• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, May 24, 2017

It may not be saying much, but marketers are more focused on tracking email and other channels than they are vague concepts like identifying the real-time performance of campaigns against KPIs. That’s one of the findings of Measuring Marketing Measurement, a study by Brand Innovators and Origami Logic.

Asked to rate the importance of their activities, respondents put tracking email, social and other channels at the top of the list. The second choice was identifying how content impacts metrics like awareness, engagement and loyalty.

It sounds right, but both of those options were chosen by only 92% of the innovators compared to 100% for understanding the ROI of our advertising spend and a few other activities. It may be because the most innovative marketers already know how to track channels.

That said, 88% of the leaders and 79% of those who say they’re “on par” cited channel tracking as a focus — not that it makes much difference in terms of sheer numbers.

Of the 252 digital marketers surveyed, only 5% consider themselves innovators. Another call themselves leaders, meaning “we do a better job than average here.” The largest percentage—49% — say they are on par. And 24% are doing “the bare minimum of what we should be doing.” Finally, 3% are doing nothing.

Next on the list of favored activities are tracking spend (on media placement), identifying the real-time performance of campaigns against KPIs, tracking costs (for creative production costs), tracking fees (for creative production costs, etc.), tracking fees (paid to buying tools and/or partners) and tracking fees (paid to agencies).

What's holding people back? Most of the problems have do with data. The top one is the complexity of managing and unifying data from a mix of channels and tools -- even 38% of the innovators and 37% of the leaders are bothered by this.

Next is integrating data from a range of marketing activities, including email, social and mobile: This aggravates 31% of the innovators and 51% of the leaders. And the percentages are around 50% for the basic and on-par marketers.

The third obstacle is internal resource alignment. And, again, this affects 31% of the innovators, 39% of the leaders,, 48% of the on-par people and 56% of the basics.

Many are also aggrieved by siloed. Last on the list, in the low 20s for most, is lack of transparency of data.

The study concludes that “brands are relying on more third parties (agencies, publishers, tools, etc.), so data is more fragmented and increasingly difficult to analyze in a timely and meaningful way.”

It continues: “The lack of in-house skills required to conduct deep analysis has also raised concerns that the infrastructure required is perceived to be too complex. But, a huge majority of marketers (80%) realize that marketing measurement must be improved, and 50% are committed to making improvements to their measurement infrastructure in the coming year.

Finally, although ROI and campaign optimization are at the forefront, transparency is also a critical concern. "Companies that implement MPM gain more direct ownership of their data and a more transparent relationship between themselves, publishers, and agencies.”