Marketing through Covid restrictions and recovery

Why marketing attribution analysis is the most important weapon in B2C’s armoury this year.

Everyone’s talking about which changes will stick and what the future holds for consumer brands, as global and national economies and commerce reform and recover from the impact of Covid and successive lockdowns.

With tight margins and budgets the reality for most, and caution the watchword even for the most stable and successful organisations, prioritising and justifying marketing spending is key in an unpredictable and fast-changing world.

Improving overall marketing ROI will deliver most value

It’s ironic that cost reduction pressures are also what stands in the way of designating team resources or recruiting specialists to scope and deliver the comprehensive, reliable and granular information that would enable you to dramatically improve marketing ROI.

Most organisations are focused on value, ROI and prioritised spending right now. Marketing Directors need to spend less and get more bang for their buck – and they need to prove they’re doing it effectively. That means making changes and making cuts. But where?

As one marketing director says, “My marketing budget is under serious pressure so I’m scrutinising every activity and channel for signs of underperformance. Any hint of weakness and I pull the campaign. What more can I do?”

You need more insight to cut costs with minimal risk

The problem is that arbitrarily scaling back marketing activities because they feel expensive or look disproportionate on the P&L can have unforeseen consequences for other related activities. You won’t know the hidden impact of these campaigns until too late, when it begins to reveal itself in bottom line sales figures.

These are challenging times for all organisations. Budgets are tight. New channels are developing faster than ever. Consumer trends are volatile. You need to be agile in rapidly changing markets. Rich, reliable and actionable insight is more important than ever before.

• How do I sell more with a reduced budget?
• What marketing actions should I take when things change?
• What impact does each channel have on others?
• How do I convince the business that marketing is working?

You need advanced capability in data integration, modelling and measurement

You need to model for growth and changes in your customer and channel mix. You need to know exactly what’s working to engage different customers and where you’re getting strong ROI. You need to measure and model your entire portfolio of marketing and communication activity more rigorously and rapidly than ever before. You can’t afford any bias – for example, relying on analysis from media owners or channels whose interest is best served by more investment from you.

Moreover, adjustments to targeting and positioning can make a dramatic difference to campaign effectiveness. With the right information, you can understand where it’s beneficial to tweak a campaign to optimise it to get more from the marketing investment, and where a campaign is at its maximum potential.

There’s a clear business case for marketing attribution in the post-pandemic world

B2C organisations need access to sophisticated marketing analytics at a time when there’s no slack in the budget for investment in unproven technologies. Happily, marketing attribution analysis is a proven solution. It tangibly improves ROI from marketing activities – and we can help you make the business case based on clear evidence.

At CACI, we’ve developed our marketing attribution approach based on experience gained working with leading global clients that command vast amounts of data and a complex range of marketing campaigns, media and channels. We’re channel, campaign and media agnostic. We can show you the results of optimisation driven by this powerful data insight and share best practice that’s powering the success of leading organisations.

Our short paper 8 key questions you can answer with marketing attribution analysis explains exactly why you need this game-changing insight to fuel your marketing success in your post-pandemic consumer market. Read it now and get in touch if you’d like to discuss how you can put marketing attribution to work for your organisation.