Does your company measure marketing's return on investment? We recently surveyed marketing professionals to see how their companies measure ROI.

1. MARKETING ROI
SURVEY REPORT
April 09, 2013
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2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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3. Executive Summary
• Many marketers would argue that they have always delivered results and offer up metrics like
brand awareness, impressions, page views, click-throughs, and downloads. And while that may
well be true, when pressed, few can actually provide a definitive, quantifiable answer to the
question, ―What is marketing’s financial impact on the business? What is the ROI of our marketing
efforts?‖
• Marketers that express the highest satisfaction with their ability to measure and report on
marketing ROI approach the task differently than their counterparts: they are more technologically
enabled in their reporting, experience fewer data challenges, and integrate with their counterparts
in other departments. There also appears to be some lack of consistency as to what the definition
of marketing ROI actually is.
• Technology — and the ability to leverage it effectively — is a critical factor in the marketing
organization’s perceptions of its effectiveness or lack thereof.
• Specifically, possessing accurate data and then being able to effectively integrate disparate data
from multiple sources is the defining capability and difference between those who can and those
who can’t report the return on investment in marketing.
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4. About the research
• Winsper conducted an online survey of senior marketing leadership (director and above) randomly
recruited from large, global enterprises (1,000+ employees and $1B+ in revenues) in both
business-to-business and business-to-consumer industries. Eighty-five respondents from
industries ranging from financial services, pharmaceuticals, and CPG, to enterprise
technology, medical devices, and transportation completed the survey.
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5. FINDINGS
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6. Importance of measuring marketing ROI
• Not surprisingly, our respondents indicate
that measuring marketing’s ROI (ROI) is
important. In fact, no respondent indicated
that measuring marketing ROI is
Unimportant or Of Little Importance, with
100 percent assigning marketing ROI at
least some level of importance and fully
73 percent saying it is Very Important.
• While virtually all respondents indicated that
measuring marketing’s ROI was important to
their organization, nearly 30 percent did
not measure it.
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7. Measurement and reporting challenges
• There are multiple reasons preventing
organizations from measuring and reporting
on marketing’s ROI. Challenges relating to
marketing data present the greatest
difficulty. And, somewhat
surprisingly, challenges relating to things like
company culture, politics, and organizational
structure represent less of an impediment.
• With regards to the latter, we hypothesize
that this is further proof of the broader
importance of understanding marketing’s
impact on the business and the increased
expectations placed upon the marketing
organization to be able to measure and
report on its activities and the associated
benefits.
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8. Satisfaction on ability to measure ROI
• Of the majority of organizations that do
measure marketing’s ROI, most express
some level of satisfaction, with no
respondent selecting Extremely Dissatisfied
and only 18 percent choosing Dissatisfied.
• However, only 5 percent chose Extremely
Satisfied, with the majority of respondents
selecting Satisfied (44 percent) to
Moderately Satisfied (33 percent).
• We believe part of the reason so few
respondents were Extremely Satisfied with
their ability to measure marketing’s ROI is
due to the difficulties they face in trying to
establish it. The majority of the challenges
are all data related:
collection, integration, and accuracy.
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9. Marketing ROI measurement challenges
• It is worth noting that the single greatest
challenge is the process of collecting
marketing data. A possible reason for this is
that marketing is one of the last departments to
embrace technology, automation, and the level
of quantifiable performance metrics that many
other areas of the enterprise utilize on a regular
basis.
• The challenges preventing an organization from
measuring marketing’s ROI are primarily
related to marketing data
• The challenges for organizations currently
measuring marketing’s ROI extend across
multiple departments and data silos.
• The inference is that marketers don’t know
what they don’t know: marketing data is
challenging enough on its own, but the actual
ROI exercise requires data from multiple
other sources, each with its own set of
challenges and difficulties.
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10. Most important measures of marketing ROI
• The three most important criteria for
measuring marketing ROI are business
metrics.
– Revenue attained by investment made
– Market share growth/capture
– Incremental revenue growth within
customer base
• Reflecting the continuing evolution and
increasing expectations of the marketing
organization, department and individual
contributors’ focus on measures like brand
awareness and preference, reach and
frequency, impressions, etc., have been
supplanted by quantifiable financial
measures.
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11. Value of measuring marketing ROI
• The ability to make more informed
decisions is the primary value of
measuring marketing ROI, selected by 82
percent of respondents. Demonstrates
effectiveness of investment follows closely
behind, chosen by 79 percent.
• It is worth noting that respondents placed
less value on those items that were less
marketing-centric and involved cross-
departmental interactions and/or necessi-
tated a broader view beyond just the
marketing organization.
• We believe this is likely due to the
challenges related to
accessing, collecting, and integrating
data that is non-marketing related.
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12. Communicating marketing ROI
• There are a number of reporting
mechanisms utilized by respondents when it
comes to reporting on marketing ROI.
• Presentations and spreadsheets are still
the most used formats, used by 38 percent
and 36 percent respectively. These
approaches are likely much more labor-
intensive than communicating via reporting
tools, dashboards, and applications.
• It is likely that these more technology-
enabled and automated mechanisms will
see growth moving forward, along with
additional technology enhancements for
mobile access, real-time reporting, etc.
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13. • While the primary value of measuring
marketing’s ROI is the ability to make more
informed decisions and understand the
effectiveness of marketing’s
performance, only 16 percent of
respondents actually use marketing ROI
as a tool for determining investment in
marketing activities.
• Indeed, nearly two-thirds of respondents
determine marketing investment using
criteria that is not directly tied to the
actual performance of said marketing
investment, with 38 percent planning based
on revenue projections and 27 percent
based on the previous year’s budget.
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14. Marketing budget approval criteria
• Only 16 percent of respondents approve
marketing budgets based on actual
performance.
• And with nearly 70 percent using metrics
that are not performance based but are
more arbitrary in nature, marketers will find
themselves struggling to justify their
budgets, much less prove their financial
impact on the business.
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15. Conclusion
Expectations for the marketing organization are on the rise and there is a fundamental shift from
marketing tactically driven performance metrics to financial, quantitative metrics to measure
marketing’s ROI. The good news is that the marketing organization understands the new landscape
and the importance of moving in this direction. But while the importance of measuring marketing’s ROI
is obvious:
• Marketers are challenged to do it
• 30 percent of respondents are not measuring marketing ROI
• Most efforts around measuring marketing’s ROI are not viewed as highly successful
• Most marketers are not using ROI to inform their planning and budgeting
Not surprisingly, the marketers most satisfied with their ability to report on marketing ROI:
• Use marketing ROI for planning and budgeting exercises
• Are better able to address the associated data challenges, across all sources
• Utilize less labor-intensive reporting
• Better integrate with their peers and colleagues in other departments
To survive and thrive, the marketing organization and marketers need to be able to deliver proof, not
conjecture; marketing ROI is that proof.
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16. THANK YOU.
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