Avoiding the efficiency trap: How marketing shifts from precision to prediction

Host: Nadia Cameron, Publisher | Editor – Marketing

Marketing teams have become incredibly good at optimising campaigns and communications through ever-more precise data and measurement tools. But have we been pursuing precision and ROI to the point where we’ve optimised and measured ourselves into oblivion?

That’s a key question that lies at the heart of the latest Mi3 podcast episode. The second question immediately alongside it: If modern measurement tools are telling us what worked in the past, how do we find the complementary intelligence that’ll help us predict the customers and trends that might drive effective strategies for future growth?

There’s no doubt the rise of digital media and performance marketing have brought marketing teams extraordinary advances in accountability. But for the likes of Les Binet, Mark Ritson and James Hurman, such precision puts brands in danger of losing sight of how to generate future demand.

How to identify which customers are worth winning longer term is a key piece of the value intelligence puzzle, says social and behavioural scientist, Ross Honeywill – and he’s pitching his 5.5m next economic order (NEO) consumers as the predictive bellwether for early adoption as well as less price-sensitive customer mindsets.

For David Jones’s GM of marketing and retail media, Melissa Polglase, escaping a short-term view is tough in an economic climate where growth is hard to come by. “The digital world has allowed us to track ROAS conversion at a really microscopic level, and that can be quite addictive, particularly in a very choiceful economy now, where customers are really being quite prudent in how they’re spending,” she agrees.

Moreover, platforms are great at “driving an outcome to an audience within a platform”, continues Polglase. Getting past that firstly means staying true to the marketing strategy. But it also means adopting a more customer-oriented mindset, says Polglase.

For example, focusing on a more affluent customer who identifies with experiences and quality was a critical step in designing the retailer’s customer loyalty program – and such care has paid dividends, including a +40 per cent better transaction value than non-member shoppers.

“It really comes down to putting customer strategy ahead of channel optimisation and having the leadership in place to be bold, and to be able to continue driving short-te