Marketing performance measurement

Marketing performance measurement (MPM), or marketing performance management, is the systematic management of marketing resources and processes to achieve measurable gain in return on investment and efficiency, while maintaining quality in customer experience.^[1]

Marketing performance management is a central facet of the marketing operations function within marketing departments.

Marketing performance management relies on a set of measurable performance standards, a pointed focus on outcomes, and clear lines of accountability (i.e. roles and consequences).

Marketing performance management is based on six success factors: 1) alignment, 2) accountability, 3) analytics, 4) automation, 5) alliances, and 6) assessment.^[2]

Alignment

Alignment of marketing activities and investments to business outcomes occurs when a marketing organization establishes a direct line of sight between marketing activities, investments and business outcomes.

Alignment begins with customer insights, to ensure that the marketing performance management approach will be rewarded by the marketplace. Secondly, alignment with enterprise objectives ensures that marketing efforts are in sync with what the company is striving to achieve. Enterprise goals can be cascaded to the business unit level and then to the department level to maintain consistency and drive synergy both horizontally and vertically. Marketing objectives that are developed this way can be cascaded to all of the marketing sub-functions for alignment.^[3]

Accountability

Accountability is the monitoring and measurement of the commitment a person, group, or organization makes to deliver specific, defined results relating to the enterprise’s financial and strategic objectives.

Selecting the right metrics, integrating performance targets, and producing actionable dashboards are all integral to accountability.

Accountability encompasses making a commitment to a particular action, accepting responsibility for completing that action, and then disclosing how well you performed against your commitment. Accountability requires commitments, metrics, and consequences (positive and negative).

Metrics

Measurable performance standards are called metrics, which are the cornerstone of accountability. Marketing metrics encompass Activity, Output, Operational, and Outcome categories:

• "Activity metrics" relate to the number of things done in a process, such as the number of new blog posts or the number of events.
• "Output metrics" relate to the result of a process, such as website traffic, media mentions, or event participants.
• "Operational metrics" relate to the efficiency and effectiveness of a process, such as cost per lead, revenue per customer, revenue per sales representative, cost per customer, or leads per sales representative.
• "Outcome metrics" relate to the consequences of a process’ outcomes, such as revenue, profit, win rate, pipeline contribution, share of preference, share of wallet, or share of market.

Indicators

To manage causes and effects, managers identify Leading Indicators and Lagging Indicators:

• "Leading indicators" are metrics that a manager can monitor before stakeholders see results. They are in-process metrics and process-input metrics that serve as warning signals of output, operational, and outcome metrics. Within a workflow diagram, the questions represented by a diamond are typical sources of leading indicators. They indicate whether there will be re-work, scrap, waste, or delays in what the process is meant to achieve. They are actionable and predictive. By monitoring leading indicators, managers can intervene to attain higher performance.
• "Lagging indicators" are metrics that a manager’s stakeholders see. They are post-process metrics (i.e. output, operational, or outcome metrics). Lagging indicators are important for seeing the big picture, but they are not actionable in and of themselves.

Reporting

Marketing performance can be reported in a wide variety of formats (verbal, pictorial, graphic, tabular, text, dashboard), which are used for accountability and decision-making. Ideally, reports revisit past commitments or forecasts, to enable learning and refinements for future performance.

Dashboards are particularly important in marketing performance management, visually displaying multiple metrics on a single screen or page. This allows managers to monitor performance at a glance, and to be alerted when performance varies significantly above or below expected levels. Ideally, dashboards show the relationships between leading and lagging indicators. This can empower people at every managerial level.^[4]

Analytics

Analytics seeks to identify patterns in data by organizing it and applying mathematics, statistics, or algorithms to it. Analytics foster fact-based, data-driven customer, product, market and performance decisions and develop models to support scenario analysis and predict potential outcomes.

Marketing analytics can be used to create models to help understand, monitor, and predict customer behavior, such as likelihood to defect or predisposition to purchase. It can help managers quantify performance, make and optimize channel and mix decisions, understand the impact of a campaign on a sales list, and create many other types of insights.

Data availability is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, and analytics technologies can help marketers quickly synthesize data from various sources. Analytics can harness the power of data by converting it to actionable information and models that guide strategic investments and decisions that drive marketing performance.^[5]

Automation

Automation of marketing processes reduces manual labor, errors, and inconsistency. It enables timely, personalized messaging to customers, prospects, and other stakeholders.

Automation provides infrastructure for marketing performance management. It spans marketing resource management, campaign automation, business intelligence, data management, reporting platforms, and scenario analysis tools.^[6]

Alliances

Alliances are arrangements between companies to create additional value together. Distributors, resellers, marketing agencies, and other companies may co-develop, co-promote, and/or co-deliver various parts of the marketing mix (product, price, promotion, placement).

Marketing performance management requires information transparency, clear roles, and smooth handoffs between alliance members, both externally and internally. A spirit of alliance among the work groups across the marketing organization, and with other support functions and business units shapes the ecosystem that nurtures or hinders marketing performance. Collaboration cross-functionally is essential to marketing efficiency and effectiveness.^[7]

Assessment

Assessment is the evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in marketing performance management. Assessment is typically conducted by benchmarking other organizations or comparing performance to a standard. Ideally, assessment is supported by a culture of genuine concern, dedication, and willingness among management and employees to continually improve performance.^[8]

See also

• Marketing operations
• Marketing operations management
• Performance management
• Media intelligence
• Marketing effectiveness
• Marketing activation
• Marketing automation

Notes

• Anderson, E (May 2005) Marketing Needs to Make Its Case Quantitatively, BtoB
• Association of National Advertisers; Booz Allen Hamilton (2004) , Are CMOs Irrelevant? Organization, Value, Accountability, and the New Marketing Agenda
• Association of National Advertisers; Marketing Management Analytics (2007) , Marketing Accountability Survey
• Brinker, Scott (2015) , Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic
• Buzzell, Robert D; Gale, Bradley T (1987) , The PIMS Principle: Linking Strategy to Performance (Profit Impact of Market Strategy)
• CMO Council (2008) , Marketing Outlook
• Creveling, C; Hambleton, L; McCarthy, B (2006) , Six Sigma for Marketing Processes: An Overview for Marketing Executives, Leaders, and Manager
• Crew, R (March 1998) , Creating a Performance Driven System, FRBNY Economic Policy Review
• Davenport, Thomas H; Cohen, Don; Jacobson, Al (2005) , Competing on Analytics, Babson Executive Education
• Davis, Stuart (2000) , Brand Asset Management: Driving Profitable Growth
• Deloitte Consulting (2006) Managing Marketing Effectiveness: Customer & Market Trends Are Changing the Rules
• Forrester Research; Heidrick and Struggles (2007) , The Evolved CMO
• Hanson, K (2007) , Second Annual CMO Survey
• Forrester Research, ITSMA, VisionEdge Marketing (2013) , Making Marketing Relevant to the Business: Marketing Performance Management Study
• Hatch, D (2007) , Measuring Marketing Performance: The BI Roadmap to Information Nirvana, Aberdeen
• Hunsaker, Lynn (2009) , Driving Sustained Improvements: 4 Metrics Tips, CustomerThink
• Hunsaker, Lynn (2010) , Employee Engagement in Balanced Scorecards, CustomerThink
• Hunsaker, Lynn (2015) , Metrics for Marketing Management
• Hunsaker, Lynn (2008) , Metrics You Can Manage for Success
• IBM (2011) , IBM Global Chief Marketing Officer Study: From Stretched to Strengthened
• ITSMA; VisionEdge Marketing (2014) < , The Link Between Marketing Performance and Value Creation: Marketing Performance Management Study
• ITSMA; VisionEdge Marketing (2012) , The Path to Better Results: Marketing Performance Management Study
• Ittner, Christopher; Larcker, David (2003) , The True Measures of Success, Harvard Business Review
• Lenskold, James D (2003) , Marketing ROI: The Path to Campaign, Customer, and Corporate Profitability
• Lenskold Group; MarketSphere (2009) , Marketing ROI and Measurement Study
• Masi, RJ; Weidner, CK (1995) Culture, Distribution and Amount of Control, and Perceptions of Quality, Organizational Culture, Distribution and Amount of Control, and Perceptions of Quality, Group & Organization Management
• Monier, Jean-Hugues; Gordon, Jonathan; Ogren, Philip (2013) , How CMOs Can Get CFOs on Their Side, Harvard Business Review
• Moorman, Christine; Rust, Roland T (1999) , The Role of Marketing, Journal of Marketing, Special Issue
• Moorman, Christine (2014) , From Marketing Spend to Marketing Accountability, American Marketing Association
• Patterson, Laura (2013) , Alignment: Key to Marketing Performance, Forward Metrics
• Patterson, Laura (2015) , Analytics and Metrics: Related but Not the Same, MarketingProfs
• Patterson, Laura (2011) , Five Steps to Improve Your Marketing Accountability, CustomerThink
• Patterson, Laura (2015) , How Best-In-Class Marketers Use Alignment and Accountability for Value Creation, Journal of Applied Marketing Analytics
• Patterson, Laura (2004) , Measure What Matters: Reconnecting Marketing to Business Goals
• Patterson, Laura (2009) , Metrics in Action: Creating a Performance Driven Marketing Organization
• Patterson, Laura (2013) , More Data Does Not Equal Better Insights, MarketingProfs
• Patterson, Laura (2010) , Move from Managing Programs to Managing Performance, CustomerThink
• Patterson, Laura (2015) , Three Steps From a Measurable Marketing Plan to an Actionable Dashboard, FullCircle CRM
• Patterson, Laura (2008) , Managing Marketing Performance: The Role of Data, Analytics and Metrics, MarketingProfs
• Pauwels, Koen (2014) , It's Not the Size of the Data — It's How You Use It: Smarter Marketing with Analytics and Dashboards
• Powell, Guy R (2008) , Marketing Calculator: Measuring and Managing Return on Marketing Investment
• Reibstein David, et al (2005) , Marketing Dashboards: A Decision Support System for Assessing Marketing Productivity
• VisionEdge Marketing (2014) , Charting a Course for Marketing Effectiveness: Alignment & Accountability
• VisionEdge Marketing (2014) , Intuition to Wisdom: Transforming Data Into Models and Actionable Insights
• VisionEdge Marketing (2011) , A Roadmap to Performance Excellence: Marketing Performance Measurement and Management Study
• VisionEdge Marketing (2014) , Marketing Technology: The Power Tools for Optimizing Performance and Agility

References