How smart leaders use marketing metrics to navigate uncertainty | MarTech

"Business leaders crave certainty. They wish marketing were like a factory, where demand could be reliably manufactured. But executives have always been frustrated with marketing's volatility. Continuous volatility means that marketing results almost always vary from plan. As they say in the military, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Despite that, dashboard day is still often judgment day. You either made your goal, surpassed it or failed."

"Accepting uncertainty doesn't give marketing leaders an excuse to abandon planning and measurement. Instead, it invites marketers, their C-suite partners and investors to try a radically more useful and realistic way of looking at marketing metrics. Instead of seeing performance gaps as failures to meet outdated plans, treat them as valuable signals about how the market is changing. Marketing data informs judgment, guides experiments and reveals insightful patterns that help navigate the changing marketplace effectively."

Executives pursue certainty and expect marketing to operate like a controllable factory, but marketing inherently exhibits continuous volatility and unpredictable results. Marketing automation and martech produced more data but revealed greater complexity rather than predictability. Markets are uncertain and change is accelerating, making strict targets and judgmental dashboard reviews misleading. Performance deviations should be reframed as informative signals about shifting market conditions, not as proof of failure. Marketing data should inform judgment, guide experiments, uncover patterns, and support adaptive planning and measurement that navigates uncertainty instead of enforcing rigid control.

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