The need to drive accountability for sales and revenue contribution among Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) is growing. Today, CEOs expect at least 80% higher levels of ownership and responsibility from their CMOs then in previous years.
To better understand how your companies CMOs can do a better job of measuring in-house marketing to improve your overall ROIs and conversion tracking, read on.
Here’s the Problem.
Marketers have measured consumer sentiment, perceptions, and intentions for over a decade. It comes as no surprise that CMOs are excellent at assessing brand images, reading concept tests, tracking customer satisfaction, and how to predict product launch performances. However, today, new practices require you to link marketing strategies to revenue and profit outcomes which suggests one must rely on behavioral data and not just perceptual data.
Top Three Steps to Connect Marketing Metrics with In-Market Performance:
Step 1. Consider your end game.
You must prioritize the overwhelming amount of tasks that can be measured. The decision regarding what you should regulate must be made during the planning process and well before finalizing marketing programs, initiatives and plans. Rather than jumping in after the fact to assess media performance, it’s ideal to build a media plan that allows you to incorporate measurements from the beginning. Doing this will enable you to develop the appropriate techniques to generate enriching insight.
Step 2. Understand the Different Measurement Techniques.
There are four different types of measurement techniques which may capture incremental sales and revenue.
- Direct Tracking
- Trend Analysis
- Market Testing/ Experimental Design
- Modeling
These options can be used to accomplish different goals, so it’s best to determine which method flows with your plan of action.
Step 3. Don’t Get Trapped.
While marketers do benefit from these tracking techniques, there is a downside.
- Tracking and improving pay-per-click search marketing based on keyword and ad run results.
- Measuring and comparing open rates for specific traunch emails.
- Tracking closed sales back to a single lead source.
The problem here is twofold. First of all, the measurements don’t always provide insight into the incremental revenue and profit impact from multiple contacts. Frequently the media that assist with finalizing the sale doesn’t get any credit, and that deflates their ROI whereas the final consumer touchpoint receives a majority of the recognition which inflates their ROI.
Secondly, too much attention centers on the tactics and not the strategies by which measures support winning improvements. Marketers commonly focus on ROI of PPC. However, CMO’s want to understand the success of their cohesive marketing campaign. Attention paid here suggests the team tracks broader insights such as how offline, mass marketing efforts effect online, paid marketing to determine the collective impact regarding consumers purchase decisions.
The need to better understand and improve tracking measures is here to stay. While the challenges in determining the right outcomes are complicated, it will ultimately enhance profits and drive substantial results while increasing conversion.
