How to Measure Your Return on Marketing Investment

Business owners want black and white numbers. For instance, “This strategy raised our revenue 15%,” or “This campaign lowered our sales 5%.” The most important element to marketing is determining the factors that measure ROI and ensuring that these match the expectations of a client.

1. Knowing When to Measure

Money you invest today could have impact at unpredictable times. Last month’s trade fair may deliver results next month or not for 1 year. It’s a marketer’s job to quantify when and where to invest to receive the maximum return.

2. Outside Factors

Factors outside of a marketer’s control can have a significant impact on results. Weather, poor sales reps, and economic trends can all affect the success of your campaigns.

3. Large Audience

Every campaign affects individuals differently. If you’re trying to reach a large group of varying demographics, how do you know which campaign had the largest effect?

Measuring the Data

There are many ways to measure the impact of your marketing.

1. Projecting Revenue Cycles

By adding revenue cycle projections to a first-touch single attribution, you can gain deeper insight into the long-term impacts of your programs. For example, instead of waiting to see the actual results of a trade fair, this approach looks at what impact the tradeshow had at the top of the revenue cycle, and embellishes that view by estimating the long-term impact based on historical conversion metrics.

 

 

2. First Touch/Last Touch

This is the most common way to measure your marketing values. You assign all the value to either the first or last program that touched the campaign. For example, in first touch, all value is given to the lead source (first to come into contact with campaign). Last touch gives the value to the last program that touched the campaign. This form of measurement is easy to apply and normally doesn’t cost much, but it also doesn’t take into account the influence of other touches.

3. Control Groups

This test is one of the most straightforward and allows you to get true results from carefully controlled groups of your demographic. You apply the campaign to one target group while the other group doesn’t witness the campaign. Then you just measure the buyer behavior difference between groups. While this test is one of the more analytical and cheaper tests you can do, it’s focused on specific tactics so you’re unable to measure an overall view of a campaign.

4. Attribution Across Multiple Programs/People

This approach takes into account multiple touches from multiple people. When implementing this strategy, start with what you’re analyzing and then focus backwards so you can identify each touch. After all the touches have been pinpointed, you allocate the revenue to each pinpoint, hence the term multi-touch attribution.

Bottom Line

Overall, marketing is hard to measure. On average, about 20% of B2B marketers don’t measure their marketing programs, but it’s never too late to start. What you put in is what you get. When you take the time to strategically plan and invest in a marketing measurement model, you position yourself for future success. Keep in mind that quality is better than quantity. A few well-done tests are better than a lot of substandard tests. Optimize your programs by fine tuning them through testing so that you can create top-performing campaigns.

If you need some help determining where your marketing dollars should go and calculating the return on your investment, we’re here to help. We can overhaul your marketing process from the ground up or just show you a few improvements to your current strategy. Ready to make some changes? Give us a call.