I thought we'd start on an upbeat note for a change.

And now for something completely different....

This week's theme? I'm a waste of space. My brain continues to be over the Argonut's campaigns and other problems. NewBoss Anais asked if I'd be willing to discuss some stats with a 'Nut one day next week and I offered her a million dollars if she didn't ever make me talk to any of these people again.

The electricity they spent having me in the office and my computer running this week? Was money wasted.

I talk a lot about how I've improved the performance stats for these campaigns, but not much about the bottom line. The bottom line is that the campaigns aren't pulling enough leads to be worth the money spent on them.

At least, that's what the 'Nuts keep saying. When I point out that they're getting double the number of leads they got this time last year, they dismiss that as irrelevant, claming that this year's leads are no good. And that last year's leads were fabulous. I can't figure out if they're suffering from The Good Old Days syndrome or if the kind of lead our business model relies on really is thin on the ground this summer?

And I'm finding it increasingly difficult to care.

I had occasion to need a list of our "best" ads this week, so I ran a report of all the ad variations I've tried this year. Excel choked on the result, so I trimmed it to just ads in campaigns currently active. I wound up with a spreadsheet having 59,000+ ads. Which I subsequently boiled down to 120 "best" ads and another 94 "worth trying again" ads. My head is so tired.

I cannot think through all this hair. Fortunately, I have an appointment for Monday.

(Whoops! I was sitting here, working on a new Gidget client's account and Jason came strolling over to ask me how things are going. I wish I'd heard him coming. I'd have combed my hair or something, in honor of the occasion.)