Dive Brief:
- Marketers are struggling to reap the full benefits of their steep investments in measurement, including when it comes to budget decision-making, according to a new report from Ebiquity and the World Federation of Advertisers.
- Just 15% of leaders surveyed say marketing effectiveness outputs are a primary influence on budget decisions. Yet, three-quarters of respondents believe more than half of their budget allocations will be guided by measurement-led insights within the next three years.
- No marketers surveyed claimed best-in-class measurement capabilities and the pace of investment in channels such as retail media, connected TV, influencer marketing and artificial intelligence-powered search is outstripping the measurement infrastructure designed to assess the performance of those channels.
Dive Insight:
WFA and Ebiquity’s new report suggests that, while marketers have a wider set of measurement and data tools than ever at their disposal, they lack the organizational rigor and speed to realize the full potential of these solutions. The findings follow industry research that points to CMOs who are being asked to stretch relatively stagnant budgets further while capitalizing on technologies like AI that are positioned to improve efficiency but are costly and complex to implement.
Eight in 10 organizations surveyed by Ebiquity and WFA leverage marketing mix modeling and brand lift studies for their paid media efforts, yet a much smaller share say that insights drawn from their marketing effectiveness approaches affect their budget allotments. Fifty-four percent of marketers also say insights arrive too late to act upon as the timeline for decision-making cycles compresses. More marketers are looking to automation to keep up, but 67% view the maturity of their bets in this area at a low level.
Some challenges can be amplified due to a lack of alignment with chief finance officers on what marketing effectiveness means. Just 14% of companies say marketers and CFOs agree on their definition of effectiveness. Marketers tend to prioritize vanity metrics versus those that point to a real commercial impact, WFA and Ebiquity claim.
Nearly half, or 46%, of marketing organizations are also at the lowest levels of maturity for integrating their data sources into a unified view. Lack of knowledge was apparent elsewhere, with only 4% of marketers expressing high confidence they can separate short-term sales impact from longer-term brand building.
Ebiquity, an independent marketing effectiveness consultancy, partnered with WFA, a trade association for multinational marketers, for the report. The groups surveyed 71 senior leaders across 10 industries globally in the spring and conducted in-depth interviews with 27 of those leaders. Participants included PepsiCo, Ford, Mondelēz and Mars Wrigley, among others.
“The tools are there, the discipline is there, the coverage is there. Where marketers still struggle is to turn all those measurements into decisions that impact the business,” said Sorin Patilinet, who works on global marketing effectiveness and growth strategies innovation at PepsiCo, in a statement attached to the findings.
The gap between the resources marketers pour into measurement and the ability to turn those investments into action could pose further hurdles as focus turns to new channels where measurement tools are comparatively immature, such as influencer marketing and AI-powered search. That said, raw technology sophistication may not be as important as establishing the right operating systems, governance and commercial alignment when it comes to measurement, according to Tom Ashby, global lead for media services at WFA.
“As scrutiny of marketing investment intensifies and new channels continue to emerge, the ability to turn evidence into action may become one of the defining competitive advantages for modern marketing organisations,” Ashby said in a statement.
