My newest column has been published on TechCrunch:
Marketers in the high-tech world who use phrases such as “social media marketing,” “Facebook marketing” and “content marketing” do not understand the basic difference between marketing strategies, marketing channels and marketing content. And Google Analytics is to blame.
In the just over 10 years since the release of the platform in November 2005, too many tech marketers now ignore the difference between strategies and channels, favor digital channels that often deliver lower returns than traditional channels and think that direct responses are the only useful ROI metric.
And all of that is wrong.
Note: I did not write the clickbait headline; that was written by TechCrunch. I would have toned it down. To me, Google Analytics changed a lot of marketing for the worse, but it did not “ruin” marketing.