Measuring ROI is the hardest job in marketing.
“Never spend money on marketing, if you can’t accurately measure it”.
This is a statement you will hear in every business and I 100% subscribe to the sentiment. For over 15 years I‘ve attempted to measure marketing performance. I have measured the directing reporting from digital campaigns, the short-term sales effect of broadcast media and the long term effect of brand activity. I’ve even measured the impact of sponsoring a stadium. The truth is, it’s simply impossible to account for every cent or penny spent on media in an accurate way.
Some agencies will tell you they can measure performance with total accuracy and from here you can model the optimum media plan, but in reality, you need to use a blend of measurement and expertise.
The media exposures delivered to consumers are often too complex and hidden to understand the role every media plays (including friends/family recommendations etc). How can you attribute the value to an out-of-home poster, when the consumer had already been exposed to TV, Facebook ads, a PPC advert and their friend recommended it. How do you award the poster it’s slice of the revenue?
We’re lucky in that digital channels provide direct reporting, allowing for smarter attribution to take place and you can see the path to purchase and award revenue to the respective media. But the old analogue channels of TV, radio, out of home etc, still fail to be credited in these paths and typically an arbitrary reward is given to them when teasing apart their effectiveness in attribution models.
Here are three questions every marketer struggles with and demonstrates just how complex the concept of media attrbution is.
I’ve had a number of media channels live in the last 6 months. Instinctively I know consumers have had multiple exposures. How do I reward each of these channels fairly for their role in the sale?
Brand investment will have a long term media effect - it can live longer in the memory. How do I know?
Brand media provides a brand effect - awareness/consideration/preference etc. How do I attribute this to an effect on sales in the short and long term?
How do I know if my media is driving response or the changes we’re making in the business? i.e. range, prices, sales training etc.
It’s a fantasy to expect every pound/cent to be accounted for, when humans are simply too complex and so many of the exposures are not digitally recorded.
The best marketers will measure as much as possible, but also use their expertise and judgement to deliver the most efficient means of driving sales volume, using soft and hard measures, knowing a blend of direct response short term media and long term branded media will be the most effective way of investing for growth.
Whether you’re investing in econometric models, attribution models, brand tracking or direct reporting, the reality is, the best a marketer can do is follow trends, understand the relationship between media, give credit where it’s obvious, but know that their expertise will aways be required to plan media.
