The value of marketing measurement goes beyond understanding the revenue impact of impressions, gross rating points (GRPs) or clicks. Marketers have the opportunity to build on advanced analytical approaches to analyze business issues across the enterprise, including how marketing — in combination with product, distribution and operations — impacts business growth.

In this report, Forrester advises marketers to look beyond marketing for an insights-driven future in three steps:

- Upgrade to a unified measurement approach
- Evolve from post-campaign measurement to planning and optimization insights
- Make marketing measurement a node in the enterprise system of insights

Once marketers have a solid hold on unified marketing measurement and have evolved into planning and optimization, they can lead their firm's transformation into an insights-driven business. They can do this by connecting the data and insights in the marketing measurement model to other analytically driven decision-making processes across the enterprise for a true system of insight, incorporating all of the four P’s of marketing into measurement models, not just promotion.

Forrester reveals how partners like IRI use unified analytical approaches to answer clients’ questions on price elasticity, product demand and optimal locations for new stores, connecting marketing to business operations and pricing strategy.

The research also suggests marketers, “build an analytic culture alongside your tech stack. To realize the benefits of investments in data and analytic tools, B2C marketers must upgrade analytic knowledge across the marketing team, evolve to a "people-led" planning process, and sharpen their focus on finding and capitalizing on new growth opportunities beyond advertising.”

IRI agrees. Without people, all that’s left is a tech stack that doesn’t drive impact. We also believe data scientists, engineers, developers and others can often be hard to claim as a long-term differentiator because clients can replace them. And, we recommend augmenting people with technology through augmented decision making.

Open Report