Signal vs Noise

I spoke to someone on her marketing strategy today and I advised her to focus on being the signal amidst the noise of social media etc, and her question made me think about the difference between signal and noise, not just in performance marketing, but in the world at large.

In performance marketing, we’re trained to hunt for signals. The click that suggests interest. The purchase that implies intent. The metric that hints at momentum. But the more you optimize, the more everything starts to look like a signal. You lose the stillness needed to question what the signal actually means.

Noise is seductive that way. It mimics urgency. It dresses distraction up as insight. And if you’re not careful, you end up chasing every fluctuation, calling it a trend. The loop tightens. You respond faster, but think less. You get better at playing the game, but forget why you started playing in the first place.

It’s not just work. The world is full of noise too… especially now. Opinions that shout louder get mistaken for truth. Movement gets mistaken for meaning. There’s a kind of inertia in always reacting.

But signal? Real signal is quieter. It doesn’t beg for your attention. It’s the pattern that doesn’t go away. The question that keeps resurfacing. The quiet discomfort that asks to be listened to, not solved.

And sometimes, signal isn’t a number at all. It’s a feeling, an intuition if you must call it that. It comes in the form of a slight shift in energy. A hunch you can’t quite explain. And if you’re too busy optimizing the surface, you miss what’s really important underneath.

I’m learning to listen differently. Not for what’s loudest or most urgent, but for what feels persistent. To what feels true, even if it’s not immediately legible, or intelligable.

Maybe that’s where the real work begins… where the signal really lives.

Love,

Vx