Customer Reviews

Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a career marketing executive with 13 years of experience currently working as a Director of Marketing and Analytics for a VC-backed firm. This book is invaluable to me at our firm as we take a deep dive into our own data and attempt to build custom metrics and KPIs. This book provides insightful frameworks into how intelligent metrics are mathematically constructed, along with discussing their assumptions and limitations.

The writing is succinct, and the organization of this book appeals to one's intelligence and time. You don't have to read this book cover to cover! The table of contents in such a wonderful and simple fashion breaks down the book into the major subcategories of Marketing, such as Product and Portfolio Development. Each chapter first outlines and summaries major relevant metrics, and then discusses each in detail complete with theorems, assumptions, considerations, and weaknesses.

Every intelligent, ambitious, and professional executive must own this book. It gives you a rare balance of academic and practical rigor. If you don't see metrics that can help your business, then you can borrow its notions into how some of the most influential KPIs are constructed and then use those frameworks to exploit your own intelligence issues.

This is a great reference book, and it has a special place on my bookshelf at work. You don't have to be an academic to understand this book. If you are patient with this book, you will see what a gem this is. 5 stars.

Disclosure: I am neither a student, nor do I know any of the authors of this book.

Objectivity is something hard to find, even in numbers. "Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance" is a guide to understanding the many measures of success in today's world and how to cut through spins and other word plays to best understand the real facts and numbers of business. It covers how to use these numbers to revise one's business strategy to meet these numbers, and the new and updated edition offers more facts and references to use in formulating one's own marketing plan. "Marketing Metrics" is a reference any marketer should have on hand.

The book is both an overview and a detailed discussion of every marketing metric you'd ever want to know.

I had studied some of the concepts in a business school course and throughout reading various literature, however it's nice to have the information all in one spot like a handy reference.

Unfortunately the metrics don't apply well to new media - for instance there is only one metric for social networking.

Probably a good follow on to this book would be the impact on smart phone apps, social networking, etc. etc. and relevant marking metrics.

I gave it four stars because I think it's an excellent compendium but I wouldn't say the earth moved for me as a result of reading it.

You can't manage it if you can't measure it--and this authoritative book details metrics for every aspect of marketing, from profit margins and product portfolios to pricing, promotion, and the Web. Although I was a fan of the 1st edition, the 2nd edition is even more useful because it covers standard metrics for online communications. Especially strong: The chapter on pricing strategy, which explains a variety of calculations and measures for making good pricing decisions. In short, this book is a must-have reference for every marketing manager.

Note: The review that follows is of the Second Edition (2010), a sequel to Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master (2006).

Data-based marketing is both an art and a science but many (if not most) marketers do not always include metrics - or at least the metrics needed -- among the data on which they depend when making and then evaluating strategic decisions to create or increase demand of what they offer.

What Paul Farris, Neil Bendle, Phillip Pfeifer, and David Reibstein offer in this book is what they characterize as "a comprehensive, practical reference on the metrics used to judge marketing programs and quantify their results." This is a research-driven rather than theory-driven book, as the footnotes, "References and Suggested Further Reading" sections, and Bibliography clearly indicate. Readers will also appreciate how skillfully the co-authors use "Key concepts covered in this chapter" sections (Chapters 2-10) and dozens of "Figures" and Tables" throughout the book to complement, highlight, or even consolidate key points within the narrative.

Opinions vary to the origin of the admonition that "you can't manage what you cannot measure" but no one questions the importance of obtaining accurate, relevant, and sufficient data to serve as a foundation to the decision-making process, no matter who is involved, whatever the nature and extent of the given issues and objectives may be. Nonetheless, as John A. Quelch observes, "marketing is one of the least understood, least measurable functions at many companies...Marketing executives, for their part, often fail to develop the quantitative, analytical skills needed to manage productivity. Right-brain thinkers may devise creative campaigns to drive sales but show little interest in the wider financial impact of their work." Quelch is Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean for International Development, Harvard Business School.

I agree while presuming to add that not all data (however accurate, relevant, and sufficient they may be) possess a predictive capability. Recent research in neuroscience (e.g. involving use of fMRI technologies) suggests that some consumer behavior cannot be measured by traditional methodologies and at least some of that behavior can neither be measured nor managed.

For whom will this book have the greatest value? One man's opinions: First, business school instructors and their students, especially those preparing for a career in marketing; also, senior-level marketing executives; finally, middle managers who aspire to become senior-level marketing executives. All that said, I agree with Jim Lecinski, Managing Director, U.S. Sales & Service, Google: "Perhaps the most pressing question in marketing today is not simply how to measure any single outcome, but understanding how all the various metrics interconnect - and the resulting financial consequences of [the given] marketing decisions." Therefore, it certainly makes sense for [begin italics] any [end italics] C-level executive to read this book, at least those involved in making strategic decisions that have impact throughout the given enterprise.

If you are a business leader looking to improve your bottom line through measurable results this is for you. It covers everything from the emotional connection of consumers to products... to ROS, ROI and EVA (Economic Value Added). It really breaks down understanding the computations of hard data as it relates to investment and growth. Complex and highly educating...

This book covers a lot of concepts and gives examples of how to use the metrics. However, it could have benefited from better editing. Grammatical style (e.g. sentence structure and capitalization) changes from chapter to chapter, and there are obvious typos.