• by Masha Geller , September 11, 2003

Staying true to their mission of hyping all things interactive, the IAB this week managed to convince just about everyone who attended their Advertisers Forum that the Internet, if used correctly in a media mix, produces fantastic results. Naturally, skeptics and realists walked away pondering why traditional marketers are not exactly buying the "spend more online" story, but most agreed that the Web future is very bright.

Many a conversation at the Forum, as is always the case with these things, centered on ROI, but as if to prevent us all from getting too excited, Mobium Creative Group yesterday released a bunch of stats that show just how wrong most marketers are in their perceptions of what ROI really is.

Mobium found that only 28% of business marketers measure program effectiveness by measuring "most of their communications tactics" and of that, only 37% track sales as a measure of success when determining the ROI of a marketing program. Business marketers report several different tactical measurement techniques, with web visits/email responses, survey research, lead-tracking databases and versioned communications leading the way. 44% even reported their measurements included anecdote gatherings from the sales force. But less than half even link tactics to specific dollar results.

Additionally, as Guy Gangi, a Partner at Mobium, put it, "What's really sad is the fact that in the 'age of branding' only 35% measure brand associations let alone how those associations relate to purchase criteria and behavior."

Mobium's Gordon Hochhalter, commenting on the research, said, "Until we stop kidding ourselves that click-throughs, awareness spikes and average response rates are ROI, we, as an industry, are on the way to budget oblivion. True ROI is one thing and one thing only. It is the ability to go to the boardroom where all the people who speak the language of money reside and say, 'You gave us X marketing communications dollars and because of our efforts it has earned Y in incremental, immediate income flows back to the company and Z in accrued brand assets," he said. "And as an industry, it still doesn't look like we're very close to measuring that kind of true ROI."

Can anyone argue with that?