Have We Made a Dent in Measuring Marketing’s Impact?
The old adage, “If it can’t be measured, it’s not marketing” has likely been a culprit in derailing true marketing efforts. Over the last two decades, the trend has been towards a focus on bottom-funnel attribution and ROI, but measuring marketing's impact goes much further than this.
Has being fully data-driven changed marketing for the better? Historically, marketers have prioritized direct attribution and ROI over measuring impact. Measuring marketing specifically to revenue is essential but fraught with complications and probably needs to be revisited.
How Do I Look at Marketing Holistically?
First, let's look at attribution theory and how it started. Invented, not for marketing, but for social psychology in 1958, its original intent was to find the causal structure of the environment as a primary structure of motivation. While there is no one way to measure attribution, marketers adopted this theory in the early 2000s to understand the impact of marketing efforts on a desired outcome. The “desire to know” became the holy grail in marketing. The myths and the snake oil entered the fray, and the holy grail of marketing measurement has never been reached. In fact, it's gotten worse. While marketing attribution would have thrived in the late 2000s, the war on cookies, privacy, and the rise of walled gardens like Facebook and Apple have all but destroyed the ability to measure the environment and see the direct impact on revenue. Attribution still exists and comes in many forms: last click, multi-touch, Markov modeling, and more, but none of these work in the way that marketers may expect. With true visibility so low, the modeling part of attribution takes a front seat, and you are likely moving closer to probabilistic matching than deterministic, and this is a problem for marketing in 2025 and beyond.
As a marketer, what do I want to know?
First, I should understand the customer and their journey, understanding the touchpoints and how to increase sales, engagement, and trust. Second, I want to know if the money I am spending is working. Is it making an impact? The challenge I have is that a lot of my activities are unmeasurable. For example, growing my followers, while measurable, doesn't show how that drives any particular sale. Yes, it makes an impact, but what? In another example, I also have the ability to measure favorability and awareness, but I am unable to pinpoint a specific 360-degree brand campaign that leads directly to a sale? Sadly no and attempting to do so could lead to unsatisfactory results. I do know that branding, followers, engagements, clicks, and views are all great measurable things, and I know they are good for my long-term success, so I need an easy way to measure the impact of these efforts.
As a marketing in 2025, I also need to adapt. As Google prepares for Google Zero, meaning Google Search will be eliminated from our lives, so too should marketers prepare for this future. No longer can marketers build highly targeted audiences and retarget them across the web in the way that used to be possible. Preparing for a future where Meta removes everything but budget and goals is a likely scenario for this decade. Marketing is changing, but one thing is for certain: you need to advertise and have money to spend (not burn). So why not build a way to measure impact?
Finding synergy in the measurable and non-measurable. Measuring Impact
There is a Shopify world of new marketers that are coming up every day. They are incredible bottom-funnel marketers. They understand last click and ROI, but it is likely that their hyperfocus on activities that directly sell a product is limiting their growth as a business. Sure, you will do well, but do you want to break through? Maybe it's time for a different way of looking at it.
Be an innovator. Find new channels; don't become over-reliant on one. The TikTok ban of 2025 is a perfect reason to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Yes, there are other channels and ways for you to engage a new audience. You just have to find them.
Driving Innovation: Exploring new channels and creative tactics might provide new ways to engage people.
Building A Brand: Focus on the long term of your business and how you are going to grow. Your existing customers love being part of a brand. If they buy into your vision, they will stay and repeat. Existing customers are much cheaper to retain than finding new ones, so why not do what you can to increase retention? This is not rocket science, but a strong brand is the first thing to get cut from most early budgets. However, a strong brand will find you cheaper opportunities to find customers and even lower bid rates in most auction-based platforms. It makes sense, but it doesn't happen overnight.
Like anything, you have to find short-term and long-term balance.
Try a new way. How about Integrated Impact Marketing, or IIM?
With integration, you will build a system that looks holistically at all of your channels and how each one impacts your bottom line. Look at the big picture and develop an understanding of the interconnectedness of all of your marketing efforts. It's not all going to work, so wouldn't it be nice to know where the wasted money is going? Do you need 100K Instagram followers, or will 25K be enough to increase your ROI?
Stay flexible; by predicting where things are going and how everything relates together, you can stay on trends, move budgets, and get the results with less investment. That's what you want, right? Spend less, get more. Well, you can with clarity, confidence, and action!
With Integrated Impact Marketing, you can combine analytics with creative and see the impact across walled gardens that limit the data they send. You can measure all channels in a way that works for your business.
What Is ViVV Labs?
We are on a mission to build the world's best Integrated Impact Marketing platforms. Think of it as your on-call data scientist who understands your goals and simplifies the complexity of cross-channel and cross-measurable marketing. It's easy to use and will measure the impact of your marketing, not just the last-click sales. A holistic approach to your ad spend is likely going to be the only thing you can do as the years progress.
Give us a call, and we’d love to philosophize and show you how measuring impact holistically is the best thing for your bottom line.