101. Attribution Is Breaking: How Marketers Should Rethink Paid Media in 2026 w. Rocket Agency's Adrian Oguz

As platforms push Performance Max, Advantage+ and new modelling systems, we’re entering a world where results often look better in-platform than they do in reality. Behind the scenes, attribution is becoming harder and marketers are being forced to rethink how they interpret success altogether.

In this episode of the Smarter Marketer Podcast, host James Lawrence sits down with Rocket’s Paid Media Manager, Adrian Oguz, to unpack what truly matters when you’re running paid media in an AI-driven landscape. Adrian shares an unfiltered view on automation, performance loops, the limits of attribution and how in-house marketers can step back and measure what actually drives growth, and not just what looks good on a dashboard.

Key Takeaways:

• Why AI-driven campaign types often optimise toward the easiest conversions, not the most valuable ones
• How to recognise when Performance Max has fallen into the “existing customer loop”
• The hidden risks of lead-gen automation and why spam leads often spike before performance improves
• The simple macro metrics that reveal whether your media is genuinely growing the business
• How channels like YouTube can drive huge results without showing any conversions in-platform
• Why creative is becoming the new targeting, especially inside Meta’s evolving ecosystem
• How to design tests that prove whether a channel is actually contributing to growth
• When it’s time to scale spend, and when stability matters more than chasing the next tactic

Guest:

Adrian Oguz is a Paid Media Manager at Rocket Agency, overseeing multi-million-dollar budgets across search, social and programmatic. With his clear, practical approach, he’s led multiple award-winning campaigns for various business types and industries across the APAC Search Awards and SEMrush Awards year after year.

You can follow Adrian on LinkedIn.

Find Us Online:

• James Lawrence LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslawrenceoz/ 
• Smarter Marketer Website: https://rocketagency.com.au/smarter-marketer-podcast 
• Rocket Agency Website: https://rocketagency.com.au/ 
• Rocket Agency LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rocket-agency-pty-ltd/

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About the Podcast:

This is the definitive podcast for Australian marketers. Join Rocket Agency Co-Founder and best-selling author, James Lawrence in conversation with marketers, leaders, and thinkers about what it takes to be a smarter and more successful marketer.