Hehehe very true. I tell people what works then they ask me to do random shit. I can't deny you are right at the end of the day I do what they will pay for whether it works or not.
Yes, there are things that can't be measured well. Smart operators tend to not do those things, no matter how common or popular they are.
The very old joke "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half" (John Wanamaker, 1838-1922) was always more about advertising companies pushing advertising than about whether results could be measured.
In politics, look at real people on social media sharing false information and commenting about how they agree with it. Politics is the easiest place for advertising to succeed, because you can use mind control techniques more readily (where you need an "other group" to dislike to cement the self-perception being sold).
What evidence do you have that political campaigns are "smart operators"? Every experience I've had working with political campaigns has indicated otherwise. The performance of political campaigns is exactly what one would expect if you mixed together a bunch of inexperienced volunteers with snake-oil salesmen and showered them with money.
Also, IQ is no defense for persuasion techniques. If you're not keen on the biases influencing your decisions and filters on the world, no amount of intelligence will save you. I think that requires practicing skepticism, both of yourself and of others.
Is this just customer management? How do I find stupider, richer customers and convince them to trade the non-working thing they are currently overpaying on, for a non-working thing that I haven't even made yet, and then charge more for it? It seems very alien to my brain that anyone can function in this manner, but it is very important to me that I get some of this money that is apparently controlled by idiots, so that I can do sensible things with it, such as pay for food and housing. I am aware that this is somewhat hypocritical to take a fool's money and spend it wisely, but I promise that if I ever get enough, I will do something incredibly stupid with the excess. Please help.
I think it is quite difficult to accomplish entirely by yourself
Here is the most common example:
Small business come up with their marketing strategy A and it works they are pretty happy so they invest more into the strategy and get more results, great! They keep doing this and make a small or large fortune doing it, eventually the law of diminishing returns kicks in and they have a problem, they want more results by doing more of A but that isn't working anymore so they come to us and have this conversation.
Client: We have had great results doing A and we want more.
Me: A is working well for you but if you want more results you need to do A and B.
Client: A has worked really well for us so really we want to do more A and get more results.
Me: But doing more of A isn't getting more results, if you want more results you need to do A and B.
Client: Why are you not listening to me? A works really well for us, it gets us good results in the past and we want to do more of it. How much do you charge to do more A?
At the end of the day the client knows for a fact A works and that they are happy with the results and want more.
I don't think it's possible to change some ones mind but I can defiantly target people in the right mindset and then encourage them to act on it.
If the client comes to a marketing agency and wants more A they will do more A, if the client wants more results they will do A and B.
Me: We can do more A for more money!
Client: Fantastic!
a few months later the client will complain they are not getting more results and we will have this same conversation.