Marketing is having its reckoning. For too long, our industry has been split between brand storytelling and performance dashboards, between influence and instrumentation. But nothing is binary. Businesses no longer ask what marketing did; they ask what it delivered. The question is not new. What is new is the urgency to answer it.
This is not a theoretical shift. It is a commercial correction. Boards and CFOs are demanding more than metrics, they want outcomes. At Platformance, we’ve built our company around this principle: marketing should be held to the same standards as every other business function. Spend, result, proof. If it doesn’t move the commercial needle, it doesn’t matter.
The marketing function has passed through two major eras. The first, rooted in the age of influence, prized creativity, fame, and intuition. Its heroes were ad agencies, and its metrics were awareness, reach, and ad recall. It was high on emotion but low on accountability. Then came the second era ; the age of instrumentation, where digital promised data and platforms delivered dashboards. Clicks, impressions, installs, and views were the new currency. But while we gained measurement, we lost meaning.
A cost per click is not a customer. A lead is not a conversion. An app install is not a transaction. In our rush to quantify, we began to mistake activity for impact. Marketing became complex, but not necessarily credible.
The third era, now fully underway, is the age of outcomes. It isn’t about doing more. It’s about proving more. Growth focused marketers aren’t fighting over attribution anymore; they’re aligning with sales and finance to build a shared model of value. It’s a mindset shift: from fragmented metrics to commercial fluency.
Why Advertising Is the Flashpoint
If you want to understand why this shift is so visible in advertising, it’s because advertising is the most public and most expensive, expression of marketing. Boards don’t see the pricing strategy or CRM workflow. They see the ad. And if the ad can’t demonstrate a return, marketing loses the room.
Advertising has become the pressure point where trust is earned, or eroded. That’s why the outcomes era begins here. Because when advertising fails to convert, it’s not just a media issue. It’s a credibility issue.
At Platformance, we believe marketing should be tied to verified commercial outcomes. That’s why we’ve built the region’s first pay per outcome engine at scale. Every Dollar, Dirham, or Riyal spent must lead to tracked, validated business results. Not in a dashboard, but in the bottom line.
Outcome Marketing is Not a Buzzword, It’s a Mandate
Some critics say “outcomes” is just a rebrand of ROI. But they miss the point. ROI is often misused to measure short term efficiency at the channel level. Outcomes take a broader, more strategic view. They span the full funnel: brand lift, acquisition, retention, and margin contribution. They ask: did this effort create value? And can we prove it?
Importantly, this isn’t just a model for ecommerce or DTC brands. We’ve seen outcomes based models applied successfully across banking, telco, enterprise B2B, and even public sector campaigns. The frameworks differ, but the standard is the same: spend, deliver, verify.
One of the best recent examples comes from First Abu Dhabi Bank, which transitioned its marketing function from activity based metrics to business outcomes. Their results? A 20x increase in digital acquisition share, and over one hundred thousand of verified, revenue generating conversions. Not only did marketing gain credibility, it became a driver of strategic growth.
This correction is happening because the environment demands it. Budgets are under pressure. AI is adding complexity. Privacy regulation is tightening. But more than anything, businesses are out of patience. They expect marketing to justify its cost like every other function. And frankly, they should.
Outcomes marketing is not easy. It requires internal measurement capabilities, cross functional alignment, and executive sponsorship. It means moving from platform reports to internal truth, from attribution systems to enterprise performance data. It also requires marketers to develop commercial fluency: the ability to speak the language of finance, not just funnels.
At Platformance, we are proud to be part of IAB MENA, a community helping drive these conversations forward. As one of the region’s newest members, we’re committed to leading the shift toward measurable, accountable marketing. We’ve built our platform, our team, and our culture around one simple belief: outcomes are the only metric that matter.
This isn’t about replacing creativity with spreadsheets. It’s about making creativity accountable. It’s not about eliminating brand work, it’s about proving its impact. The freedom to test and innovate must come with the discipline to measure and verify.
Marketing’s next decade will belong to those who can align their craft with commercial outcomes. That’s why we believe the era of outcomes isn’t coming. It’s already here. And the marketers who thrive in it will be those who can say, clearly, confidently, and consistently, what they spent, what they delivered, and what it contributed to the business.
Not in theory. Not in dashboards. But in growth.
