Measurement remains one of the comms industry’s most enigmatic practices—we all know how valuable and important proper measurement is, yet few are able to harness its full potential.
New research from Brand Innovators and Origami Logic reveals that while most communicators understand the value of effectively implementing marketing performance measurement (MPM) practices, 72 percent of them characterized their organization’s efforts as average or below, uncovering a significant measurement gap.
In addition, the report found that many marketers are still experiencing big challenges when it comes to implementing MPM, the best practice of aggregating and analyzing marketing performance data across various channels (advertising, social, video, etc.).
The firms recently released a report, Mastering Marketing Measurement: Why Brand Marketers Want to Accomplish More with Their Performance Data, based on a survey of more than 250 digital marketers at leading brands across a diverse set of industries.
Marketers across the board realize the value of effectively managing their MPM efforts. The majority (63 percent) of all respondents noted that the adoption of effective MPM practices would increase their focus on measuring ROI, and 62 percent thought that it would improve their organization’s desire to optimize campaigns faster.
But when asked to assess the MPM efforts of their organization by selecting one of four levels, only five percent considered their organization an “Innovator—having a long history of innovation and ahead of competitors,” and 19 percent thought their organization was a “Leader—doing a better job than average.” Meanwhile, the majority of respondents (24 percent and 48 percent respectively) considered their organization’s efforts “Basic—doing the bare minimum,” or simply “On Par—could be doing more but about average.”
Broken down by industry:
- Leaders were centered in the Technology and Automobile sectors, with 40 percent of the respondents in each sector considering their organizations Leaders.
- Retail led the pack (68 percent) of industries with a disproportionate representation of On Par respondents, followed by Personal and Household Goods (61 percent) and Health Care (60 percent).
“The survey clearly demonstrates that brand marketers realize the importance of marketing performance management,” said Marc Sternberg, co-founder of Brand Innovators, in a news release. “It also shows that while many organizations have room for improvement, they are aware of the challenges they must address to take their marketing goals to the next level.”
The survey also found that marketers face a core set of challenges inhibiting their ability to adopt MPM. In particular, 52 percent of the respondents cited the complexity of managing the necessary infrastructure as being extremely or very inhibiting, 49 percent noted the same for integrating data from different activities, and internal resource alignment was indicated by 47 percent.
“The results of the survey are consistent with what we hear when we talk with many of the world’s leading advertisers,” said Steven Wastie, CMO of Origami Logic, in the release. “Bringing together marketing performance data from various channels is not easy, and many organizations are struggling with it. However, most marketers realize there is a payoff if they do it well, so we are seeing increasing emphasis being placed on marketing performance measurement.”
Additional findings highlighted in the report include:
- The overwhelming majority, 80 percent, of respondents indicated that their organization will increase their focus on MPM in 2017.
- More than half of respondents (52 percent) use a combination of internal and external resources to manage their marketing performance data, while 40 percent use only internal resources. The reliance of external resources increases with the sophistication of the organization—38 percent of Basic organizations use a combination of internal and external resources, while 69 percent of Innovators use a combination.
- More sophisticated organizations place a higher priority on most marketing performance initiatives than less sophisticated organizations, but the disparity in priority of certain efforts is particularly striking. For example, 49 percent of Basic organizations place a priority on tracking media spend, while 100 percent of Innovators do. And, 51 percent of Basic organizations place a priority of understanding the ROI of media spend, compared to 100 percent of Innovators.
Download the complete report here.
A total of 252 digital marketers at leading brands across a variety of industries completed the 2017 online survey conducted by Brand Innovators, in conjunction with Origami Logic. Of the respondents, 15 percent were senior level (SVP level or above), 58 percent were VP/director/manager level, and 27 percent were other, with the vast majority (77 percent) focused on marketing as their key area of responsibility. Industries represented by respondents included: financial services, retail, food and beverage, technology, media and entertainment, personal and household goods, travel and leisure, healthcare, and automotive.
