How To Develop a Marketing Culture That Measures Creative Performance

How do marketers know if a creative asset is moving the measurement needle? 

Let’s take that one step further: how do creatives, who make the asset for marketers, know if a creative asset is moving the needle?

Most do not.  

A recent inMotionNow and InSource researchOpens a new window showed that 55% of creatives rarely or never receive quantitative feedback on how well an asset performed with customers and prospects.

The impact is considerable in marketing, especially in the digital age, according to a study by GartnerOpens a new window . The research organization fielded a survey that found “64% of B2B buyers cannot differentiate between one B2B brand’s digital experience and another’s.”

“It’s almost as if we’ve built our websites and other digital engagement to purposefully mask differences,” said Brent Adamson, the Gartner analyst that championed the survey and the co-author of the bestselling book, The Challenger Sale. “They’re swimming in a sea of sameness.” 

As marketers, we have one job: to make our products stand out in the marketplace. Why are we failing? 

My theory: we all have the same tools. We’re all watching the same metrics. That has caused us to shift attention away from anything that can’t be tallied up in clicks, downloads, or other transactional measures. We’ve downplayed the less tangible aspects, but arguably more strategic aspects, of marketing like branding and creative.

See More: How to Use Dynamic Creative Optimization Tactics for Performance Marketing

Consequently, we’ve started treating creative teams like cost centers rather than realizing that the magic of creatives is what drives the math of performance marketing. So, the culture of creativity in marketing has atrophied. We haven’t built the processes and measurement frameworks around creatives in the same way we have for marketing operations. And now every martech-enabled company sounds the same.

The Creative Performance Feedback Loop Starts With Culture

Creativity is, by definition, the key to being different. If differentiation is an important function of marketing, creative teams have much to offer. 

New talents and functions can help. Just as operations roles have emerged to better align marketing with sales downstream, creative operations can move that alignment upstream.  

Process and tools can make a difference too. Marketing and creative leaders should consider how analytics, workflow, and collaboration can be used to loop creative performance data back to the creative team. 

However, I’d suggest there’s a more important prerequisite: changing the marketing culture and attitudes toward creatives. Some ideas for getting started on this are below. 

1. Invite creative to the strategy table

Too many in marketing view creative as the ‘department of colors and fonts.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout the pandemic, creative teams demonstrated exceptional resilience, as our annual Creative Management Report for 2021 revealed. They learned new technical skills and made invaluable contributions to the remote work transformation.  

Bringing creatives to the strategy table has two important benefits. First, it allows them to put their problem-solving abilities to work for marketing. Second, metrics can’t just be tossed over the wall back to creative when a campaign ends. Bringing the creative team to the strategy table gives them the context for understanding metrics and performance measures later. 

2. Review how you share performance data

Chances are, the measurement data you collect is stuck with the performance team. The marketing leadership might be reviewing that data, but creatives probably aren’t afforded the same opportunity. This denies creatives the ability to see what’s working and improve performance. 

The next time you are reviewing metrics, take a mental survey of who is in the room and who isn’t. If creative isn’t present, consider who from that team should be involved. It’s worth asking that team for input, too: nobody wants another meeting on their calendar, so the cadence the creative team needs for a metrics meeting will be different.

3. Create a measurement framework with creative

With creative sitting at both the strategy table at the beginning and the measurement table at the end, you may notice gaps in metrics. Creative performance is notoriously hard to measure, but it’s not impossible. Larger organizations may have the budget to spring for a brand survey, whereas smaller organizations will settle for proxy measures, such as share-of-voice or branded search. 

Don’t overlook the easy steps either. For example, requiring that every creative briefing include prior performance data in its thesis and measures of success at the outcome of the project. Even the simplest marketing measurement experiments can yield results; a simple A/B test can reveal whether a logo or imagery is producing the best results. 

See More: My Campaign Is Ready, but Where Are My Creatives?

Creativity Plus Data – Not Creativity or Data

Creativity and data are not mutually exclusive. Marketing shouldn’t jettison its drive for measurable outcomes or the savvy use of automation and tools. Yet, we have perhaps, with the assistance of martech, become over-reliant on tools and overweighted our emphasis on direct measurement techniques. Along the way, we’ve lost some of those intangible attributes that make our brands distinct.  

Pairing data with creativity is the first step in the right direction. It also requires the leadership necessary to build a marketing culture that values creative and, where it makes sense, to mix in some of the data science we’ve learned along the way.

What benefits have you seen by measuring creative performance? Share with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .

MORE ON  MARKETING CAREERS & SKILLS

• Organizations Want a Chief Meme Officer: Are You Ready for It?
• The (Marketing) Kids Are Struggling!! We Need to Train Them