“I find most clients don’t want to / aren’t interested in the rigor required by testing. Too much transparency, they might look bad.”

No kidding. I dubbed it the Conspiracy of Silence, watching how ad agencies and corporate marketing folks steadfastly refused to test or even generate worthwhile metrics around their work, largely due to fear about the outcome.

Roberta: You have a point about the name calling. Marketers can be a dour lot to begin with; what would we do for fun?

Tom Chandler/Copywriter Underground’s last blog post..For $10/Hour, You Should Write “Perfect” Copy, and Lots Of It

@Tom – No question that DM testing $$$, online essentially free but it never fails to amaze me that even then few of my clients are actively testing/analyzing their results. As far as your last statement, well, the name calling is essentially the marketing foreplay. I’d miss it.

In online marketing, testing really has come into its own; the problem isn’t testing or getting data, it’s interpreting it.

The holy grail now seems to be finding new metrics to measure things like engagement, and I’d love to someday measure long-term values like lifetime customer value. It’s one area where brand marketers and direct response specialists could meet (sans name calling).

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