Slow and steady wins the marketing race, says LinkedIn

Digital marketers are measuring ROI too quickly, according to new data from LinkedIn.

According to the platform, digital marketers are jumping the gun when it comes to assessing the effectiveness of campaigns by examining results during an arbitrary short-term duration rather than their company’s actual sales cycle.

A typical sales cycle would usually fall anywhere between three and nine months, but according to LinkedIn, half of digital marketers (52%) surveyed say they measure ROI in the short-term (less than one month).

Only 4% of digital marketers measure ROI over a six-month period or longer, which is the duration that is more in line with the length of a typical B2B sales cycle.

This means that in many instances marketers are measuring a specific KPI rather than ROI as a whole.

But why are digital marketers measuring ROI so quickly?

According to LinkedIn, "Digital marketers appear to be under intense pressure to prove the ROI of their efforts to secure additional budget and earn recognition."

However, these quick measurements result in "less confidence and less motivation for digital marketers to share ROI broadly".

As a result, the majority of marketers surveyed often fail to share their ROI results with either their finances or sales departments, further siloing marketing efforts, and ultimately leading to reduced budgets as well as reduced impact on the corporate bottom line.

Many of these issues, including reluctance to share results and low confidence in ROI metrics, could be solved with a slow and steady approach, according to LinkedIn.