Measurement Killed The Marketing Star

“90x average ROI on email marketing with Klaviyo.”

That’s a claim that the fast-flying email marketing service provider has been making on its website and in ads recently.

I know what you must be thinking:?

Where did they come up with that number???

What is or isn’t included in the denominator??

On second thought, what’s in the numerator?

Damn it! Where the heck is the methodology statement?!

And then the ultimate question: Does anyone actually believe this crap?

The only thing that’s certain in my mind is that someone in the Klaviyo marketing department felt that putting that big fat juicy ROI claim out there would help them sell more product. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.

The issue I have with Klaviyo’s “90X ROI” campaign – other than the fact that it is being floated out there without any proof whatsoever – is that it puts a spotlight on a pain point that has been the downfall of so many a marketing star (and the companies that they work for), which is?The Sacred Cow of SaaS:?“You Can’t Optimize What You Can’t Measure.”?

The obsession with metrics – brought on by digital marketing and the ease of last-click attribution that came with it – has royally screwed things up.?

Why?

Because so much of marketing is unmeasurable, and probably always be.?And that’s especially the case for the things marketing is responsible for that make the biggest impact on a company’s success:?brand?and?reputation.

Some examples:

Public Relations / Press

Measuring PR’s effectiveness by tracking leads that come in via backlinks in articles almost universally makes PR look like a massive waste of money. An ROI-less POS. 90X on your $15K/mth PR retainer? Please.

Whether measured by a human or by an attribution software platform, it’s impossible to quantitatively measure anything about PR with any accuracy other than the sheer number of articles your company is mentioned in. You will never be able to use a computer (or a person) to determine exactly how articles influenced each prospect in making their buying decision.

So, if the “you can’t optimize what you can’t measure” rule is applied to PR, no marketer should ever invest in media placements ever again.

Events

If you have a big, eminently noticeable platinum sponsor exhibit at a relevant tradeshow that 90 percent of your target customers attend, and they walk by and see your booth dozens of times over the course of the tradeshow,?BUT?only 5 percent of them come by and get their badges scanned or drop their card in your fishbowl,?did the booth exist???

Events are often the biggest line item of any enterprise SaaS marketers’ budget (cause they are expensive), and I’ll argue till the end of my days that they absolutely should be. But proving event ROI can be extremely difficult. And it’ll never, ever look like that “90X” that I suppose we’re supposed to be striving for.

The same applies to speaking at events. I’ve spoken in front of audiences of 10 and audiences of 1000. I rarely know who is in the room, and usually will never find out.?

I’ve occasionally heard anecdotes from my sales team friends like, “hey, that executive at 3M who I’m in talks with now said she saw you speak at Oracle CX 6 months ago.” Well heck, that warms my heart (and ego!).?

But capturing the full impact of my speaking engagements is just not possible.?

Does that mean that public speaking at relevant events isn’t hugely impactful in amplifying brand awareness and thought leadership, and in a way that directly creates deals and revenue? Of course not.

Brand Advertising

Same spiel as events: If you spend a million bucks on display ads that carpet bomb nearly 100 percent of your target customers; if you spend $100K to do a print takeover of?Ad Age, or whatever industry publication is most prestigious in the minds of your buyers – you will almost never know with certainty the impact that your branding campaign has had on driving specific deals.

If that Ad Age cover takeover ends up on the desk of the CMO of Proctor & Gamble, and they tell their team to take a look into your company, and 6 or 7 or 13 months down the road someone 5 steps lower on the ladder signs a deal with you (and that person also saw one of your executives speak at a conference, walked by 3 of your booths, has seen 12 articles about you between now and then) – that expensive ad campaign will never get the credit it deserves. The “ROI” of brand campaigns will almost always look abysmal.

So What Should You Do?

I’m not against measurement. The word just made for a nice alliteration in the title of this week’s newsletter.?

I’m all for measuring what you can – and consistently improving your numbers.

Grow your monthly volume of press hits.

Collect more business cards and badge scans at your booths.

Generate more lead gen form completes.

Originate more opportunities for your sales team.

But don’t ace out entire marketing channels that make an enormous impact on driving success just because you can’t fully capture their impact.

At the end of the day, focus less on ROI (return on investment) and more on what really moves businesses forward:?RIS?(rise in sales).

Because when marketing focuses (or is forced to focus) primarily on demand generation… when the CMO lives or dies myopically based on MQLs, SQLs, CAC and ROI, at the expense of brand and reputation, growth is slow, and success is rare (both for the CMO and the company they work for).??

It’s time for CMOs, CEOs, Boards, and everyone fighting the good fight in this wild world we call Startupland to end the tyranny of measurement. Free yourselves of the chains of attribution!

It’s time to break through?the opacity of numbers, and see the impact that marketing is truly having on the business. And the only way to that is to shift the focus away from ROI and to RIS.?