• by OMMA Magazine Writers , April 2, 2008

Like paparazzi giving single-minded chase to a pantyless Britney attacking her pregnant sister with an umbrella, or a sloshed Lindsay swerving through LA on her way to an AA meeting or Nicole Richie eating a sandwich, performance marketers have often shown a tenacious penchant for pursuing clicks above all else. In this issue, we take a look at the dawning of the post-click era, where CPMs turn from red to green.

We stumbled our way through some swank parties this month, like Paris Hilton in Bible-studies class — notably an incongruous Sky magazine (Delta’s in-flighter) green-issue affair and the opening of interactive agency space150’s new SoHo space. And we asked folks we bumped into along the way where everyone’s favorite lead-gen system has been and where it’s going. Well, we all know where it’s been — in bed with every sleazy direct marketer, list reseller and cheap click-me come on out there. The easy lure of total trackability brought on the quest for click-throughs and conversions. But maybe the time has come to wash the PPC sludge off and look over at what we’ve woken up next to in the morning.

At space150’s SoHo soirée they loosened us up with Coppola’s Pinot Grigio and unveiled the agency’s 20th brand image (it changes every 150 days). We showed up on an empty stomach, and while we snarfed down black and white cookies, Caitlin from CJP Communications told us she grew up near Syracuse and John Grudnowski, director of modern media at space150, told us, “Measurement is really determined campaign-
by-campaign and goal-to-goal, but has surely moved beyond measuring just by click traffic.
The value of a click just varies too much depending on the media source.”

Okay, performance marketing, we’ve seen you go from innocent schoolgirl seductress to …oops, I clicked it again to your not a girl but not yet a woman–phase and now we watch expectantly as you emerge full grown and sexy.

The Editors
editorial@mediapost.com