Businesses both large and small are investing substantially in marketing technology. The martech industry itself is now a substantial business in its own right. As with any investment, companies and organizations need to know what type of return they’re getting, and although there’s plenty of data available, knowing precisely how to use it to measure martech performance is essential in order to determine if their efforts and strategies in this area are working—and working to their fiscal benefit.
Data Complexity
Today, there isn’t just one way to measure martech performance. There are many. So many, in fact, that companies might feel dizzy from the exploration. While companies appear to understand that there is immense potential in understanding the data available to them from various sources and methodologies, they aren’t mastering this data to their advantage. Once companies begin to view data as a means for enhancing their martech strategies and not as a ball of confusion, they can rely on it to help them achieve their marketing goals.
Measuring Martech Performance: Accounts
To master account-based management, companies need to know where they stand before embarking on new martech strategies. This knowledge provides the company with a baseline. How many customers are visiting the website? What pages do they most engage with? Where are these visitors coming from? Simply organizing this data into a baseline gives the company a starting place from which to measure all subsequent data regarding accounts performance.
After that baseline has been established, the business can begin to draw some conclusions as they employ new strategies and analyze how various trends might be influencing their accounts. While it’s essential to determine how many leads are converting to sales, it’s also important to understand, again, where these leads are coming from (i.e. social media platforms) and what content they’re engaging with. With these analytics in mind, your marketing team can modify their strategies in the areas that need tweaking.
What About ROI?
Getting back to that return on investment—certainly, measuring ROI is important for businesses concerned about their bottom line. In other words, businesses need to know what they’re getting from the investment they’re putting into martech. Simply put, if a company spends $100 on martech and sees an increase of $1,000 in sales, then they have an ROI of 900%. Doing the math to get that ROI score is simple enough, but there are many variables involved in that score. For instance, how does the company know that it was its marketing campaign that drove up sales? What if its main competitor suffered a PR dilemma or went out of business?
What companies begin to understand is that ROI is just part of the measurement equation. After determining their ROI score, it’s important to bring in some soft metrics and measure them against baseline numbers. Did customer traffic increase substantially? How many social media mentions did the brand witness during its campaign? How many email leads converted? Examining this support data helps analysts draw some conclusions about their campaign, allowing them to better understand its strengths and weaknesses.
Measuring martech may not be an exact science, but establishing a baseline and identifying what data is most worth examining is where companies need to start when it comes to analyzing their martech activities. Measurement and analytics will ultimately show them whether or not their investments in martech are paying off.