Social media marketing emerged as the most difficult to analyse in terms of attributing marketing results to sales revenue.

Even though social media is integral to most CMO’s overall marketing plans, it remains one of the most difficult tactics to measure in terms of revenue.  

This insight comes from DemandLab which recently published the results of its “Revenue Attribution Outlook Survey.” 

The report revealed that out of all of the top digital channels, social media marketing (44%) emerged as the most difficult to analyse in terms of attributing marketing results to sales revenue. This was followed by content marketing (39%), display advertising (38%), and email marketing (33%).

Interestingly, SEO (18%) was found to be the least difficult to analyse in terms of revenue attribution.  

The report noted that “the ability to show which marketing campaigns and channels are contributing to moving a customer toward making a purchase is integral to an effective attribution strategy, but marketing channels are inherently difficult to analyze.”

To overcome this challenge, the customer experiences marketing company advised the CMOs to reallocate just 10% of the budget in each channel to revenue attribution efforts: “With the insights into working and where to invest marketing dollars to increase returns, teams will improve performance overall . Do less execution in each channel in order to add better attribution tracking. It makes little sense to keep doing more without an understanding of what is providing the best results.”