The Cool Kids Love Marketing Metrics

I recently read an article from 2005 on marketing metrics. It was interesting to see what was being said nearly twenty years ago. Interestingly, one message I took was that the cool kids love marketing metrics. Apparently, in 2005 everyone was experimenting with marketing metrics.

The Cool Kids Love Marketing Metrics

2005 was when the first copy of our Marketing Metrics book came out so I’m not sure whether Mark Uncles, who wrote the piece, was aware of our book. Either way, it seems like we were part of the in-crowd back then.

Everywhere you care to look, marketers are talking about metrics.

Uncles, 2005, page 412

What Are Marketing Metrics?

Uncles is seeking to play it down the middle. Is this focus on metrics a good thing? He isn’t too firm either way. He clearly thinks metrics can be useful but makes a number (of largely fair) points about the challenge in understanding marketing metrics. People even have problems defining what marketing metrics are. (This isn’t too surprising as defining marketing is really hard, so defining the metrics that capture marketing isn’t going to be any easier).

He talks of three types of marketing metric:

1. Those that gauge the effectiveness of a particular action. E.g., did the specific ad work?
2. Product and service level metrics. E.g., how much value does the brand as a whole bring?
3. Investment metrics. Do we see a return on marketing spend? This seems like a large category of metrics that includes any metrics that accountants might understand.

Motives For Metrics

Then he talks of the challenge that people want to use metrics for different reasons.

1. Marketing specific reasons. E.g., which of these potential adverts should we allocate the marketing budget to?
2. Accountability-related reasons. E.g., demonstrating that the investment in marketing is effective
3. Politicking and posturing. Here people are using metrics to support a request for a budget etc…

There seemed quite a lot of overlap to me between accountability and politicking. A reason to pursue accountability is to appear more credible to non-marketing colleagues. Still, I get the general idea that different motives lead to the need for different metrics.

What To Do To Encourage Effective Use Of Metrics?

Uncles gives some recommendations to encourage metric use. A lot of this boils down to gaining a better understanding of financials and marketing’s place in the organization. He seemed a little more hopeful about where we are than I necessarily am:

At an elementary level, most marketers can read a financial statement, but many can do little more than this.

Uncles, 2005, page 415

I worry that there are many marketers who don’t even have the superficial view of financial statements that he thinks they have. (This is likely less true for more senior marketers). Still, I take his point and agree. The more people understand how marketing contributes to wider business metrics the better.

Plus, it was fun to think with our book coming out I was one of the cool kids in marketing in 2005. Pity I didn’t realize it at the time.

For more on marketing metrics see our book and here.

Read: Mark Uncles (2005), Marketing Metrics: A Can Of Worms Or The Path To Enlightenment, Brand Management, 12(6), pages 412-418