WTF is the signal economy (and should you care)?

The "signal economy" is the new marketing buzzword and I have barely any idea what it means.

I was doing my usual morning browse when I saw Adweek had published a sponsored article declaring the signal economy as the new secret to brand growth.

Guys, I've literally worked in marketing for four years and I struggled to understand parts of it. Not because I'm stupid or I don’t know how to do my job. Because it's deliberately obscure jargon wrapping a relatively simple concept in enterprise software sales language.

There's always a new fkn secret.

Always new jargon that we're all supposed to learn, integrate, and build strategies around before the next thing replaces it in 0.5 seconds.

But how do we know what's actually worth our brain space versus what's just buzzword soup designed to sell measurement platforms?

Strip away the jargon and the signal economy is this: Your apps and websites generate data about customer behaviour > AI systems use that data to optimise marketing > brands with better data infrastructure will have an advantage as AI automates more marketing decisions.

That's it.

The article uses phrases like "behavioural signals," "engagement signals," "outcome signals" to describe what we used to just call analytics.

It talks about how apps are uniquely valuable because they capture authenticated users and transactional behaviour in controlled environments. Which is just saying apps have better first-party data than websites.

The piece emphasises that measurement infrastructure translates raw events into comparable outputs like attribution, incrementality, and ROI. Translation: you need analytics software to make sense of your data.

The author works for a measurement platform company. This is a sales pitch.

Every few months there's a new framework, a new economy, a new era that promises to unlock brand growth if you just understand it correctly.

The signal economy, the creator economy, the attention economy!!! Can’t forget the experience economy. What next! Each one gets positioned as the fundamental shift you can't afford to miss.

This proliferation happens because enterprise software companies need new angles to sell existing products. Consultancies need new frameworks to justify their fees. Industry publications need fresh angles to attract readers and sponsors. Everyone benefits from making marketing sound more complex than it actually is.

The result is that we spend enormous energy trying to understand jargon that often just repackages fundamentals.

First-party data has LITERALLY always mattered. Measurement has always been important. AI automating more decisions based on data isn't revolutionary - it's evolutionary.

When you encounter new marketing jargon, ask: what is this actually saying underneath the buzzwords? Can I explain this concept in normal language to someone outside the industry? If I can't, is that because the concept is genuinely complex or because it's deliberately obscured?

Next: check who's promoting the concept.

Is this coming from practitioners sharing what actually works? Or is it coming from vendors selling platforms, consultants selling services, or publications that benefit from sponsored content? The signal economy article is sponsored by a measurement platform. That context matters.

Look for concrete examples and specific applications. Useful frameworks show you how to implement them. Sales pitches disguised as thought leadership stay vague and aspirational.

If the article doesn't give you actionable steps, it's probably not meant to help you - it's meant to make you feel behind so you buy something.

The signal economy as a concept is moderately useful reframe of existing principles.

First-party data mattering more as third-party cookies die and AI automates decisions, yeah, those things are real. Having infrastructure to actually use that data well - also real!

The signal economy as presented in that Adweek article however. Sales pitch wrapped in unnecessary jargon.

You don't need to adopt their specific framework or terminology to understand that apps generate valuable customer data and measurement platforms help you use it. Hello? Don’t play in my face, that’s a tale as old as time.

The truth is most marketing secrets aren't secret.

Understand your customers, create value for them, measure what works, optimise based on data. Yada-yada-yada. Those fundamentals don't change just because the jargon does.

And the jargon will change, because marketing will always generate new jargon.

New economies, new eras, new secrets to growth. Some will be genuinely useful reframes of how things work. Most will be repackaged basics wrapped in enterprise language designed to sell platforms and services.

You don't have to learn every new framework.

You don't have unlimited brain space for buzzwords that might be obsolete in six months. Sh*t, I sure as hell don’t anyway. Focus on understanding actual customer behaviour, creating genuine value, and measuring outcomes. The jargon will keep changing, the fundamentals won't.

The signal economy is probably fine as a concept. But if you've worked in marketing for four years and struggle to understand the article explaining it, that's not a you problem. That's a jargon problem.

And you're allowed to just... not participate in it.

You’re welcome x

-Sophie Randell, Writer

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