Skip to content

Marketing Thought

Clarifying management/marketing theory

Menu
  • Neil Bendle
  • Popular Marketing Metrics: How Not To Mess Them Up
  • Marketing Metrics 4th Edition Book
  • Marketing PhD Applications
  • Advice For The Marketing Academic Job Market
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Public Policy, Behavioral Economics and Marketing
Menu

What Metrics Do Managers Use?

Posted on December 4, 2015February 8, 2022 by neilbendle

Mintz and Currim examined what metrics do managers use? What drives metric use? And how does this tracks to performance? These are fascinating questions. The paper has two aims I’d say. Firstly, academics will be interested in the model that the authors use to try and tease out the “why” behind the metrics. Secondly, managers might be more interested in the frequencies of usage. I personally hope that academics also pay attention to the frequencies. As teachers we should make sure our students know what metrics they are likely to encounter and as researchers we should see what we can learn from managers.

Uncontroversial Recommendations

Many of the recommendations will be uncontroversial.

..managers should receive training on the development and use of metrics

Mintz and Currim, 2013, page 32.

Some recommendations, such as greater involvement by financial and accounting people and people with quantitative backgrounds in marketing mix decisions, may worry some. Still they seem sensible to me. I ‘d also hope that the marketers understand the quantitative methods themselves and know enough about finance and accounting to debate with their colleagues from other disciplines.

Trending
Audio Mining And Marketing: Great Potential

What Metrics Do Managers Use Or Not Use?

If a metric that researchers recommend isn’t being used we should find out why. This won’t necessarily be clear. It could be a very useful metric/estimate that managers haven’t had a chance to consider and accept. Customer Lifetime Value, CLV, might be in this category.

In other situations maybe the metric isn’t ideal for what the marketer needs for a specific task. Economic Value Added, EVA, might be in this category.

It is also possible that the metric we are recommending is a rubbish one and managers have worked this out before academics. I think this might apply to Tobin’s q. I am pleased to report that pretty much all managers seem to have rejected this metric (Tobin’s q). The authors didn’t ask why. (I have my own explanation and it involves Tobin’s q being silly but that isn’t the point of this post).

Rank Of Selected Metrics For Marketers
Rank Of Selected Metrics For Marketers

What metric was one of the most popular overall? Awareness apparently. I guess we should have been aware of that before.

Read: Ofer Mintz and Imran Currim (2013). What drives managerial use of marketing and financial metrics and does metric use affect performance of marketing-mix activities? Journal of Marketing, 77(2), 17-40.

Share on Social Media
twitter facebook linkedin reddit

  • Internal Measurement Of Brand Value
  • Regulation And Business Responsibility
  • Leadership, Power, And Morality
  • Gaining And Using Power

MASB’s Common Language Dictionary

Need a marketing definition? Use MASB’s Common Language Marketing Dictionary. Click for the MASB Common Language Marketing Dictionary

Pages in Marketing Thought

  • A Plea About Language Used In Marketing
  • Advice For The Marketing Academic Job Market
  • Behavioral Econ For Kids: The Cartoon Book
  • Data Visualization Advice
  • Machine Learning (ML) And Marketing: What Should You Know?
  • Marketing In The Movies
  • Marketing Metrics 4th Edition Book
    • Chapter of Marketing Metrics 4th Edition, Free Sample
  • Marketing PhD Applications
  • Marketing Strategy
    • Measuring Culture Is A Challenge, But Don’t Be Silly
    • Rationality And Marketing Strategy
    • Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
    • Strategy And Evolutionary Thinking
  • Neil Bendle
  • Popular Marketing Metrics: How Not To Mess Them Up
    • Brand Valuation: Progress But Lots More Needed
    • Customer Equity: Nice Idea, Bit Of A Mess In Execution
    • How To Use, And Misuse, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
    • Is ROI The Most Abused Term In Marketing?
    • Market Share: Always An Indicator Never A Target
    • Marketing Accounts: A Better Way To Measure Marketing Performance
    • Measuring Competition With The Bendle Panda Index
    • Net Promoter Score: Sadly Not As Magical As Supporters Suggest
    • Profit Measurement: Choose Your Own Level Is Problematic
    • Tobin’s Q: Why Academics Should Listen To Managers
    • Total Q, A New Improved Tobin’s Q? Not By Much
    • Value Of A Like: Do Not Use For Budgeting
  • Public Policy, Behavioral Economics and Marketing
  • Recommended Books
©2022 Marketing Thought | Built using WordPress and Responsive Blogily theme by Superb
Go to mobile version