While regularly measuring marketing signals is key to unlocking marketing ROI, most respondents to as new survey struggle to quickly make sense of their current marketing data anarchy due to extended access lag times, according to the research from marketing technology firm Origami Logic, which recently released its 2016 Marketing Signals Report based on a global survey of brand and digital marketing professionals.
The overwhelming number and variety of campaigns, systems and resulting signals (responses to marketing activities and associated performance indicators) in marketing has created a sizable gap between campaign execution and performance insights. According to the survey, having multiple systems that capture and measure the signals (53 percent) and the inability to take action based on results (40 percent) are the most pervasive problems when it comes to measuring marketing signals.
Consequently, signal measurement lag has become a major problem for marketers. While the vast majority of respondents (94 percent) believe that effective campaign optimization is contingent on having timely, complete and detailed knowledge of marketing signals, nearly three-quarters (74 percent) cite delayed or incomplete marketing signal visibility as a current barrier to measuring and optimizing campaigns.
In addition, while marketing teams dedicate significant hours every week to deciphering marketing signals and campaign results across channels, the overwhelming majority (60 percent) cannot effectively measure marketing signals for campaigns across all channels and platforms. To resolve this, the majority of respondents (62 percent) plan to measure marketing signals on a more frequent basis in 2016.
“The survey clearly shows that marketers are struggling with the signal lag issue,” said Opher Kahane, CEO and co-founder of Origami Logic, in a news release. “By not having timely access to performance data, marketers cannot perform in-flight measurement and optimization of campaigns, which is critical to serve today’s digital consumers. Fortunately, marketers seem to be aware of the importance of this issue and are driving towards daily signal measurement.”
Additional findings highlighted in the report include:
In terms of the frequency of signal measurement and analysis, only 39 percent of respondents are able to measure and analyze signals across channels on a weekly, or more frequent, basis. However, an overwhelming majority (77 percent) want to do so weekly at the absolute minimum.
Social is the most frequently measured and analyzed channel (70 percent of respondents report weekly or more frequent analysis) with web (65 percent), search (55 percent), display (52 percent), and email (50 percent) following.
More than half of respondents report tracking between zero and six marketing signals each for web, search, display, social, email, mobile and online video.
There is a major disconnect between executives (VP-level) and analysts when asked if they are able to effectively measure marketing signals for campaigns across all channels and platforms (60 percent and 31 percent respectively).
Download the complete report here.
Origami Logic conducted this online survey starting In January 2016 and completed in February 2016 through a variety of online channels. A total of 181 global marketing professionals completed the “2016 Marketing Signals Survey” in its entirety. Respondents came from a wide range of functions across companies on both brand and agency sides, representing numerous vertical industries: financial services, technology, consumer goods, retail, etc.
Source: Business Wire; edited by Richard Carufel