place like it is not as seamless as it should be. And I think that's just reality. I think having tools in place, Right. That are driven by AI think will allow us to optimize quick, react quick. Right. Get to market quick. And I think we'll be able to really kind of follow the conversation of the consumer where today we are leading and then following behind them. I think now we'll be able to react quick to what we're seeing them lean in on, optimize. And I think, you know, again, I think just because of accessibility and efficiency to react, the level of insight and data that we'll get back right in those environments are going to be key. We're already doing it. I've seen the data team just drop GA code right inside a model and it kicks back all the insights that we need to learn that would have taken us maybe two days to really digest and understand. Now you're just moving quick. So I'm excited to see what happens with AI. We're investing a ton there. I think like everybody else in our space, we're building out our own tools a little different from more a strategic standpoint. But, yeah, I think it's going to be interesting to see how fast we can move. And I think it's on us to figure out, okay, now that we've got it. We've been complaining that we couldn't move quick because no one had the resources. Well, now we've got it, how do we really move?
- [18:25]
A
Sort of connected back to AI. And also you had, you had mentioned like universal Pixels briefly earlier. Do you think that advertisers will ever get a single source of truth in measurement with AI or just regardless as we head into the future.
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B
No, I mean, I don't. And I think it's whether it's, it's methodologies, whether it's just the way you approach measurement, different philosophies and what's real and what's not. I mean, you've been around this business, you know, like, we battle a client that's stuck in GA and they think GA is the source of gold and you're fighting them, trying to understand, like, no, have you through, like, do you know what a view through is? And we, these are conversations we've had for years.
- [19:04]
A
Yeah.
- [19:05]
B
And we're still having them. So I don't, I don't think that's the case. And I think that's why when you go to set up a measurement plan or strategy or an education piece. Right. With a client, everyone has to be aligned on what that is going in and coming out of it. Right. Because then no one can vary off of that. Even internally. If there is a C level person that's coming in and go, I don't believe your numbers. You can say, well, we've aligned to, though, across the board, right, with your internal marketing team, with your internal data team, and then outside of that with us. This is what we've done, this is why we're doing it. So I hope that I'm wrong. It would make my life a lot easier and probably yours and everybody else's, but I don't think that's going to be the case.
- [19:41]
A
I don't feel like I've seen signs suggesting that it is likely, especially given the last five plus years where there's been so many different partners that have thrown their hat into the ring attempting to offer some sort of universal identity solution. Let's say if identity, obviously identity is core to measure and distribution. And nothing has truly taken off quickly. Nothing has taken off slowly, to be honest. And I'm sure some people would, you know, feel combative relative to that expression. But it does, it does feel unlikely at this time.
- [20:10]
B
It's tough. You get offline measures, you get, you know, data lakes, you get all this. These things that seem incredibly smart, and they are, but to your point, they've never really created the solution. And I think we will continue to fight that battle. And again, philosophically, I think you're going to have people that sit at the table and say, regardless of how good things are, bad things are, they're just, I'm finding, I'm struggling to believe the numbers aligned.
- [20:31]
A
I don't think there's going to be this single source of truth that things are going to be imperfect. But how do you help clients reconcile discrepancies between, let's say, platform reported results and independent measurement? It's not new. It's a challenge that's been out there. But I think clients are looking for solutions where things continue to be imperfect. How do you address these types of questions that clients are bringing?
- [20:52]
B
I think it's education, so I think beat them to it. I always tell my teams, act like you're about to get the toughest questions over the next 30 to 60 days and let's have the answers ready for them to go. Whether that's in a POV format, whether that's as simple as a communication via email, whatever it is, let's make sure that they're empowered so they're not reacting to an emotion that they see. We are beating them with data, with insight and education. And this is the whys, there's variances. This is how we combat them. We will show you transparently, like your platform numbers versus ours. We will operate under variances if we need to. Like we will go and do all this. I think US agencies tend to get really happy when we win the business. You think everything's going to be great and so you continue to operate off that and then eventually you get hit with these tough questions and now you're scrambling and everyone's on their heels. I'm like, don't ever get on your heels. Like, let's stay on our toes. Let's make sure that we are beating these types of questions. Especially in environments where you know this is going to be the case where there's a long tail kind of conversion factor, where you're not getting that one to one conversion right off the click. Like you've got to go and set this up where they're not questioning with the why everything's so weird and our numbers are different from yours. It's like, oh, you already explained it to me. Okay, now I'm in a better place and now I know what to expect versus catching them off guard.
- [22:01]
A
Yeah, fair point there. I'll wrap up our conversation on this. What's one practical step that every marketer should take today to strengthen their measurement and attribution practice as we head into the future?
- [22:12]
B
I mean look, we, we did it and it was funny with someone that we already had in house. Guy's brilliant. It was funny because he had started on the strategy side planning, super smart. But we always found this innate ability to want to like leverage, right. These advanced measurement discussions. And so about a couple years ago, we empowered him. We said, okay, like is there an appetite to go and lead this under the, the Adopts data team? And he leaned in, full fledged. And so what I would tell people is like, go build a team that can have these conversations and make it their only conversation day in, day out. Because it is that important. I think bringing in an analyst or director of analytics is fine. There's so much out there to understand that there is no way that one person's ever going to be really to lead. And no. So I think you've got to develop the practice and the skill set internally and invest in it. And so I think that would be my biggest thing. Just go get someone that loves it, that is willing to dive in. They can take a non biased approach to it and challenge, both internal and external, to go do right by the brands.
- [23:07]
A
I really respect the philosophies you bring to this to your agency in particular around measurement and attribution. Nobody can do it perfectly and everybody's trying their best. But I think you're putting some good groundwork in place so that your team can succeed and I'm excited to see where things move in the future.
- [23:22]
B
Yeah, trying to. Trying to for sure.
- [23:23]
A
Thanks for the time, Yousef.
- [23:25]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me. Super fun.
- [23:26]
A
Thanks to Youssef Khattan, founder and CEO of Truth Marketing and Media, for his take on measurement and attribution. At this moment, measurement may never be perfect, but as Yousef makes clear, progress beats perfection. In a world of shifting regulation, evolving tools, and rising executive scrutiny, the advantage belongs to marketers willing to challenge legacy thinking, embrace smarter modeling, and invest in real measurement expertise. Like Yousef said, the future won't be handing us a single source of truth, but it will reward those prepared to adapt. If this episode sparked new thinking, share it with a colleague and keep the conversation going. And please give us a five star rating in the podcasting app of your choice. Thanks for listening. I'm Norma sear for AdTech Unfiltered.