#marketing-metrics

#marketing-metrics

Marketing leaders often find themselves in a constant struggle. Expected to drive growth, build brands and shape customer experience, they face ongoing scrutiny from CFOs and boards who want to know, "What's the return?" Even with sophisticated data tools and analytics platforms, many marketing teams struggle to make a compelling financial case for additional funding. This friction rarely comes from a lack of effort.

In the apparel industry, returns quietly erase margin, distort customer acquisition cost (CAC) and starve lifetime value (LTV). Most apparel companies treat returns as a warehouse problem. They're not. Returns are created upstream by the promises made in ads, by clarity on product pages, by the product itself and by whether reviews help shoppers choose the right size. In a previous role at an outdoor/apparel brand, board-level accountability forced us to run returns from the marketing cockpit.

Key stat: 28% of worldwide consumers say they need to see a creator promote a product 3 to 4 times before making a purchase, according to a March 2025 impact.com and EMARKETER survey. Beyond the chart: Engagement rate (55.4%) and conversions or sales (54.0%) are the top metrics used by marketers when considering creator partnership ROI, according to a February EMARKETER and Spotter survey.

I'm the creative lead of a direct-to-consumer brand in India with a background in design education and professional experience in the creative field. Over time, I've realised that my inclination toward strategy and creative thinking has helped me solve larger customer-centric problems through design and create meaningful business impact. At the same time, it has taken me a while to grasp the other side of the equation - the marketing metrics, numbers, and data that drive business decisions.

Firstly, the campaign led to audience fatigue, over-saturating their most engaged customers while ignoring potential new ones. It also resulted in product tunnel vision, whereby the brand stopped promoting its full product range, so missed cross-sell opportunities. Similarly, innovation stagnation meant that new product launches struggled because the algorithm only promoted proven winners. Lastly, it also led to market share erosion, with competitors capturing new customers that the brand had ignored.