Survey: Marketing Leaders and Innovators Use Data to Prove ROI

Depending on how marketers manage their performance data, they may excel in other areas compared to their counterparts, according to new research.

The “Mastering Marketing Measurement” report showed that 88 percent of “leaders” find it essential to track the performance of specific channels, such as web and social, and 92 percent of “innovators” agreed. This was compared to just 79 percent of “on par” marketers and 67 percent of “basic” respondents.

About 92 percent of innovators and 76 percent of leaders make it a top priority to identify how their content impacts metrics, such as awareness and engagement. This is compared to just 64 percent of basic marketers and 65 percent of on par respondents.

The survey bucketed marketers into groups who said they were on par (average for the industry), basic (doing the bare minimum), leaders (above average), or innovators (ahead of their time) in terms of managing their data.

“Most marketers report that measuring return on investment (ROI) and the desire to optimize campaigns are their biggest concerns or drivers to implement marketing performance measurement,” wrote the authors of the report. “Transparency (the data struggle between advertisers, agencies and publishers) also emerges as a top-of-mind concern for leaders and innovators.”

The Link Between Content Marketing Success and ROI

This is not the first report to indicate that marketers are concerned with proving the ROI of their efforts. The “2017 Marketing Leadership Survey” from TrackMaven found that for the majority of marketers (71.1 percent), their top challenge is proving that ROI is attributable to social and content revenue. Most marketers (69 percent) say they are only “somewhat effective” at demonstrating the value of their marketing efforts as a whole.

“CEOs and CFOs want to know how marketing is moving the business forward, and how it contributes to revenue,” wrote the authors of the report. “Shift your focus away from easy-to-measure vanity metrics like consumption, to those focused on revenue so you can be ready with the numbers those executives really want to see.”