Superior KPIs: Ditch the Tired Marketing Metrics

Efficiency isn’t bad — but efficiency without effectiveness is just cheap media.

What are your key marketing metrics? Or, in other words, how do you measure the success of a campaign?

With data coming in from so many different channels and sources simultaneously, understanding the true impact of your media campaigns can be tricky.

The goal of most ad campaigns is to drive sales, so the number of clicks or video views is inadequate if they don't lead to actual conversions.

Why traditional marketing metrics fall short

Traditional metrics like clicks, impressions, and view completion rates are now little more than distractions.

ROAS and last-click metrics can be misleading because they capture a narrow slice of the journey, often overstating the role of addressable channels and understating long-term brand impact.

This doesn't mean that traditional marketing metrics are wholly meaningless. Clicks, impressions, and views are still indicators of reach and engagement -- which do play a role in building brand awareness and nurturing customer relationships.

However, they should be complemented by advanced measurement strategies that provide a more in-depth understanding of your campaign's true impact on sales and overall business success.

The hidden cost of efficiency in your media plan

Efficiency feels good. It sounds responsible. But in media planning, it’s often a trap.

When marketers prioritize efficiency — CPMs, CPCs, lowest-cost reach — they often end up cutting quality. Cheaper impressions, lower-impact placements, and less relevance. Which means wasted budget!

Here’s the distinction: 

• Effectiveness is about achieving results in terms of sales, conversions, awareness, or other KPIs across the full customer journey.

  
  

• Efficiency normalizes effectiveness against cost, i.e., what business impact are we getting per dollar spent? Both matter.

But efficiency is overused because those metrics are the easiest to access. As a result, brands optimize for what’s easy to measure instead of what actually grows the business.

Analytic Partners has shown that prioritizing these siloed metrics can cost brands $0.35 of opportunity for every $1 spent!

Efficiency isn’t bad — but efficiency without effectiveness is just cheap media.

Better marketing metrics: Balance

Instead, implement advanced measurement techniques that go beyond the surface-level metrics and dive deeper into understanding the true impact of your campaigns.

Align digital channels to investigate sales drivers

Understand where your sales are coming from. Integration and collaboration across channels can offer richer customer insights and help identify key sales drivers. Eliminating data silos and maximizing visibility into the customer journey is crucial to understanding how your omnichannel marketing campaigns are performing.

This is why working with a top media agency who already has these departments built in and collaborating is key to attacking your advertising goals in a holistic fashion.

Track brand perception and lift

It's not just about ensuring people see your ads, but ensuring they leave a positive impression.

Tracking brand lift can help you understand whether your ads are enhancing the audience's perception of your brand. This may require third-party data to measure accurately, but it can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Adopt multitouch attribution

Don't solely credit the first or last impression. Instead, trace all touchpoints and assign credit accordingly. This way, you gain a more comprehensive understanding of your customer journey.

Admittedly, in a cookie-less world, this is a bit more complicated, but with the right tools and technology, it's possible.

Click to learn the key differences between marketing mix modeling and multi-touch attribution.

Get into action

Use incrementality testing, embrace omnichannel measurement, and align analytics to true business goals.

In your next quarterly review, replace a ROAS metric with an incrementality or brand lift metric.

Advanced measurement strategies may not guarantee a successful campaign, but they provide a more nuanced understanding of ad performance.

And, by defining desired outcomes and a measurement plan before a campaign launches, brands can ensure that the reporting they get back is truly relevant to the business expectations.

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This piece originally appeared in our weekly Paid Media Insights newsletter. For more tips, research, and analysis; subscribe for free here.