Regarding data, there is such a thing as too great an attention to detail, according to Greg Smith, Chief Operating Officer at Neo@Ogilvy “Some clients are too data savvy,” said Smith, which can cause them to “miss the big picture.” Not to say that the stuff doesn’t come in handy. Judah Phillips, senior director of Global Site Analytics at Monster Worldwide, detailed one instance in which data was used exactly the right way. The job search giant recently executed a campaign that was “tagged generously with Altas.” Phillips soon noticed that some of the visitors weren’t really …

How far along are the major measurement companies with the long-awaited Click Measurement Guidelines, which set parameters for defining and counting clicks, and which is being spearheaded by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Media Rating Council? “We’re fairly far along through the process,” said Jon Gibs, VP of Media Analytics at Nielsen Online. “I can not speculate about when it’s going to be finished,” said Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer at comScore.

The metric industry’s still focused on the wrong thing, according to Adam Gerber, Chief Marketing Officer at measurement startup Quantcast. “Measurement” -- by which Gerber means its most traditional form -- “is about measuring things that happen in the past.” “What we need to be about,” he added, “is activation … That’s not going to be solved by traditional approaches.”

During his opening keynote, Jeffrey Eisenberg, co-founder and CEO of FutureNow, is doing his darndest to provoke attendees of the OMMA Metrics & Measurement conference on this stormy Tuesday morning. Despite the fact that a “metrics industry” now exists, it has no “experts,” he says. “Is there anyone in this room who has been doing this for 20 years?” Eisenberg asks. When no one raised their hand, he added: “When I hear someone call me an expert, I cringe.” Eisenberg -- who admits to not finishing his finance degree because it required taking statistics -- claims to …