Solving the Measurement Adoption Problem: Actioning Marketing Measurement to Drive Sales

I recently saw a statistic on marketing measurement adoption that raised my eyebrows. It came from BCG who shared the information at Google’s Think Measurement event: 68% of companies don’t consistently use their marketing measurement results to inform spending decisions. The number itself was instinctually a head-shaker given how far measurement solutions have come in the past few years, but, after thinking about it a bit, it also struck me as believable. The answer to why this statistic rings truer than not isn’t that hard to understand. Too many marketing measurement programs are overly backward-looking, lack a predictive perspective, and don’t connect ROIs to actual short and long-term sales. Can they?  Should they?

Yes. Leading marketing measurement solutions have evolved to where they can measure more holistic sets of marketing, commercial, and external variables and their impact on driving sales. They’ve also gotten faster, more forward-looking, and capable of delivering insights weekly and monthly – making them more insightful, actionable, and relevant.

As measurement programs grow in sophistication, organizations’ views on ROI and MROI metrics are evolving too. Notably: Key decision-makers are laser-focused on how marketing directly contributes to driving sales. Marketing measurement that transparently validates actual incremental sales impact—not just calculating ROI to justify budgets—becomes immediately more relevant and actionable for these executives who need to see real business growth. It’s why we see finance increasingly not only involved, but actively engaged in partnering with measurement companies. Companies like Nationwide have capitalized on leveraging modern marketing measurement to drive internal buy-in and position the capability as a catalyst for growth.

I spend a lot of time in the marketplace with global brands. Not surprisingly, brand leaders want to drive both equity and sales, be more effective and efficient at marketing (typically the #2 corporate investment at a brand-driven company), and get their holistic commercial and marketing spends working synergistically together to optimize short- and long-term growth and profitability. Q1 was a particularly busy period this year as we were immersed in helping CMOs and CFOs connect investments to achieve their short-term and long-term growth targets in real, measurable incremental sales, while de-mystifying the process and measurement methodologies behind these results.

All of this seems relatively straightforward, so what’s causing the disconnect? After all, both marketing and finance have a vested interest in sales growth and strong brands. The challenges lie in several areas:

• Connecting more holistic data and analytic outputs to not only budget-building exercises but to incremental sales – Most companies still primarily track ROI/MROI metrics that only tell a part of the story. Measurement must directly connect marketing investments to incremental short- and long-term growth that resonates with both marketing and finance teams, aligning to both brand and sales objectives.
• Producing revenue forecasts that can be validated in terms of actual achievement – This goes beyond a set of recommendations delivered in a PPT deck. Capabilities need to provide an always-on, always-connected, forward-looking solution providing dynamic, relevant recommendations
• Delivering on projections in a timely manner – This means evolving them minimally to actionable weekly/monthly periods
• Granularity and visibility that are sufficient to plans being actioned, tracked, measured, and quantified – This includes always-on and tracking measurement combined with recalibration capabilities
• Consistent involvement/engagement of senior executives in the process – This is a core requirement to drive trust, belief in the results, and adoption

While cutting-edge data management, modeling, and analytics are essential foundations, they’re only part of the solution. The real breakthrough comes when technical excellence is combined with organizational alignment. It’s about creating measurement approaches that deliver not just insights, but answers that connect marketing and finance by creating metrics, KPIs, and connected processes that build the necessary trust and collaboration necessary to shape a winning, profitable, growth-oriented strategy.

Companies successfully bridging this gap share common traits. They understand the importance of measurement partners who engage directly with senior leadership, not just mid-level teams. This demands continuous validation of results against actual business outcomes, creating confidence that plans and recommendations reliably inform multi-million-dollar brand investment decisions. And they require insights delivered with speed and clarity – because business moves too fast for quarterly PowerPoint presentations that sit on digital shelves where too many of the recommendations remain unacted on, or if acted upon, lack tracking, measurement, and value validation.

Future success in the measurement industry means evolving beyond traditional ROI/MROI metrics, supporting measurable value in terms of validated, incremental growth that can be measured in revenue, not just marketing metrics. This means shifting focus from backward-looking analysis to forward-looking, always-on guidance. It means establishing clear connections between marketing activities and financial outcomes that CMOs and CFOs can rally behind and trust when making critical investment decisions.

I’m very excited about the transformation taking place in the commercial/marketing measurement space.  The data is as rich, compelling, and powerful as it’s ever been – and getting better every day. AI-driven analytics are supporting breadth and depth of predictive insights at the speed business needs them.  The future belongs to vendors and companies who partner to close the gaps in integrated measurement through cross-functional bridges that create understanding and trust. It will be these bridges that result in measurable, incremental sales, profits, and value.