#conversion

#conversion

For the last two decades, the internet has operated on a fairly predictable exchange: businesses create content to capture attention, and search engines reward that volume with traffic. The goal was almost always discovery. If you could just get enough people to land on your blog post or landing page, a certain percentage would inevitably buy what you were selling. This incentivized a specific kind of marketing that was loud, promotional and focused on getting the click at all costs.

Video content is one of the marketing channels with the highest ROIs out there, with 84% of marketers seeing increased sales. But for video content to be effective, businesses need to make data-driven decisions about where to invest resources - which platforms, what video formats, which topics. In all of this, there is a major pitfall: Vanity metrics, which tempt businesses into priorities that don't align with their overall business goals.

Joel Miller opens his new book, The Idea Machine, with this famous scene from The Confessions because it sparked his own epiphany. Not a spiritual conversion, mind. What struck Miller during his recent reread was how Augustine marked his place with his finger. This seemingly unremarkable detail - a move any reader has made countless times - forced Miller to reevaluate books as not simply a vessel for ideas, but as history's most successful "information technology."

But by the episode's last act, Joanne has realized that Noah can't maintain his faith and be with her if she won't commit to conversion. "You can't have both, and I would never make you choose," she tells him tearfully over the din of his niece Miriam's bat mitzvah. And so she dumps him - it's the most painless way to move forward - until the episode's final two minutes, when the pair run back into each other's arms once more.

Every touchpoint played a role, but last-touch attribution credits only the finish line.