Marketing to seniors has always relied heavily upon THE Alpha channel: Direct Mail. While still a vibrant conduit to reach that cohort today (and one in which we invest heavily for our clients), as Mr. Bob Dylon suggested, "The Times They Are a-Changin'."

Over the last two decades, we have effectively helped advertisers in the Medicare, medical device, financial, and pharma spaces, all of which define seniors as a primary target market. Mail continues to be a workhorse for those offers, but don't blink; there's a new game in town.

The biggest challenge for modern marketing managers is simply getting messaging noticed. And by "noticed," I mean actual human beings viewing ads. LinkedIn is chock-full of stories of programmatic ad fraud, where real people only see a fraction of the ads supposedly served (thank you, Dr. Augustine Fou + cohorts!). Hucksters, fraudsters, 'made for advertising' websites (MFAs), and AdTech vendors who claim to serve ads but never do, steal money from legitimate advertisers in broad daylight ... all driven by the pressure to achieve impossible campaign results.

The LIV Golf Tour has been in the news lately, announcing a merger with the PGA Tour. They held a recent tournament stop in Washington DC a few weeks ago. The lead up and marketing of the event was outstanding - I purchased a couple of tickets for my wife and me. For the non-golfers, the LIV tour is a disrupter, competing against the PGA tour by luring some of golf’s biggest names with guaranteed money. Whereas on the PGA tour, prize money is only awarded to those who win. (Well, to those who make the cut at each tournament, but let’s not go into the weeds).

I’m a panic shopper. Christmas comes the same day in the same month, every year. This should afford me the ability to purchase gifts throughout the year; stocking up on stuff I know my wife would really love. She’s great at this. By the time the holidays roll around she's already bought for everyone, having started as early as summer. Stress-free and simple.

I was recently asked a simple question, by someone relatively new to adtech -- "if there's so much fraud, who's making all that money?" My answer surprised him. My answer was "everyone." He was expecting me to tell him about crime syndicates, nation states, and master hackers like the ones aggrandized in TV shows and movies. But the proceeds of ad fraud are far more mundane and widespread than that. Any fraud investigator will tell you that the most reliable way to find fraud is to "follow the money." So let's do just that.