• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, July 21, 2015

Forget the likes, clicks and impressions. The advertising industry needs new metrics to make content accountable. 

It turns out content doesn't require sharing to become successful. These shorter measures-- impressions, clicks and likes--don’t fall short, but rather advertisers need to stop relying on these measurements to measure success, agrees a panel about measuring content's impact during the MediaPost OMMA LA conference Tuesday.

Content needs to be accountable for the same things as retargeting, according to Lee Beale, director of business development and analytics at Crossmedia. "Clients know they have to prove the ROI for everything they invest in," he said. "It will become important to find a holistic way."

The irony, Beale said, is content originally produced by brands to live on their Web sites forever. That's find, but Steve Bender, Partner/EVP of Strategy,Greenlight Media and Marketing, said there's too much advertising parading as content.