The Long and Short of ROI
Why Measuring Quickly Poses Challenges for Digital Marketers
The Long and Short of ROI
Why Measuring Quickly Poses Challenges for Digital Marketers
Topline research overview
Digital marketers deliver tremendous impact to their businesses. In order to more effectively highlight this impact, digital marketers can start measuring ROI over a longer timeframe. Through a global survey of 4,000+ digital marketers, LinkedIn uncovers how measuring ROI over the length of the sales cycle can lead to more accurate reporting, greater marketer confidence, and improved campaign management.
Key Findings
Measuring too soon
Digital marketers often measure ROI too quickly. While the average length of a B2B sales cycle is 6 months, only 4% of marketers measure ROI over 6 months or longer.
Mixing metrics
Measuring value in less time than the length of the sales cycle results in the calculation of KPIs, different than ROI. Think of ROI vs. KPI in terms of reading a book: KPIs highlight what happens after each chapter and are used as forward-looking predictors of end performance. ROI highlights what happened after the entire story and is used as a backward-looking informer of future budget allocation decisions.
Marketing under pressure
Internal pressures drive digital marketers to measure and report ROI sooner than the length of their sales cycle. Digital marketers who measure ROI in one month or less are 2x as likely to have budget allocation discussions at least once a month. Compounded on these frequent discussions is the fact that 58% of digital marketers feel the need to prove ROI in order to justify spend and get approval for future budget asks.
Missing out on marketing
the value of marketing efforts
Digital marketers continue to drive incredible value to their businesses. Unfortunately, the pressure to quickly measure ROI results in lower marketer confidence and less motivation to share ROI. 63% of digital marketers do not feel very confident in their ROI measurements today. Marketers can start measuring over the length of their sales cycle to better and more confidently market their own marketing efforts.
Learn how you and your team can take your time to more accurately measure ROI.
Learn how you and your team can take your time to more accurately measure ROI.