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This is something I worked on for a couple years, and I fundamentally agree. I started a company around marketing analytics, eventually selling it and integrati

This is something I worked on for a couple years, and I fundamentally agree. I started a company around marketing analytics, eventually selling it and integrating it with another marketing analytics company. Our product was B2B revenue attribution: for each dollar spent on marketing, how much revenue came of it? This is hard in B2B, because marketing happens to people, but purchase happen months or years later by companies. We found that we could do this for several data streams (conferences, online ads, gated or cookied content marketing). What we then found is that _CMOs don't care_. We were asked multiple times to widen the definition. To push up the numbers, justifying more ad spend or a bigger user conference or more headcount. And you know what? I think that's OK. Marketing works, and it's a critical component of any company. A lot of good marketing isn't trackable, because it plants a seed inside a person's head far before that person buys anything. It tells a compelling story. The world is full of data-addicted PMs and sales VPs and ad purchasers and CEOs, but good marketing is more than that. If the marketers have to appear (or actually be) addicted to data to communicate well with the rest of their company, then so be it. Just like Jacques says: I don't know what the way out of this mess is, or what the path to success looks like. Good marketing can still happen with bad data.

iamacyborg 6y ago
Revenue attribution is even more of a mess now with Apple's ITP. You're absolutely right to say that good marketing still happens despite bad data.
petra 6y ago
Is that attributation problem applicable to B2B where most buying decisions are well considered, unlike B2C ? So the best you can do via ads is to show your offer to the right guy, and that's enough to be considered ?
- trjordan 6y ago
  I’d frame it slightly differently; it’s not exactly “the right guy.” B2B marketing is frequently about getting a critical mass of people at a company to come to consensus. The best strategy here is frequently getting 1 person very excited and 10 people aware enough to not pitch a fit when they hear a deal is happening. The best B2-large-B marketing strategy I ever heard was fundamentally account-based. This guy sold a $1m+ product, and he had a list of the 1,000 companies that could possible afford it. His metrics revolved around a hierarchy of countries > sales territories > accounts. He’d literally evaluate programs based on “have we scheduled enough demos with IBM this quarter?” If the answer was no, they’d run a smaller campaign focused on just the accounts they were behind on. Sales loved him. The hard part about attribution is so much of the internal discussion is opaque. So especially in large accounts, you have to develop some feel for what is “enough” activity in an account that sales won’t have a hard time of it. (And fwiw, you don’t have to do this through pure marketing. Bottoms-up products aka freemium is a great signal that sales should reach out — Datadog, New Relic, Github, and more do this.)
Judgmentality 6y ago
> And you know what? I think that's OK. Marketing works, and it's a critical component of any company. A lot of good marketing isn't trackable, because it plants a seed inside a person's head far before that person buys anything. It tells a compelling story. The world is full of data-addicted PMs and sales VPs and ad purchasers and CEOs, but good marketing is more than that. But how do you know it works if you can't track it? I get your point about it being more than hyper-focused short term metrics, but how do you actually know it's working if you can't quantify it? Imagine if Tesla spent a ton of money on advertising (compared to the $0 they currently spend), would people not just assume the strong brand is tied to whatever marketing campaign might exist? I am not in marketing (although I have had to do limited marketing in the past), but it feels like most of it is just carried along by cargo-culting and inertia. Similar to how everyone wants to be like Google so they copy their interview process, their monorepo, and other things without actually understanding why Google does that. Obviously some people are great at marketing but I'm not convinced most marketing money is actually seeing a positive ROI. That said, I'm genuinely happy to be proven wrong.
- iamacyborg 6y ago
  > I get your point about it being more than hyper-focused short term metrics, but how do you actually know it's working if you can't quantify it? There are always going to be ways to measure things, they're just going to be more or less fuzzy than what we're used to (even if what we're used to is wrong).
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    But how do they measure those things, fuzzy or not? And more importantly, can they actually invalidate their own hypotheses?
    - toast0 6y ago
      On your B2B contact us form, ask 'how did you hear about us', or do it as part of the onboarding. When people leave, ask them where they're going, and where they heard about them. Etc. Are you going to get acurate and complete data? No to both. But you might get actionable data. Will you get real-time feedback? Nope.
sosborn 6y ago
I've always found that people have a hard time accepting that with marketing, data really only tells you what happened. It doesn't tell WHY something happened. I also find (as you allude to) that as much as people want to be 'data driven,' they will conveniently ignore all available data if it suits their purpose. > If the marketers have to appear (or actually be) addicted to data to communicate well with the rest of their company, then so be it. I came to the same conclusion. Fortunately, collecting and storing the data is pretty easy, so I do so once a quarter and move on with my life.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
How can you tell good marketing from bad?
lowdose 6y ago
Only Nike and Red bull are really progressing marketing by innovating culture. Nike is creating trillion dollar economies by introducing the hijab for women which leads to more equality and stronger women with more money to spend on Nike gear. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%20and%20Social%20Sector/Our%20Insights/How%20advancing%20womens%20equality%20can%20add%2012%20trillion%20to%20global%20growth/MGI%20Power%20of%20parity_Full%20report_September%202015.pdf https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%...
cblconfederate 6y ago
> Good marketing can still happen with bad data. Good marketing doesnt have to look like trash though. I remember there were times when ads were sometimes great stuff aesthetically and artistically. I wish they didn't just give that money to google and we didnt have to tolerate uninspired ads.

iamacyborg 6y ago

Revenue attribution is even more of a mess now with Apple's ITP. You're absolutely right to say that good marketing still happens despite bad data.

petra 6y ago

Is that attributation problem applicable to B2B where most buying decisions are well considered, unlike B2C ? So the best you can do via ads is to show your offer to the right guy, and that's enough to be considered ?

trjordan 6y ago
I’d frame it slightly differently; it’s not exactly “the right guy.” B2B marketing is frequently about getting a critical mass of people at a company to come to consensus. The best strategy here is frequently getting 1 person very excited and 10 people aware enough to not pitch a fit when they hear a deal is happening. The best B2-large-B marketing strategy I ever heard was fundamentally account-based. This guy sold a $1m+ product, and he had a list of the 1,000 companies that could possible afford it. His metrics revolved around a hierarchy of countries > sales territories > accounts. He’d literally evaluate programs based on “have we scheduled enough demos with IBM this quarter?” If the answer was no, they’d run a smaller campaign focused on just the accounts they were behind on. Sales loved him. The hard part about attribution is so much of the internal discussion is opaque. So especially in large accounts, you have to develop some feel for what is “enough” activity in an account that sales won’t have a hard time of it. (And fwiw, you don’t have to do this through pure marketing. Bottoms-up products aka freemium is a great signal that sales should reach out — Datadog, New Relic, Github, and more do this.)

Judgmentality 6y ago

> And you know what? I think that's OK. Marketing works, and it's a critical component of any company. A lot of good marketing isn't trackable, because it plants a seed inside a person's head far before that person buys anything. It tells a compelling story. The world is full of data-addicted PMs and sales VPs and ad purchasers and CEOs, but good marketing is more than that. But how do you know it works if you can't track it? I get your point about it being more than hyper-focused short term metrics, but how do you actually know it's working if you can't quantify it? Imagine if Tesla spent a ton of money on advertising (compared to the $0 they currently spend), would people not just assume the strong brand is tied to whatever marketing campaign might exist? I am not in marketing (although I have had to do limited marketing in the past), but it feels like most of it is just carried along by cargo-culting and inertia. Similar to how everyone wants to be like Google so they copy their interview process, their monorepo, and other things without actually understanding why Google does that. Obviously some people are great at marketing but I'm not convinced most marketing money is actually seeing a positive ROI. That said, I'm genuinely happy to be proven wrong.

iamacyborg 6y ago
> I get your point about it being more than hyper-focused short term metrics, but how do you actually know it's working if you can't quantify it? There are always going to be ways to measure things, they're just going to be more or less fuzzy than what we're used to (even if what we're used to is wrong).
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  But how do they measure those things, fuzzy or not? And more importantly, can they actually invalidate their own hypotheses?
  - toast0 6y ago
    On your B2B contact us form, ask 'how did you hear about us', or do it as part of the onboarding. When people leave, ask them where they're going, and where they heard about them. Etc. Are you going to get acurate and complete data? No to both. But you might get actionable data. Will you get real-time feedback? Nope.

sosborn 6y ago

I've always found that people have a hard time accepting that with marketing, data really only tells you what happened. It doesn't tell WHY something happened. I also find (as you allude to) that as much as people want to be 'data driven,' they will conveniently ignore all available data if it suits their purpose. > If the marketers have to appear (or actually be) addicted to data to communicate well with the rest of their company, then so be it. I came to the same conclusion. Fortunately, collecting and storing the data is pretty easy, so I do so once a quarter and move on with my life.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

How can you tell good marketing from bad?

lowdose 6y ago

Only Nike and Red bull are really progressing marketing by innovating culture. Nike is creating trillion dollar economies by introducing the hijab for women which leads to more equality and stronger women with more money to spend on Nike gear. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%20and%20Social%20Sector/Our%20Insights/How%20advancing%20womens%20equality%20can%20add%2012%20trillion%20to%20global%20growth/MGI%20Power%20of%20parity_Full%20report_September%202015.pdf https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%...

cblconfederate 6y ago

> Good marketing can still happen with bad data. Good marketing doesnt have to look like trash though. I remember there were times when ads were sometimes great stuff aesthetically and artistically. I wish they didn't just give that money to google and we didnt have to tolerate uninspired ads.