- Digital measurement is less precise than it appears
- Algorithms optimise for platforms, not necessarily for your brand
- Creative is the biggest driver of performance, not targeting
- Over-investing in performance marketing limits growth
- Virality cannot be engineered on demand
Digital marketing has never had more tools, targeting options, and dashboards. And yet, many brands are working harder than ever for returns that feel smaller than they should. Often, the reason for this is that brands are still following ‘conventional wisdom’ that has become outdated or which was never true in the first place. The result is that their campaigns are getting held back by counterproductive practices.
Taken too far, these myths lead to misallocated budgets, uninspired creative and strategies that optimise for the wrong outcomes.
In this article, I look at five common myths shaping digital marketing decisions today, what the evidence actually shows and what to do differently.
Myth 1: Digital is fully measurable
The myth: Because it’s digital, we can measure outcomes with precision. We do not need to rely on guesswork because the data tells us exactly what is working for us and what is not.
The reality: A growing portion of what we call digital measurement is based on probability modelling. Attribution is increasingly opaque. Many digital marketers have noticed that the gap between click and session is widening.
Reasons for this include ad blockers intercepting tags and pixels before they fire, returning users not getting recognised due to cookie deprecation, and browser privacy features blocking tracking parameters.
We saw this in a recent campaign for a sports league where ticket sales looked very different depending on the reporting source. Conversion API data and GA4 data didn’t align. The Google Analytics tool could not reliably trace sales back to Meta or TikTok, so it filed them under direct (we don’t know where this person came from) or not set (the data was missing entirely). It then claimed a portion of those sales for Google Ads.
The implication: Practically speaking, brands and agencies should look to triangulate data across multiple sources rather than relying on any single reporting tool. Third-party verification and attribution technology are important tools in any marketer’s arsenal.
Marketers will need to shift towards platform-agnostic analytics, conversion API, and differential attribution measurement tools to ensure they are getting accurate insights that contribute to long-term success.
Myth 2: Always trust the algorithm
The myth: Just use the smart bidding tools and let the platforms do the work. Trust that the algorithms will do what is best for your campaign objectives.
The reality: Big tech platforms use their algorithms to optimise for their own objectives, not your brand equity. As Shoshana Zuboff argues in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, tech platforms profit from extracting and packaging behavioural data. When you depend only on smart bidding, you are relying on a system that is structurally incentivised to spend your budget and report favourable results. The goal is to use your data to persuade you to keep spending.
The implication: Smart bidding has its place, but effective optimisation is still human. Leveraging first-party data and reviewing multiple data sources will give you a more cohesive performance and brand picture. With more signals to draw from, you can make more effective and accurate real-time adjustments.
We saw this in practice when we implemented customer lists and lookalikes across one of our campaigns. We saw a 50% improvement in the cost per acquisition, alongside a lift in session duration, relevance and revenue when we tapped into first-party data.
Myth 3: It’s about targeting, not creative
The myth: Many marketers believe that precise audience targeting is the key driver of campaign performance, while the message and execution matter far less.
The reality: Many digital marketers have distanced themselves from creative ideation and input, leading to users getting overwhelmed with repurposed or uninspiring advertising. But intentional creative can stop users in their scroll.
Research from Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) found that advertising creative is the leading driver of sales lift, accounting for 47% of the total, on average.
We have found that testing at least four creative options and tailoring creative to the audience and platform dramatically improves performance. In one case, we remarketed a product with a complimentary offer to existing customers.
By personalising the message and creating bespoke placements, the campaign’s CPA was roughly 10% of the median CPA.
The implication: Creative quality drives effectiveness more than targeting tweaks. Agencies and brands should get digital media teams involved in concept ideation and campaign direction from the outset instead of only handing over when the campaign hits the platforms. Media teams have direct visibility into how audiences behave on each platform, what formats perform and what messaging resonates in different contexts. Involving them early means creative decisions are informed by that knowledge.
Myth 4: Performance marketing gets the results, so all of our budget should go there
The myth: Because performance marketing is a powerful tool for short-term activations, it is the best place to put all of a brand’s budget. If it’s not directly attributable, it’s waste.
The reality: Brands are not built at the bottom of the funnel, but at the top where awareness and recall are created. Performance marketing often harvests demand that a brand has nurtured throughout a longer customer journey. When you over-invest in conversion-only activity, you can hit diminishing returns and end up paying more to convert the same people.
We saw this with a banking brand that was receiving diminishing returns on performance campaigns. Leads remained stagnant even as budgets increased. After running a brand campaign, we recorded about a 40% lift in leads over the next three months, with no increase in conversion spend. And importantly, leads didn’t immediately drop when the brand campaign ended.
The implication: Full-funnel investment drives stronger long-term returns than concentrating your budget only on performance marketing. Brand campaigns should be regarded as the demand generation engine that makes performance campaigns work harder. That is why it is important to allocate meaningful budget to brand-building activity, too, and resist the pull of short-term attribution metrics.
Myth 5: Going viral is a strategy
The myth: There is a code to crack that will enable us to go viral and reap returns exponentially higher than our investment in a campaign.
The reality: Virality is a cultural moment, not a repeatable strategy. As Duncan Watts pointed out in research from nearly 20 years ago, designing messages to go viral is extremely difficult. We cannot predict which messages will spread virally nor which influencers will be responsible for spreading them.
Even the most popular influencers cannot manufacture virality and genuine virality remains unpredictable and elusive. If it was possible to reliably go viral, then of course, every brand with a clever idea and a budget would do so, day in and day out.
The implication: Even if you have the deepest pockets and the most followers, you cannot spend your way to virality. You can capitalise on the viral moment with a timed campaign, but that has to come after. Focus on reaching the right audience with the right message – and enjoy and capitalise the viral moment if and when it happens.
Mateen Suliman is a Johannesburg-based business development executive for digital media at iqbusiness, working with brands to shape and execute data-led advertising strategies. He specialises in digital media strategy, buying and planning across digital, social and mobile, with a strong focus on attribution, measurement, and campaign optimisation technology.
iqbusiness is Africa’s future-focused management and digital growth enabler, founded with over 26 years’ experience. Led by some of the continent’s best thinkers and doers, our purpose is simple: to grow people, business and Africa as one.
