"Create all these ads?" That's only half the problem.

Earlier this week on his Publishing 2.0 blog, Scott Karp wrote The Scalability Problem in online advertising models. He joins others in pointing out, "Data-driven digital media, with platforms like behavioral targeting, make it possible, in theory, to show a different ad to each person in each medium, each time they interact with that advertising." But unlike other pundits, he also notes, "yikes, that's a lot of work."

To quote an earlier post of his, "Who's going to create all these ads?"

I frankly think that's the least of the problem. Direct marketers have been versioning and personalizing templates since the advent of databases and laser printers. The real issue as I see it, is that the more complex the system gets, the more opportunities you have for error.

About a dozen years ago, one of those much-hated monopolistic Baby Bells decided to send customized retention letters to high-value customers. To produce these letters, we created about 20 copy blocks to describe new product and service initiatives. The technology team designed systems to read survey results, identify and prioritize customer concerns, choose choose 3-5 of of our copy blocks and put them in the appropriate order.

Do the math and you'll see that this simple approach allowed us to create hundreds of thousands of unique letters. Pretty heady stuff for it's day.

More important, these catalog-like copy blocks gained and emotional context from the opening and closing paragraphs that surrounded them. These copy blocks became proof points. They assured satisfied customers that we were not sitting still, promised dissatisfied customers that the company was improving.

But someone dropped the QA. The most satisfied customers got letters telling them that thousands of customers shared their dissatisfaction and the problems would be addressed. Fortunately, not too many of those letters went out. The vast majority of the letters went to the most unhappy, most angry customers. These letters promised this group, "more of what you've come to expect from us."

These days it's relatively easy to create millions of unique ads. Getting them right and delivering them properly is the challenge.