ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is a vanity metric that can mask unprofitable customer acquisition. By focusing on POAS (Profit on Ad Spend), brands are forced to measure the actual profit generated from advertising, linking marketing directly to bottom-line health and avoiding the trap of 'growing broke'.

Brand campaigns reach the 95% of buyers not currently in-market. Instead of relying on vanity metrics, Square ties this investment to business outcomes by tracking the subsequent lift in organic traffic, which they've found converts better than paid channels.

Leaders often choose expensive, traditional advertising for ego gratification, like a TV spot during a baseball game, over more effective and profitable digital platforms. This preference for the familiar methods of 'yesterday' stifles growth and wastes money in favor of personal validation.

The biggest growth driver is mastering platforms where attention is currently underpriced. Businesses often fail by romanticizing past tactics or obsessing over future trends like the metaverse, completely missing the massive, free opportunity available in the present.

Unlike typical consumer ads, San Francisco's outdoor advertising is dominated by niche B2B startups. They accept that 95% of viewers are irrelevant to reach a high concentration of VCs and tech talent, signaling a strategic return to immeasurable brand awareness over direct-response marketing.

Many large agencies are not truly consumer-centric. Their business model incentivizes focusing on winning industry awards (like Cannes Lions), pleasing internal stakeholders, and navigating corporate politics. This creates a fundamental disconnect from where consumer attention actually is, leading to ineffective marketing spend.

Frame marketing strategy not as managing channels, but as "day-trading attention." Identify platforms where user attention is high but advertising costs are low due to a lack of saturation from major brands. This arbitrage opportunity allows smaller players to achieve outsized results before the market corrects.

Leading marketers confidently invest in high-cost, low-measurability channels like billboards and physical books. They understand that reaching a concentrated target audience builds brand in a way that can't be captured by direct attribution but drives long-term pipeline.

Shift the mindset from a brand vs. performance dichotomy. All marketing should be measured for performance. For brand initiatives, use metrics like branded search volume per dollar spent to quantify impact and tie "fluffy" activities to tangible growth outcomes.