What’s measured matters as the saying goes, but data suggests not all marketers are analysing the impact their work has on the wider business.
Marketing Week’s 2025 Language of Effectiveness survey, in partnership with Kantar and Google, finds just two-fifths (39.2%) of brand marketers measure whether their work is delivering business outcomes.
The survey of more than 1,000 brand marketers finds conversion rates (60.8%) are the most popular metric used in effectiveness tracking, followed by return on investment (57.5%), click through rates (57.5%), new customer acquisition (53.7%) and brand awareness (51.9%).
What’s measured matters as the saying goes, but data suggests not all marketers are analysing the impact their work has on the wider business.
Marketing Week’s 2025 Language of Effectiveness survey, in partnership with Kantar and Google, finds just two-fifths (39.2%) of brand marketers currently measure whether their work is delivering business outcomes.
The survey of more than 1,000 brand marketers finds conversion rates (60.8%) are the most popular metric used in effectiveness tracking, followed by return on investment (57.5%), click through rates (57.5%), new customer acquisition (53.7%) and brand awareness (51.9%).
Less than half (48.6%) of marketers measure campaign views and leads generated (44.5%), while under a third (31.8%) describe customer retention rates as a key metric.
Brand recall is measured by just 30.8% of the total sample, while Net Promoter Score (NPS) is prioritised by under a third (29.8%) of marketers. Brand attributes (26.7%), customer lifetime value (26.2%) and brand affinity (21.6%) are the metrics least likely to be measured by marketers.
B2B marketers are prioritising the amount of leads generated (67%), followed by new customer acquisition (56.3%) and click through rates (54.4%). For their B2C peers, conversion rate (68.9%) is the most important metric, followed by click through rates (63.1%) and ROI (62.1%).
Concerningly, less than half (49.5%) of B2C marketers say they focus on gauging whether their work is delivering business outcomes, a number which almost halves (27.2%) among their B2B counterparts.
Less than half of brands have ‘well-defined’ effectiveness function
Looking at the data by size of company, SMEs (250 employees and under) describe conversion rates (60.4%) as their primary metric, followed by new customer acquisition (59%) and click through rates (59%).
Within large corporates, the focus is on conversion rates (61.8%) and ROI (61.8%), followed by click through rates (57.4%). Well under half of large firms (39%) and SMEs (38.8%) measure whether their work is delivering business outcomes.
When asked which approaches they are taking to measuring campaign success, just over half (51.5%) of the total sample are already using digital attribution, with more than a third (35.3%) conducting controlled experiments, such as conversion uplift tests.
Under a third of the sample (32%) are currently using econometrics, such as market mix modelling, to assess campaign performance.
An even split of B2B (47.8%) and B2C (45.4%) brands are currently using digital attribution. Consumer facing businesses are more likely to be engaging in controlled experiments (41.2%) than their B2B peers (30.4%).
However, the gap widens with regards the current use of econometrics. While almost half (46.4%) of B2C brands are currently using econometrics, that number plummets to 16.3% of B2B businesses.
Half of SMEs (50.4%) and large corporates (51.5%) are using digital attribution. That said, large businesses are more likely to already be conducting controlled experiments (41.1%) than smaller firms (24.8%).
A similar pattern is true with regards econometrics. Some 38.1% of large companies conduct econometric analysis, versus 19.4% of SMEs.
When it comes to how often these methods of measurement are being used, most marketers (64.3%) take an always-on approach to digital attribution. Under a fifth (15.7%) conduct digital attribution analysis once a month.
Less than a tenth (9.2%) carry out digital attribution once a quarter, on an ad-hoc basis depending on campaigns (6.5%), every six months (3.2%) and once a year (1.1%).
The data finds a third (32.8%) of marketers conduct controlled experiments on an ongoing basis, with a quarter (25.8%) doing so once a month. These timescales are far more common than carrying out controlled experiments once a quarter (17.2%) and on an ad-hoc basis (13.3%).
Less than a tenth of the total sample conduct controlled experiments every six months (5.5%), once year (3.9%) and less than once a year (1.6%).
Modes of measurement
Perhaps due to the rigour and expense involved, marketers are far less likely to be conducting econometric analysis on a regular basis.
Just over a fifth of respondents (21.6%) use econometrics measurement once a quarter, while only 19.8% do so once a month. A similar percentage (17.2% in both cases) invest in econometrics either once every six months or once a year.
Only 15.5% of the sample use econometrics on an ongoing basis, substantially lower than the numbers who take an always-on approach to digital attribution (64.3%) and controlled experiments (32.8%).
Less than a tenth (6.9%) invest in econometrics on an ad-hoc basis or less than once a year (1.7%).
When asked which methodologies or platforms their team relies on to measure the success of marketing activities and related KPIs, most marketers (74.4%) cite third-party analytics platforms such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics.
Over half (59.1%) of the sample use in-platform attribution and reporting, including GoogleAds and Meta, while 57.7% rely on a combination of internally developed models and custom reporting.
To a lesser extent, marketers are also using agency-built analytics, attribution or reporting platforms (38.4%) and marketing automation platforms/related reports (30.9%), such as Marketo and HubSpot.
B2C businesses are far more likely than their B2B peers to be using a combination of internally developed models and custom reporting (68% B2C versus 50.5% B2B) and agency-built analytics (50.5% B2C versus 26.4% B2B).
Large companies are more likely to use a combination of in-house models and bespoke reporting (64.9%) than SMEs (44.5%). A similar picture emerges with regards agency-built solutions, which are far more common within large firms (46.1%) than smaller businesses (25%).
Marketing Week will continue its reporting from the Language of Effectiveness research in the coming weeks. We will be publishing a report on the data later this month.
