Under 40% of marketers always measure ROI

While an obsession with return on investment can lead marketers down a narrow tactical rabbit hole, failing to take account of ROI could end in conflict with senior leadership.

According to Marketing Week’s 2025 Language of Effectiveness survey, in partnership with Kantar and Google, less than two-fifths (38.3%) of marketers always include ROI in their effectiveness analysis.

Indeed, some 11.3% of the more than 1,000 brand marketers surveyed rarely or never measure ROI.

Under a third (29.8%) of B2B brands always measure the return on investment of their marketing spend, while 19.2% report rarely or never doing so. The number of B2C businesses which always assess ROI is much higher at 41.9%. Less than a tenth (8.6%) of consumer-focused businesses rarely or never measure ROI as part of their effectiveness work.

The split is much more even between SMEs (250 employees and under) and large organisations. Almost two-fifths (39.4%) of large businesses and 36.9% of their B2B counterparts always measure ROI. Some 12% of SMEs and 11% of big corporates report rarely or never analysing return on investment.

The data shows a clear disparity between what marketers are measuring and what matters to senior stakeholders.

‘Objective view’: Do brands need a dedicated marketing effectiveness team?

When asked to name the top three metrics the CEO, CFO and board use to assess the success of a marketing campaign, by a distance ROI (53.4%) tops the list.

This is followed some way behind by delivering business outcomes (41.7%), new customer acquisition (36.7%), conversion rates (31.8%) and brand awareness (23.4%).

To a lesser extent, marketers believe senior leaders are interested in customer retention rates (12.8%), Net Promoter Score (11.5%) and customer lifetime value (10.7%). Under a tenth of the sample report the CEO and CFO are interested in brand affinity (8.3%), brand attributes (8.1%), campaign views (7.3%), click through rates (6.8%), brand recall (6%) and campaign cut-through (5.2%).

Within B2C businesses the extent to which ROI is considered the main metric for senior leadership rises to 61.2%, up on the 42.9% within B2B.

Return on investment is also cited as the main metric of interest to CEOs and CFOs within large companies (55.6%) and SMEs (48.9%).

Looking at the data by seniority, over half (53.3%) of the CMOs/marketing directors questioned agree ROI is the most important metric for the senior leadership in their business.

Always on

While measuring ROI is not a priority within every marketing team, the ability to generate sales and leads is of more interest.

Some 44.1% of the total sample always measure how effective their campaigns are at generating new leads/sales. This is the metric most likely to always be measured by B2B brands (51%) and B2C businesses (43.8%).

Of all the metrics listed, a campaign’s ability to generate new leads or sales is also the measure most likely to always be measured by SMEs (47.5%) and large businesses (42.9%).

Over a third (36.6%) always measure the success of a campaign in delivering business outcomes, despite this being a priority for 41.7% of CEOs and CFOs.

More than a quarter (25.6%) always measure how successful a campaign has been in strengthening awareness, while 24.3% constantly analyse the incremental impact of a campaign on aspects like sales and engagement.

Over a fifth (21.6%) are always interested in the head-to-head performance of channels, while 18.8% continually measure changes in brand perception or equity and 16.8% assess changes in purchase consideration.

The data suggests a persistent disparity between what marketers are choosing to measure and what CEOs and CFOs want to see. While many in the industry agree the obsession with ROI among senior leadership is short-sighted, failing to present decision-makers with the data they value – or at least use this data as the basis for a nuanced discussion – could well hamper marketers’ efforts to secure investment.

Marketing Week will continue its reporting from the Language of Effectiveness research in the coming weeks. We will be publishing a report on the data later this month.