The research uncovered three critical effectiveness mistakes made by marketers last year, following analysis of over 2.5m B2C and B2B marketing strategies.

The report, by the Fournaise Marketing Group, said that in 67% of cases marketers were “deluged with data and reports but kept asking for more”. It revealed that incorrect data collection/ analysis methodologies were often used for the wrong purposes, leading to poor decisions and under-performing campaigns.

Or, the report claimed, marketers “developed strategies and creative first and then cherry-picked data to justify what they’d already decided”.

Other key mistakes highlighted by the report were: weak customer value propositions – in 88% of cases, marketers were apparently wrongly prioritising ‘how to say it’ ahead of ‘what to say’; and an over-reliance on creativity in ads at the expense of message relevance, message appeal and action/ engagement. According to the report, 70% of creative executions “did not build a high enough level of audience engagement to generate solid incremental customer demand for the products/ services advertised”.

What’s more, said the findings, too many marketers were relying on “fluff” metrics such as likes and tweets, which don’t demonstrate ROI.

“To deliver results, effectiveness and ROI, there is a formula,” said Jerome Fontaine, global CEO & chief of Marketing Performance at Fournaise. “You first optimise what you say, to whom, why you say it (and in which order), and then you optimise how you say it (and where) – using the appropriate science and tools.”