CMO Survey: Measurement Isn't Our Top Priority

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at surveys to understand marketers’ priorities. Another one crossed my desk today, taken by Aprimo at Argyle Executive Forum’s 2010 CMO Spotlight Forum: Retail and Consumer Goods & Services on April 29, 2010 in New York.

The results are the most puzzling yet. The survey seems nice and simple: three questions with five answers each, and the answers contain similar categories. But the most common answer to each question suggests a different priority:

Q: What is driving the highest degree of change to your marketing strategies?
A: Creating more compelling customer/prospect experiences (37%)

Q: What is the CMO’s biggest challenge today?
A: Integrating and tracking multiple channels (37%)

Q: What is most broken in marketing?
A: Correlating marketing activities to revenues (39%)

So which is it, folks? Customer experience, channel integration or marketing measurement? It's nice to know that I could cite whichever I like if I have a particular point to support. But mostly this suggests that CMOs are just plain confused.

I suppose a more subtle interpretation would be that marketers know that correlation of activities with revenues is their "most broken" process, but consider fixing it less important than integrating multiple channels. You could argue this supports the case I made in my last two posts that marketers haven't invested in measurement because they have other priorities.

The table below gives a more complete view of the results, with color-coding of related answers across categories. You might see a bit of a pattern if you look hard enough: integration and measurement show up in four of top six cells. And I suppose the #3 rank of measurement in the "biggest challenge" category reinforces my argument about its low priority.

Goals Driving Most Change

Biggest CMO Challenge Today

Most Broken in Marketing

create compelling experiences 37%

integrate & track multiple channels 37%

correlate activity w/revenue 39%

ROI / accountability 27%

do more with less 28%

lack of channel integration 27%

digital marketing 18%	accountability / measurement 18%	too many silos 15%

integrate channels 17%

control messages in social media 11%

perceived lack of marketing value 10%

streamline operations 1%

keep up with social media 6%

channel-consistent messaging 10%

You can download the survey results and take a more detailed CMO survey if you're so inclined. Aprimo seems to be setting up some sort of community as well, although I couldn't find any actual discussion to date.