KPI: What Is a Key Performance Indicator?

KPIs are often seen as a cure to what ails the online ad industry. During AOL's first-quarter earnings call in 2012, CEO Tim Armstrong discussed how he was trying to convince more advertisers to use them:

"The majority of our ad customers are running their display budgets off of KPIs (key performance measures like brand lift)," Armstrong told Adweek. "We need to reconnect brands to KPIs. We've sort of needed to shift from an older display model to a newer display model, and that’s something we’re working through."

Got that? It's time to reconnect with KPIs, man. Dive into that KPI goodness.

What are KPIs, you ask?

Source: KPI: What Is a Key Performance Indicator?