The 2013 Marketing Summit at Wake Forest University recently tweeted “What will drive agency value in the world of Big Data? The panel agrees: measurable results and ROI.”
No more hiding behind creative prowess. Whether or not the CEO likes gnomes or lizards, the blue ad over the green, it’s clear that data trumps the highest paid opinion (HIPO) in the room.
Data makes it glaringly obvious when a campaign is not working, and companies notice. As a result, agency accountability has increased tenfold over the past decade.
The heyday of the annual benchmarking study may have run its course; those good ‘ole days when we watched the barometer slowly rise over the course of a three- or six-month campaign. Today, the success, and possible botching, of marketing strategies as measured through digital analytics are arguably undisputable. With subjectivity removed, classical brand marketers can build rationale around hard data, and keep the HIPO at bay.
Still, client expectations have risen in response to tangible results in the form of click-through rates, web conversions and like-minded analytics. Agencies have responded by becoming more agile across all disciplines. If the campaign isn’t working today, better tweak it tomorrow.
Serving as a panelist at the Wake Forest Marketing Summit this year on behalf of the 4As Carolinas Council, I was asked to discuss current hurdles as they relate to measurement and accountability. As we’re asked to justify every dollar spent, I described, it becomes challenging to isolate and evaluate the performance of individual marketing activities while failing to understand their collective influence. More often than not, analytics account for a consumer’s most recent online action, overlooking the other 10 or so touch points in a campaign. Advertising, direct, email, search, social—each of these ad exposures work in tandem to ensure a brand is top-of-mind, and at any time, any one of them may prompt a consumer to make a purchasing decision. Yet tactics like social media are not always directly tied to a conversion point, and clients incorrectly undervalue its role and importance in the larger, integrated mix.
The general consensus among North Carolina agencies resonated across the Triangle and Triad: Measurement and accountability of the programs we create are at the forefront of every strategy, regardless of the channels you’re using.
