How Should You Be Measuring Marketing ROI

Marketing is everything which a company does in order to acquire customers as well as maintain a relationship with them. It is not an exact science; however it is getting better. The biggest questions companies have about their marketing campaigns entail what marketing ROI they’re getting for the money they spend.

What Does ROI Mean In Marketing?

Marketing ROI is the practice of ascribing profit and revenue growth to the effect of marketing initiatives. Through calculating marketing ROI, organisations can measure the degree to which marketing efforts either holistically, or on a campaign-basis, make a contribution to revenue growth. Normally, marketing ROI is used to justify marketing spend and budget allocation for ongoing and future campaigns and initiatives.

What Is A Good ROI In Marketing?

An average marketing ROI is broadly accepted as a ratio of 5:1 and strong is believed to be anything above that, while 10:1 is considered as extraordinary. A ratio that is below 2:1 is regarded as unprofitable and will probably see organisations break even as opposed to experiencing a revenue increase.

Anything which is over a 10:1 ratio isn’t impossible to reach however it’s advisable not to include this as an attainable goal because it’s uncommon.

However, what is considered to be a good marketing ROI can vary dependent on which industry your business or brand operates in. On a far more granular level, this will also be dependent on the goals and expectations of your specific business. No two brands are exactly the same or have the same goals.

So what is profitable? What do you need to take account? Remember that this will vary depending on the sector however you must consider overheads. Once these have been accounted for, together with the specific factors of your industry, you’ll have a much better view of what is a positive marketing ROI for your company.

In addition, It could be crucial for your measurements – and for setting a ratio – to attain to keep in mind that determining a benchmark for your efforts can be challenging as marketing tactics vary. For example, measuring the ROI of a content marketing strategy focused on functional content along with analysing. Evaluating a display advertising strategy with the same method may be difficult.

All of these issues mean the ratio you target will depend on your structure, tactics, spend and industry.

What Are The Challenges With Marketing ROI?

When you have a fairly accurate calculation, the last remaining challenge is the time period. Marketing is a long-term, multiple-touch process which leads to sales growth over time. The month-over-month change we were utilising for simplicity’s sake is more likely to be spread over several different months or even a year. The ROI of the first months in the series might be flat or low as the campaign begins to infiltrate the target market. Over time, sales growth should follow and then the cumulative ROI of the campaign will begin to look better.

Another challenge is that many marketing campaigns have been designed around more than merely generating sales. Marketing agencies realise that clients are results-oriented, so they get weak ROI figures by including in more of the soft metrics which might or might not drive sales in the future. These can include things like:

• Brand awareness via media mentions, social media likes, and even
• The content output rate for the campaign.

Brand awareness is worth considering, however not if the campaign itself is failing to drive sales growth over a period of time. These spin-off benefits shouldn’t be the core of a campaign as they can’t be accurately measured in rands and cents.

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