The Top Metric? It’s Not Lifetime Value

What marketers want to measure and what they are measuring may be two different things, according to a survey from WebTrends.

For example, only 19% are now measuring customer lifetime value, although 83% feel they need to do so.

And while 84% would like to see online brand scores included in their executive dashboards, only 21% are tracking them.

The executives were asked to list the key metrics that they “really care about” and would like to see included in an executive dashboard.

These results were released amidst a growing clamor for marketing accountability.

“It’s no longer enough to discuss the reach of our message,” said Bill Engel, co-CEO of Simmons Research, an Experian company, during the Promotion Marketing Conference earlier this month in Chicago. “We must assess whether it produced results. Did it reach the right consumers? Did it move them to buy our products and services?”

In contrast, the most popular metric—in practice—seems to be customer satisfaction, judging by the WebTrends results. It is measured by 38% of those surveyed. But 69% said they have the need to measure it.

The second most used metric, at 31%, is offline revenue. However, 75% want it as part of their dashboards.

Also popular are A/B testing metrics, now being calculated by 28% of those surveyed. But 78% feel a need for it.

WebTrends concludes that “simple visit- and traffic-based measurements won’t be as critical to business success as in-depth Web analytics and customer-level information.”

In other results, 15% said analysis is nonexistent on their teams, and more than half make it a part-time chore. What’s more, CMOs rate their own Web knowledge as scanty. (MarketingROI, March 8, 2006).

Of the marketers surveyed, 18% were chief marketing officers, 26% were marketing vice presidents and 29% were marketing directors. The rest were classified as “other.” As for category, 52% were B2B, 10% B2B and 34% both.