Make sure whatever you plan or have planned for the year doesn’t end up as a pipe dream. When it comes to Marketing’s ability measure and prove its impact, this certainly seems to be the case. The latest study by Kantor echoes the findings of our research and others who explore how well Marketing uses and selects metrics.

Why does this challenge persist? Perhaps it has to do with setting too many ambitious goals while trying to simultaneously juggle a number of competing priorities.

You still have time to realize and implement some of the best practices of the Best-in-Class. Take a moment to review one of the 12 Marketing best practices we proposed.

How to join the ranks of the top 20% of BIC Marketing orgs — Only about 20% of Marketing Organizations Can Prove Marketing’s Value. Impact and Contribution

Improve Your Odds of Proving Marketing’s Value with the Right Metrics

Connecting Marketing activities to an outcome and selecting outcome-based metrics improves your odds of being able to prove Marketing’s value. John Norcross from the University of Scranton says, “vague goals beget vague resolutions.” To succeed, you need to make sure your Marketing objectives are tied to outcomes and are bounded by rational, achievable, customer-centric metrics.

Vague metrics are the seeds of failure. Similar to “work out more” as a personal health resolution, “generate more qualified leads”, and “increase brand awareness” are examples that lead to vague metrics. While it might be better to say work out Tuesdays and Thursdays mornings, it would be even better to tie your working out to a specific outcome and establish the appropriate metrics.

We can explore these two steps with this example. As part of your resolutions, you decide to work out every Tuesday and Thursday morning. If you complete these workouts, you might declare success. But the real measure of success is the result – the outcome – produced. If the outcome is to lose two pounds per week, your metric may be to expend 300 or more calories in each Tuesday and Thursday morning workout. This helps several ways. First, if we are expending the calories but not seeing the weight loss, we can explore whether we’re sabotaging our efforts – perhaps by too much caloric intake.

By knowing this information, we could adjust by increasing the calories expended or reducing the calories consumed. And here’s why the connection to the outcome is so important. What if the outcome isn’t weight loss, but rather it’s improving your cardio fitness as measured by VO2 (milliliters of oxygen per your body weight per minute that you can move or utilize)? Now, even though you might still be working out every Tuesday and Thursday morning, your metric isn’t calories.

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Let’s apply this example to Marketing. Rather than acquire more customers by increasing the number of qualified leads, you may want something more specific, such as producing 5 qualified inquiries per week for our new solution, with 10% of these converting to a proposal within 30 days. To achieve this outcome, Marketing decides to employ a persona-based approach, and develop and implement a 5-touch multi-channel campaign. Perhaps you can see where this example is leading us. The metric isn’t clicks through, shares, or downloads. It needs to be something related to the number of conversations generated because conversations are more connected to the outcome and a better indicator of Marketing’s contribution.

Hopefully, this example illustrates that the right metrics are pivotal to measuring Marketing’s value, contribution, and impact. Take this approach to join the ranks of the top 20%. If this is one of your aspirations, making sure that activities and outcomes are aligned is a critical first step. These were the reasons we created our patented Accelance® methodology and application. Learn more about how you can employ Accelance®.

FAQ:

(written by Penn of Sintra.ai)

Q1: Why does Marketing’s struggle to measure and prove impact persist?
A: Because many organizations set too many ambitious goals while juggling competing priorities—and then rely on vague objectives and vague metrics. Research (including Kantor and other studies) continues to echo the same issue: Marketing often fails to connect activities to outcomes using rational, achievable, customer-centric measures.

Q2: How many Marketing organizations can actually prove Marketing’s value, impact, and contribution?
A: Only about 20%. The differentiator is not effort—it is the discipline of connecting Marketing activity to outcomes and selecting outcome-based metrics that demonstrate contribution.

Q3: What is the relationship between goals, metrics, and success?
A: Vague goals produce vague resolutions—and vague metrics become the seeds of failure. To improve your odds of success, Marketing objectives must be tied to outcomes and bounded by clear, achievable, customer-centric metrics.

Q4: What are examples of vague Marketing goals and why are they problematic?
A: “Generate more qualified leads” and “increase brand awareness” are common examples. They are directionally positive but too vague to guide decisions, set performance targets, or prove contribution—because they don’t specify outcomes, timeframes, or the customer behavior that matters.

Q5: What does an outcome-based metric look like (and why does it work)?
A: Outcome-based metrics connect activity to the result you are trying to produce. The workout analogy illustrates this: working out twice a week is an activity; losing two pounds per week or improving VO2 is an outcome. The metric changes depending on the outcome (calories expended vs. VO2 improvement). This linkage enables diagnosis and course correction when results fall short.

Q6: How does the workout analogy translate into Marketing measurement?
A: If the outcome is to produce revenue growth through a new solution, the metric should reflect progress toward that outcome—not just activity. For example, instead of “increase qualified leads,” use a measurable outcome such as:

Produce 5 qualified inquiries per week for the new solution
Convert 10% to a proposal within 30 days
If Marketing deploys a persona-based, multi-touch, multi-channel campaign, the most relevant metric is not clicks, shares, or downloads—it is the number of conversations generated, because conversations are more directly connected to proposals and revenue.

Q7: What is the critical first step to joining the “top 20%” who can prove value?
A: Align activities to outcomes and select metrics that reflect that linkage. When metrics are tied to the outcomes the business cares about, Marketing can demonstrate contribution, diagnose performance gaps, and make informed adjustments instead of operating on hope and volume.

Q8: What role does a structured methodology play in improving measurement discipline?
A: A structured approach (such as Accelance®) helps ensure objectives, activities, and metrics are aligned to outcomes—so Marketing measurement becomes a performance management system rather than a collection of disconnected metrics.