A brand’s marketing and media strategy is based on countless unpredictable variables. Change happens quickly, and it’s easy to get lost in the swirl of uncontrollables. The best marketers? They develop the muscle of adaptability and build their strategy on a strong measurement foundation—one that is predictable, controllable, and reliable.
We’re sharing the four things every marketer should account for in their measurement strategy, no matter the situation: incrementality, enterprise revenue, customer lifetime value, and profitability.
1. Don’t Trust Attribution Alone—Leverage Incrementality
When evaluating the impact of marketing efforts, don’t over-rely on traditional attribution models. They tend to favor low-funnel, eCommerce-focused channels, skewing performance. This often leads to undervaluing the full impact of upper-funnel tactics, such as video-first strategies on platforms like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube.
For instance, some of our clients have observed that modeled incremental Return on Ad Spend (iROAS) for these video-first tactics can be up to 30x higher than what last-touch attribution suggests1. This discrepancy highlights the importance of considering incremental lift, which offers a more comprehensive view of marketing effectiveness beyond just the immediate actions attributed to a given touchpoint.
What Now, Marketers?
Run a Geo Holdout or Platform Lift Test: If you don’t already have a media mix model (MMM) in place, run a geo holdout* or platform lift test** on your highest-spending media tactics. Use the results from these tests to extrapolate an incrementality factor that you can apply to your media spend on an ongoing basis.
2. Measure What Matters: Capture In-Store and Online Impact
Your marketing efforts likely drive a lift across all selling channels—whether eCommerce, brick-and-mortar, or wholesale—even if this impact isn’t immediately visible in your reporting. In fact, for Ovative retail clients, we often see that approximately 35% of incremental media return comes from in-store sales. If your measurement strategy only accounts for eCommerce, you might be undervaluing the full impact of your investment, potentially leaving profitable revenue on the table.
What Now, Marketers?
Broaden Your Measurement Strategy: Ensure your measurement approach takes into account the full spectrum of conversion channels. Leverage platform capabilities, such as Google’s store visits data or Meta’s offline conversions API, to get a more complete view of your marketing impact.
3. Unlock the True Value of Your Customers
Businesses aren’t built on revenue; they are built on customers. If your measurement strategy doesn’t account for the varying value driven by different customer types, you’re missing key insights. Understanding which customer segments bring the most value—both short-term and long-term—can help you make smarter marketing decisions and optimize spend.
What Now, Marketers?
Calculate Customer Lifetime Value: Work with your CRM team to calculate the long-term value of each customer segment. Then, apply this value to the customers converted by your marketing efforts. This will allow you to assess both the immediate and future impact of your marketing campaigns.
4. Make Marketing a Growth Driver, Not a Cost Center
Your marketing strategy is only valuable if the profit it drives outweighs the cost. Media can efficiently drive conversions. But, if those conversions are mostly for low-margin products, the real value to the business is minimal. Moreover, factors like return rates or promotion volatility can significantly affect the bottom-line impact of the revenue generated by marketing efforts.
What Now, Marketers?
Incorporate Margin and Profitability in ROI Calculations: Ensure that margin and profitability are considered when calculating ROI. To start, apply an estimated margin factor to the weekly or monthly ROAS you report from marketing investment. This will give you a clearer picture of how your marketing is truly impacting your business’s bottom line.
The Foundation of Success: Unlock the True Impact of Your Marketing
If this information fires you up, you’re not alone. These four fundamentals are the backbone of Enterprise Marketing Return (EMR), Ovative’s game-changing metric that cuts through the noise and tells you what’s really driving growth. EMR brings together incrementality, enterprise revenue, customer value, and profitability into one powerful, actionable metric. It’s how modern marketers stop defending spend and start proving impact. Ready to measure what matters? Dig into EMR with our measurement experts to level up your strategy.
Source: 1)
* A geo holdout test compares regions exposed to a campaign with regions not exposed to isolate the campaign’s impact on performance and helps determine the effectiveness of the campaign by controlling for external factors.
** A platform lift test measures the impact of a marketing campaign on a specific platform by comparing key metrics before and after the campaign to assess the direct effect of the campaign on performance within that platform.
