A lot of metrics used to track the return on investment (ROI) from marketing activities can be confusing or misleading, and in some instances, it can be nigh on impossible to build a complete picture of the full effect each channel is having.

While this certainly doesn’t mean giving up on tracking specific channel ROI altogether, it does mean being aware of what’s worth measuring, and the hidden factors impacting your overall return on investment.

Not all marketing is attributable

In an age characterised by vast quantities of data at our fingertips, and the tools and software to organise, analyse, and derive insights from this data, the idea that all marketing activities must be measurable and attributable is well-cemented across businesses and boardrooms.

The uncomfortable reality, however, is that measuring the full impact of marketing activities is often an impossible task. While we can track individual clicks on an ad and website sessions, or measure how SEO efforts have increased a website’s traffic over time, there are many areas where tracking is simply not possible.

High-profile marketing activities, such as landing a mention in an article from a leading publication, a media appearance, or a brand sponsorship can have a huge impact, feeding into overall marketing ROI, but this can be difficult to neatly attribute and demonstrate in a spreadsheet.

Word-of-mouth in the digital age

Peer recommendation, that is, word-of-mouth marketing, has always played a pivotal role in promoting brand awareness and influencing purchasing decisions. This is true of both traditional and digital marketing, with private ‘dark’ social channels such as Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, and other messaging applications responsible for a huge proportion of peer-to-peer recommendations and brand mentions.

Instances where someone sees your ad, then shares this with their coworker over Slack, for example, results in tracking being essentially lost. Even if they go on to become a customer, this won’t be attributed to the ad, despite the important role it plays here.

The rub here for marketers is that word-of-mouth, both on- and offline, is notoriously difficult to track or measure. Unlike ads or click-through rates, peer recommendations that happen through private social channels, email, text or word-of-mouth are not attributable, and as such, are often not fully considered when calculating ROI.

Cross-device considerations

Private shared and mentions are not the only challenge to building a full picture of the impact of your marketing activities. Another hurdle for marketers to overcome is the tendency for consumers to conduct their purchasing journeys through multiple devices. Someone may see your ad on their phone but make that final purchase via a laptop or other device. With many not being logged into the same accounts across all devices, effective cross-device tracking can be a serious challenge to calculating ROI.

Overcoming ROI challenges

Ensuring that budget – especially tight marketing budget – is being spent on the most valuable activities is essential, but calculating each channel’s specific ROI can be misleading. Not only do marketers have to account for unattributable results, but, with so much data at their disposal, must ensure they are actually measuring the right things.

A focus on individual metrics and activities, such as visits to a website or likes on a social media post is ill-advised if this isn’t tempered with the overall outcomes of those activities. It’s the latter that provides insight into what particular marketing activities are delivering in terms of value. It’s important to note that tracking conversions is still a very worthwhile activity. Insight into whether someone clicks on your Google Ad, for example, is essential for optimising which keywords to spend budget on, but this must be tempered with the knowledge that the number of conversions you are seeing is not the full picture.

Final thoughts

Despite the masses of data at the fingertips of digital marketers, the reality is that not everything can, or should, be meaningfully tracked. Gaining a complete picture of where your revenue is coming from is often an impossible task, and while tracking marketing activities is worthwhile, understanding or attribution is not possible is key to knowing where those limits are.

This isn’t just essential for knowing when and what to track, it’s also key to ensuring you continue to invest in those activities that, while not directly measurable, provide value to your overall marketing strategy through influence and word-of-mouth marketing.