During the first half of 2015, marketing performance measurement and management company Fournaise analysed over 500 marketing strategy documents, campaign briefs and effectiveness reports and identified a number of issues.

According to the analysis, 77% of marketers are primarily defining effectiveness as awareness. Fournaise claims that this is wrong, “as awareness in itself is nothing if not specifically built to generate (measurable) interest, desire and ultimately action (AIDA) that have a direct positive impact on the company’s top line (revenue, gross profit) and/ or bottom line (EBIT, EBITDA, net profit).

The analysis revealed that 71% of marketers believe the next best indicator of effectiveness, behind awareness, is engagement. But according to Fournaise: “[…] in the world of marketing effectiveness, effectiveness can’t just be about engagement as engagement is nothing without conversion”.

Fournaise claims that 86% of these ‘engagement’ marketers are mistaking engagement for conversion. “[…] these marketers believe their engagement KPIs actually prove they generated more business for their organisation, even though they can’t really (and unequivocally) link these engagement KPIs to actual business and profit and loss-related results, and marketing ROI”.

Fournaise also claims that 74% of marketers don’t pay enough attention to customer value propositions (CVPs). The analysis indicates that marketers perceive form and style to be more important than the content or message, thus “neglecting or wrongly prioritising their brand CVPs”.