

The end of the 'long funnel': Why the first 24hrs of customer interaction might be all that matters
Jul 9, 2025
Paramark News Desk

Credit: Outlever
Key Points
The decay of long-funnel attribution forces marketers to focus on early data points, and traditional visibility metrics must be reimagined.
Marco Fernandez of Hard Rock Digital advocates for optimizing early user actions and prioritizing signals within the first 24 hours of interaction.
Fernandez foresees a future shift to AI-driven discovery, challenging marketers to adapt beyond current platforms and established SEO methods.
We have to focus entirely on early data points. Visibility into the mid- and low-funnel? That's gone. You can’t optimize for a paying user who only converts after three days.

Marco Fernandez
Senior UA Manager
,
Hard Rock Digital
For years, user data left a clear trail of breadcrumbs for marketers to follow. Now, in the age of signal loss, that trail goes cold almost immediately—and the old maps are useless. The decay of long-funnel attribution isn't a temporary problem to be solved; it's a permanent reality that demands marketers must race against the clock for visibility.
Marco Fernandez, Senior UA Manager at Hard Rock Digital and a veteran of growth teams at ByteDance and Playco, believes the answer lies in a radical new focus.
A 24-hour window: Playbooks are out the window for marketers, as the entire funnel has been upended. "We have to focus entirely on early data points," Fernandez states. "Visibility into the mid- and low-funnel? That's gone. You can’t optimize for a paying user who only converts after three days."
This reality forces a fundamental shift in strategy, moving from chasing distant conversions to dissecting early behavior to find a reliable proxy. “We asked, ‘What behaviors do our payers have in common in the first 24 hours?’ For one game, we realized a future payer completes about 15 spins in that first day. So we stopped optimizing for payers and started optimizing for that ‘15 spins’ event.”
The logic is simple but powerful: in a world where data disappears, you optimize for the last reliable signal you can track. “We know a huge percentage of users who perform that action will eventually become payers,” he concludes. “We can only get this by learning from early behavior, because everything else—everything that happens after 24 hours—goes dark.”
Walled garden woes: Focusing on proxies isn't just about better targeting; it's also a defense against the systemic waste baked into the digital advertising ecosystem. Fernandez points to two massive, unsolved problems: rampant ad fraud that outpaces our defenses, and the inability to de-duplicate audiences across the industry's walled gardens. "Google doesn't talk to Facebook, and Facebook doesn't talk to TikTok," he says. "We waste a lot of budget going after the same users, and there's no single tool or solution that will clean this up." It's a reality that creates a deep divide, he notes, acknowledging that while enterprises like his have the resources to adapt, "if you're in a startup, you're in a huge struggle."
Google and Facebook have dominated for a decade. They're mature platforms. I'm excited for what's next—more social platforms, more placements, and figuring out how we get our products into this new AI-driven discovery.

Marco Fernandez
Senior UA Manager
,
Hard Rock Digital
Architect of obsolescence: For Fernandez, who has used AI for nearly a decade, its current power lies in accelerating production, but he's not ready to totally hand over the reigns. "Today, AI makes my work faster, but not necessarily more efficient," he explains. "I can launch a thousand campaigns in an hour instead of a week, but the predictability tools still feed me information to act on."
As AI becomes more a part of workflows, Fernandez looks at it as pragmatic and proactive change. “Over time, AI is essentially going to replace us. There's no exception,” he states plainly. “I'm actively working on the projects that will be the ones to replace me, rather than waiting to be replaced by them.”
He frames this inevitable shift not as a loss, but as a historical evolution, comparing it to the dawn of the automobile. “Imagine the automobile was created, and people who rode horses complained. It's the same thing,” he says. “We are adapting to a new market, and AI will open doors I never thought was possible.”
The new SEO: While many marketers remain locked in a battle for supremacy on today's platforms, Fernandez’s gaze is fixed firmly on the horizon, noting that the current ecosystem is aging and ripe for disruption. “Google and Facebook have dominated for a decade. They're mature platforms,” he says. “I'm excited for what's next—more social platforms, more placements, and figuring out how we get our products into this new AI-driven discovery.”
This isn't a distant fantasy; the tectonic shift is already underway, creating an urgent new challenge for marketers. “Think about it,” he urges. “People are already doing more searches in ChatGPT than in Google. But how do you get your option there? What's the hack to be recognized by the AI as a good game or a good app?”
That future, he posits, might look radically different from the web we know today, moving beyond browsers and apps into a world of direct AI interaction. “People say that, in the future, websites are going to go away. You're just going to have an AI talking to another AI to connect things,” Fernandez explains. “I’m looking forward to what the user acquisition solution will be for that world.”
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© 2025 Paramark, Inc.

The end of the 'long funnel': Why the first 24hrs of customer interaction might be all that matters
Jul 9, 2025
Paramark News Desk

Credit: Outlever
Key Points
The decay of long-funnel attribution forces marketers to focus on early data points, and traditional visibility metrics must be reimagined.
Marco Fernandez of Hard Rock Digital advocates for optimizing early user actions and prioritizing signals within the first 24 hours of interaction.
Fernandez foresees a future shift to AI-driven discovery, challenging marketers to adapt beyond current platforms and established SEO methods.
We have to focus entirely on early data points. Visibility into the mid- and low-funnel? That's gone. You can’t optimize for a paying user who only converts after three days.

Marco Fernandez
Senior UA Manager
,
Hard Rock Digital
For years, user data left a clear trail of breadcrumbs for marketers to follow. Now, in the age of signal loss, that trail goes cold almost immediately—and the old maps are useless. The decay of long-funnel attribution isn't a temporary problem to be solved; it's a permanent reality that demands marketers must race against the clock for visibility.
Marco Fernandez, Senior UA Manager at Hard Rock Digital and a veteran of growth teams at ByteDance and Playco, believes the answer lies in a radical new focus.
A 24-hour window: Playbooks are out the window for marketers, as the entire funnel has been upended. "We have to focus entirely on early data points," Fernandez states. "Visibility into the mid- and low-funnel? That's gone. You can’t optimize for a paying user who only converts after three days."
This reality forces a fundamental shift in strategy, moving from chasing distant conversions to dissecting early behavior to find a reliable proxy. “We asked, ‘What behaviors do our payers have in common in the first 24 hours?’ For one game, we realized a future payer completes about 15 spins in that first day. So we stopped optimizing for payers and started optimizing for that ‘15 spins’ event.”
The logic is simple but powerful: in a world where data disappears, you optimize for the last reliable signal you can track. “We know a huge percentage of users who perform that action will eventually become payers,” he concludes. “We can only get this by learning from early behavior, because everything else—everything that happens after 24 hours—goes dark.”
Walled garden woes: Focusing on proxies isn't just about better targeting; it's also a defense against the systemic waste baked into the digital advertising ecosystem. Fernandez points to two massive, unsolved problems: rampant ad fraud that outpaces our defenses, and the inability to de-duplicate audiences across the industry's walled gardens. "Google doesn't talk to Facebook, and Facebook doesn't talk to TikTok," he says. "We waste a lot of budget going after the same users, and there's no single tool or solution that will clean this up." It's a reality that creates a deep divide, he notes, acknowledging that while enterprises like his have the resources to adapt, "if you're in a startup, you're in a huge struggle."
Google and Facebook have dominated for a decade. They're mature platforms. I'm excited for what's next—more social platforms, more placements, and figuring out how we get our products into this new AI-driven discovery.

Marco Fernandez
Senior UA Manager
,
Hard Rock Digital
Architect of obsolescence: For Fernandez, who has used AI for nearly a decade, its current power lies in accelerating production, but he's not ready to totally hand over the reigns. "Today, AI makes my work faster, but not necessarily more efficient," he explains. "I can launch a thousand campaigns in an hour instead of a week, but the predictability tools still feed me information to act on."
As AI becomes more a part of workflows, Fernandez looks at it as pragmatic and proactive change. “Over time, AI is essentially going to replace us. There's no exception,” he states plainly. “I'm actively working on the projects that will be the ones to replace me, rather than waiting to be replaced by them.”
He frames this inevitable shift not as a loss, but as a historical evolution, comparing it to the dawn of the automobile. “Imagine the automobile was created, and people who rode horses complained. It's the same thing,” he says. “We are adapting to a new market, and AI will open doors I never thought was possible.”
The new SEO: While many marketers remain locked in a battle for supremacy on today's platforms, Fernandez’s gaze is fixed firmly on the horizon, noting that the current ecosystem is aging and ripe for disruption. “Google and Facebook have dominated for a decade. They're mature platforms,” he says. “I'm excited for what's next—more social platforms, more placements, and figuring out how we get our products into this new AI-driven discovery.”
This isn't a distant fantasy; the tectonic shift is already underway, creating an urgent new challenge for marketers. “Think about it,” he urges. “People are already doing more searches in ChatGPT than in Google. But how do you get your option there? What's the hack to be recognized by the AI as a good game or a good app?”
That future, he posits, might look radically different from the web we know today, moving beyond browsers and apps into a world of direct AI interaction. “People say that, in the future, websites are going to go away. You're just going to have an AI talking to another AI to connect things,” Fernandez explains. “I’m looking forward to what the user acquisition solution will be for that world.”
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Looking beyond the CRM to unlock to next generation of AI-enabled go to market strategies
Jul 7, 2025
Paramark News Desk

B2C
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Jun 27, 2025
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B2C
Retail media is shifting digital from borrowed channels to owned ecosystems
Jun 25, 2025
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