MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Five Essentials for Marketing Performance Measurement Systems

Do your marketing metrics truly support your company’s strategic goals? If you’re puzzling over the right set of metrics, focus on continuous improvement.

Successful marketers routinely capture key performance indicators, or metrics, to assess marketing performance within the allocated budget. This is known as a marketing performance measurement (MPM) system. However, even in companies with a strong measurement culture, metric reporting often remains sporadic and short term and lacks a clear strategic focus. Two recent studies highlight this issue. According to the September 2022 CMO Survey, senior marketers often monitor metrics like sales volume but are less likely to track complex metrics associated with brand and customer equity. And according to the annual survey for Clevertouch’s “State of Martech 2024” report, just 40% of companies actively track metrics linking marketing to revenue generation — and often do so in an ad hoc manner.

Such practices carry two significant risks. First, marketing’s ability to execute depends on budgetary access. Few members of the C-suite will feel confident approving full budgetary requests without seeing evidence from a comprehensive effectiveness analysis. Second, marketers are doing themselves a disservice: A range of activities, from branding to advertising, generate returns that take time to materialize. These returns might not be noticeable within the typical three-month time frame covered by ad hoc measurements.

About the Author

Rob Angell is a professor of marketing at the University of Stirling in Scotland and nonexecutive director of insights at U.K.-based Clevertouch Consulting. Adam Sharp is founder and CEO of Clevertouch Consulting. Tom Chapman is a principal teaching fellow at the University of Southampton in England.

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