"We Drive Outcomes" Isn’t a Good Message (Sorry, Perion)
I’ve made the argument that we’re in the Outcomes Era of digital advertising, an era in which every company is held to the standard of helping advertisers drive measurable outcomes (mostly sales or the closest proxy to sales). So, you might think I support the adtech companies (of which there are several) whose marketing message is some version of, “We drive outcomes.”
I don’t endorse that message. Yes, the message reflects the adtech company or agency’s awareness that we’re in the Outcomes Era and outcomes are what their customers probably care about, which is good. But the point of a message isn’t merely to name what your customers care about. The point of a message is to answer at least one and ideally multiple of three questions:
What do we do and for whom?
How are we different?
Why does it matter?
“We drive outcomes,” which is a message you’ll currently see on AdExchanger in an ad by Perion that says, “Unlock better marketing outcomes,” is a bad message (as U of Digital co-founder Shiv Gupta pointed out on X) because it doesn’t provide a satisfying answer to any of these three questions.
Ostensibly, the ad answers the first question, “What do we do and for whom?” Perion drives outcomes for marketers. But virtually every adtech company that serves the buy side could claim to do the same. Like all good writing, a better ad would be more specific (even within the bounds of four words). In this case, the copy should nod to how Perion drives outcomes in a way that underscores its competitive advantages.
A glance at Perion’s site reveals that the company generally could stand to improve the way it markets itself by being more specific. If you google Perion, you’ll see the text, “Connecting advertisers with consumers through technology.”
“Connecting advertisers with consumers through technology” … to do what? How does Perion do that differently from its competitors? Why is its approach to adtech especially urgent right now? Why would anyone who read the ad, “Unlock better marketing outcomes” or saw the text, “Connecting advertisers with consumers through technology” want to talk to Perion and not their current creative partner, DSP, or ad network about improving their marketing? All of their competitors (and many adtech companies that do not compete with them) could have the exact same message. So, the problem is vagueness.
Given that, to my knowledge, one of Perion’s differentiators is Undertone, the ad platform known for high-impact creative, better ad copy for Perion might be, “Better Creative, Better Outcomes,” “Creativity that Drives Conversions,” or “Creative Power, Maximum ROI.” All of these ads (two of which ChatGPT generated) nod toward “unlock[ing] better marketing outcomes,” but they’re all better than the Perion ad running on AdExchanger because they gesture toward one of the company’s differentiators. Creative is a unique advantage that will make brands reach out to Perion or at least wonder, “Am I getting the best possible creative units from my adtech partners? If I were getting better creative units, would my ads perform better?”
Specific examples make for better writing, but Perion is not alone — many adtech companies traffic in this sort of vague messaging that amounts to, “We drive better performance for advertisers” or “We drive more revenue for publishers.” These messages are only one step more specific than, “We make our customers more money.”
If your message is something along these lines — “we drive outcomes, performance, or revenue” — you can probably arrive at a better message within a 30-minute meeting by asking yourself, “How do we drive outcomes? What is our biggest competitive advantage in the quest to drive those outcomes?”
If your main marketing challenge is differentiation — and that is the primary challenge for most adtech companies — ensure your marketing messaging underscores your differentiators. Otherwise, your ad is forgettable. And forgettable ads do not drive outcomes.
