Technological change has irrevocably altered the behavior of customers. Today people are approaching the tasks of planning a vacation, buying a car, shopping for clothes or choosing a restaurant in ways where they can have instantaneous access to service information – online.  They are also powerful influencers of others as they are embracing the use of social media technologies at an astounding rate.

For marketers the challenge is to capture the hearts and minds of the new feisty, in-control consumer. Apart from finding new ways to participate with them in their online world, web analytics has jumped to the forefront putting a focus on the importance of segmentation and the business intelligence gathering of actionable insights. The old measurement tools of the past have gone by way of the buffalo. Today its about real-time metrics that meet the need for marketing efficiency, accountability and profitability.

In fact Marketing is all about ROI. It can be determined. It is the engine of organic growth if aligned with corporate objectives. (Though, it is important to note that creative experimentation will always lie at the heart of the discipline).

We are living in a new frontier that is ever-changing and the race is on as I type. Impression metrics, message metrics, attitudinal metrics, behavioral metrics, transactional metrics…if your head is spinning it is perfectly normal. Determining what metrics are right for you is not an easy task. However, the best way to cut through the clutter is to reduce the noise by focusing on well-defined marketing objectives and the measurement of ROI. The interactive nature of new media offers a perfect environment to calculate ROI because customer’s actions can be tracked along the funnel. ROI is transforming the effectiveness of the marketing cycle.

Determining the journey down the ROI funnel is not an exact science. Gathering the correct data at the onset is a challenge and requires continuous testing. But, the good news is that in the digital environment testing is real-time so determining “insights” is possible. From there you can develop the creative, communicate to the target, and measure success. While there is no black box that spits out answers, the journey to collect and fine-tune data is worthwhile as it in turn fuels sophisticated analytic models that can ultimately predict ROI results.

The new Marketing Mindset is here. The discipline is no longer based solely on “intuition, art and what may stick” but in turn is based on data, analytics and factors that deliver profitable growth.