The Marketing Performance Blueprint: Strategies and Technologies to Build and Measure Business Success

Chapter 9 Develop a Marketing Scorecard

Data without analysis is simply noise.

METRICS THAT MATTER

Measurement matters now more than ever. Marketing executives and business leaders are drowning in data. They have access to powerful tools that produce endless streams of information about contacts, including visitors, leads, and customers. However, data without analysis is simply noise. Your company must excel at bringing structure and meaning to numbers. Be proactive in assessing performance, and be willing to adapt in real time based on results (or lack thereof).

Marketing technology advances have made it easier and more affordable to connect activities to outcomes, but marketers have largely dropped the ball when it comes to monitoring, reporting, and improving performance.

Adobe's “Digital Distress” study, which surveyed more than 1,000 marketers, found that 76 percent of marketers believe measurement is important, while only 29 percent believe they are doing it well.¹

According to the VisionEdge Marketing (@LauraVEM), ITSMA (@ITSMA_B2B), and Forrester Research Inc. (@forrester) 2013 “Marketing Performance Management” survey, B2B marketers say just 9 percent of CEOs and 6 percent of CFOs use marketing data to help set corporate direction. The study indicates marketing dashboards that report activities rather than business outcomes are a major cause of the disconnect between marketers and the C-suite.²

So, while marketers have the ability to measure everything and shift ...