Marketers Must Know What Metrics Matter

We are a data driven industry defined by numbers. As direct marketers every test, campaign and product is measurable.

My interest used to be solely focused on the number of unique, new data files that were available to create potential new customers for clients and prospects. Today my numbers include open rates, clickthrough rates, lead conversion, number of impressions, cost per acquisition, and cost per lead. Metrics to acquire a new customer have traditionally been measured by a positive return on investment (ROI). Lifetime value and customer reactivation are harder to predict, but integral to any customer acquisition campaign.

Numbers and rankings are everywhere. They make intangible marketing insights tangible. For instance, they inform financial institutions and insurance companies about credit scores, who to target and who is a greater risk. Today our attention is on information overload. We are swimming, or, as some may say, drowning, in the wake of an ever increasing data pool. There are new metrics from social media like “likes” or “page views.” Social media advertising spend is expected to increase from $2.4 billion in 2011 to $8.3 billion in 2015. Facebook is approaching 700 million users and Google handles over 11 billion queries per month.

There are over five billion mobile subscribers worldwide. Companies like Nielsen, Simmons, and Forrester are sifting through the 2010 census data to help marketers determine which statistics are irrefutable and how to allocate their marketing dollars. From declining birth rates to multigenerational households, from brick and mortar shopping to PayPal purchases, the consumer of today has changed.

Numbers are a reference point. As marketers, we need to continue to finds ways to measure our consumers’ buying patterns and the products we offer them in as objective a way possible. Statistics can be a critical variable for marketing strategy. The number of online friends or likes someone has is as important as we allow it to be. Data driven decision making must be measured and evaluated in as objective way as possible. Identifying meaningful data patterns and creating custom scoring models provides the business intelligence by which our industry has always been defined.

Given our obsession with numbers and the information overload, we must still focus on the intangibles that cannot be measured such as experience, judgment, and wisdom.

Adrea Rubin is CEO of Adrea Rubin Marketing Inc.