SURVEY: Many Media Planners/Buyers Not Showing ROI

Media planners/buyers spend hours slicing, dicing and negotiating dollars so we can build a plan that not only meets campaign and media goals, but also stays on budget.  We demonstrate to our clients that we can effectively and efficiently take their investment and get them the most bang for their buck.  But most importantly, we need to show them the money.

In the B2B market, ROI metrics are extremely important – but as it turns out, B2B marketers may not be as confident in their abilities to show you the money.

A recent study by Lenskold Group, surveyed marketing practitioners in B2B companies.  The findings place special attention on the importance of financial marketing metrics over the non-financial kind.

The results of the study show that 42% of all respondents indicate that although they use some metrics (namely cost per lead and cost per sale) they do not implement profitability metrics such as ROI.  In other words, almost half of respondents are aware of the dollars it takes to acquire a lead, but they aren’t tracking to find the return on investment on that lead.

It’s not surprising that a dismal 9% of those surveyed believed their marketing to be highly effective and efficient.  The fact that these stats are coming out of the B2B space is especially surprising.  This is an area that thrives on acquiring leads – continually asking us to fill out a form, call a particular number or visit a special landing page – all the while monitoring those conversions.

So what about those of us that do use profitability tracking? The study found that B2B lead generation marketers that use ROI metrics are more likely:

1. To be outgrowing competitors (22%, compared to 10% of all others)
2. To report having highly effective and efficient marketing (20%, compared to 5% of all others)
3. To generate more than 10% increase in profits with a 10% increase in budget (42%, compared to 23% of those that only use traditional metrics)

Not only are we more confident, but we can also leverage that confidence to prove earnings for our clients. Almost half of the marketers surveyed did not know their profit potential. In fact, an overwhelming 44% said they did not know how much they could increase profits with a 10% increase in budget.

An interesting finding from this survey notes that of the marketers polled, 36% belonged to agencies/consultants and these folks reported the highest levels of reporting capabilities.  This compares to 11% for marketers alone.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can show you the money, visit our Marketing Analytics or Media Planning and Buying Pages.

Flickr photo “Lazy” courtesy of Darkumber