Attention is not acquisition

Reach is the easiest number in marketing to move. Spend more, target wider, publish more often, and impressions climb. What rarely climbs at the same rate is the number of people who decided to become customers.

The gap exists because attention and action require different things. Attention requires interruption. Action requires resolution — a specific question answered, a hesitation addressed, a next step made obvious enough to take today.

When a campaign underperforms, the instinct is to add reach. A more useful first question is what happens in the thirty seconds after someone notices you. If nothing is designed for that moment, more attention will simply produce more people who never move.

This is the argument for people in the acquisition process. A person can hear an objection and respond to it. A channel cannot.