Don't Blame the Metrics. Blame Your Marketing. - Uwe Hook

Our industry is obsessed with measuring performance and effectiveness. Clients have to show their executive team ROI, and so we all chase the golden metrics that show our programs and campaigns work. Not happy with the CTR? Just look at the engagement rate, how long people look at the ad. That doesn't work either? Let's have a look at attribution management. Let's develop customized statistical models that prove our case. Our hypothesis.

Stop. Take a breath.

Maybe we don't have bad metrics. Maybe all the metrics we need are already there and we don't any new ones. Maybe we all just forgot that good marketing isn't about spending hours hunched over Excel, trying to develop statistical models that prove how great our marketing is.

Think about the marketing you encounter each day.

Let's face it: the majority of marketing is terrible. Just terrible. I still encounter pop-unders, hovering ads, videos that start out of nowhere, pre-rolls that are longer than the actual content, commercials that make me cringe, print ads that make me cry. In average, 95% of marketing is just terrible. We tend to talk about the 5% but we forget about the vast majority of marketing people have to deal with.

It's been that way for a long time (maybe forever) but now we can measure it. That can lead to a depressing workday. Since we have these new tools and piles of data, we try to become more efficient, automate things, build new segments for more relevant messages, create bigger CTA buttons, collect more data and all the other things our industry tends to focus on.

We are trying to make bad marketing more effective.

And it works. Kind of. We have incremental improvements when using behavioral targeting, delivering relevant messages, segment people, etc. From 0.08% to 0.09. Or 1.1% to 1.4%.

Are we so defeated that such incremental improvements are considered victories? A marketing success?

We need to set the bar higher.

How?

By developing marketing that

· Makes the world a better place

· Allows your customers to help each other. And saves your company a pretty dime.

· Empowers people to share their ideas with you.

· Helps me out when I need it most.

· Improves my performance.

We need to stop complaining about bad metrics. And start fixing bad marketing.

Uwe Hook is the CEO and Co-Founder of BatesHook, Inc. (www.bateshook.com) and a veteran of the advertising and marketing industry with the goal of building connections between people and brands. Uwe can be reached at uwe@bateshook.com.

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