[reyu]

AdWords brought this kind of statistical rigor to affiliate marketing quite a while back. What you're describing sounds like the bread and butter of that field. The fact that it is only now catching on in the advertising world seems like an indication of just how behind the times the advertising industry really is. They're a little late to the party if they're only now starting to hire people with statistical expertise to help out with these problems. But from what I know of the ad industry being an East Coast old boy's network, this doesn't surprise me too much.