eBusinessBlog.org Leveraging marketing & technology to solve business problems.

Marketers forgoing analytics? That’s like CFOs forgoing balance sheets.

I was floored when I saw the following article in a recent MarketingVOX daily newsletter:

Frustrated by Difficulty, Half of Marketers Forgo Analytics

Marketers will continue to invest significantly in online marketing this year, but less than half (47%) actually use analytics to measure their campaigns, and one-fifth only have a 'basic' website, according to the sixth annual marketing survey from Alterian (via MarketingCharts).

A marketing department can be a competitive advantage, but only if marketers understand how to measure campaign effectiveness.

Marketing budgets are usually the first to get trimmed in difficult economic times and it's no surprise with over half of marketers not being able to tie a return (in revenue, customer satisfaction, brand awareness, etc.) to marketing dollars invested. A CFO at any company is going to quickly zero-in on this spending and cut what they don't understand and certainly what isn't being measured.

Are you measuring the effectiveness of your website with web analytics?

Free analytics tools readily available from Google and Yahoo! allow you to jump right in. But, it's not just the access to the technology that will help derive value from marketing investments; ultimately, it's accountability and the desire to continually improve your campaigns. Without either of these two characteristics, then you're just viewed as an "expense" that can eventually be cut.