The unexpected key to aligning c-suite & marketing teams

It’s no secret that business leaders and marketers aren’t always aligned when it comes to advertising strategy and budget

This is especially difficult when an in-house marketing team is collaborating with multiple agency partners. Most people will claim this is a communication issue, but in practice, alignment happens when the results of an advertising campaign are clear. This is why the core of Coegi’s solution is based on a sound measurement strategy and learning agenda which all stakeholders can agree upon.

A recent survey published in eMarketer found that two of the top three reported barriers to successful client/agency relationships are based on marketing measurement, with innovation arguably falling into measurement strategies as well.

Agencies and in-house marketing teams need to collaborate with corporate decision makers to define top-line business goals, set marketing expectations, and use those to create a measurement framework for meaningful reporting. These clear guidelines minimize room for miscommunication, ambiguity, or personal opinions. Performance-based measurement tactics speak for themselves and directly tie back to business outcomes and ensure there is consistency, alignment and a common purpose both the executive teams and agencies can agree on.

Here are three steps agency teams can take to create alignment between c-Suite and marketing through measurement:

1) Align goals

Understand the brand’s vision and growth plan. Have the big conversations with all key decision makers from the beginning. Don’t wait until after the strategy is ready to go to consult your board of directors or your media agency. Everyone needs to be a part of this big picture planning process from the beginning.

In previous roles, I’ve been in situations where all my communication was with a marketing director and it was a huge jolt when the CEO or CFO entered the conversation and I realized there were major misalignments in our goals. This is one of the core problems this process avoids.

2) Define expectations

The hardest part is done - your guardrails are in place. Now, build campaign KPIs that lead directly to the business outcomes you’ve already laid out. I recommend layering multiple KPIs to each campaign to make measurement results more meaningful, despite the added effort required. These KPIs are the culmination of expectations c-suite has for the marketing team and the quantitative results the marketing team plans to deliver with their given capabilities.

To identify key metrics, consider what your customer journey looks like. It takes digging and analyzing to find out what activities layered together drive your target outcomes.

3) Develop and implement your measurement framework

There is no one size fits all in digital marketing. Work with your media partner to build out a custom measurement framework. For campaigns with multiple goals, consider creating a weighted formula to assign value and accountability to every dollar of marketing spend, regardless of funnel stage. You want to be able to report with confidence and clarity on every type of campaign and tactic.

”At Coegi, we are agnostic about where the results come from. We don't care if we're getting them from a certain audience, channel, or creative. We let the data decide how we're going to optimize campaigns."

By: Ryan Green, vice president of marketing and innovation