Overemphasis on activation and tactics limits marketing effectiveness

A focus on efficiency and a lack of organisational teamwork are hampering marketing effectiveness, according to a new study from the WFA and partners. 

Creating a Global Culture of Marketing Effectiveness*, a report from the WFA, Ebiquity and IPA, finds that while overall marketing effectiveness culture is performing acceptably – scoring 6.5 out of 10 – process, the glue that pulls together three key elements (People, Focus, and Data & Tools), scores just 5.7.

Why marketing effectiveness matters

While the concept of marketing effectiveness is increasingly understood, the next step is to implement the sort of changes that will deliver the benefits it promises. “Real effectiveness value will be generated by changing ways of working (‘the Process’) [and] creating better organisational alignment behind marketing effectiveness,” advises Laurence Green, director of effectiveness at the IPA. 

What the study found 

• Among the five key steps in the process of marketing effectiveness, the best performing one was ‘Activating marketing activities across chosen channels’ (scoring 7.0 out of 10); all other steps were found to be significantly weaker, with ‘measuring the impact in a timely manner’ scoring only 5.8.

• Just 41% of all respondents agree that they have a clearly defined measurement framework in place, but the figure is roughly half that among respondents with an insights/effectiveness role or national role.

• Fifty-two percent of respondents agree that they focus too much on efficiency because without the right blend of measurement tools, efficiency is much easier to measure.
• Just one-fifth of insights/effectiveness respondents agree that their tools are used to create the right insight at the right time to suit the marketing planning process, even though 54% of marketing/media respondents say this does happen. 

Five areas for improvement 

• Sharpen the process: marketing is too focused on the delivery and needs to improve its understanding of objectives, measurement and results.
• Cascade a comprehensive measurement framework: establish a well-defined measurement framework that assesses both short-term and long-term impacts of marketing activities.
• Demand and implement better tools: invest in predictive tools offering precision and granularity for essential marketing effectiveness use cases.
• Create better insights: marketing effectiveness insights should be aligned with the decision-making rhythm of the business through increased collaboration across teams.
• Strengthen collaboration: including marketing with finance, insights internally across global, regional and local teams, and procurement with all departments on effectiveness topics.

*Based on a survey conducted in partnership with 21 national advertiser associations including AANA (Australia), ACA (Canada), and UPA (Italy), as well as take-outs from the WFA’s Forum Connect meetings in Amsterdam and Singapore. The study received more than 300 responses across several marketing disciplines. 

Sourced from WFA