In a recent post Today's agencies: the new Mad Men of data, my colleague Diana DiMaiuta mentioned that marketers need to use big data to enhance the customer experience, do better segmentation and automate campaign reporting. But there is more to it... it's not only about these three topics. It's about doing more responsible marketing. Why?

Companies no longer give unlimited budgets to their marketing departments. Executives now expect that all marketing efforts be measured and return on investment is demonstrated! Marketers are increasingly held accountable for their programs and are required to analyze their efforts and explain the results they produce.

As I’m working for an analytical software company, that is of course easy to say - but we are not alone! In a recent blog post by Michael Schrage on Harvard Business review, “Marketers Don’t Need to Be More Creative,” he confirms SAS's viewpoints on marketing: companies need to adopt data-driven marketing and take action based on measured results. One of his main points is this:

Metrics let you learn in ways that creativity does not. The ability to see who takes an in-store selfie or tweets a product complaint confers power and insight. New media should inspire new metrics. New metrics should create new accountability. New accountability should provoke and promote new kinds of creativity.

It's a great point, and it’s why I believe “Mad Men” need to become “Math Men.” Forget mass mailings, one-to-many email blasts; the times of Don Draper are over, a real change is coming! Targeting consumers or customers by making data-driven decisions is essential for marketers so they can tailor the message to the individual and boost the overall effectiveness of what they're doing. Today's customer isn’t just sitting around on his couch waiting breathlessly for your marketing messages - or anyone's for that matter.

Tracking marketing efforts is just one of the early steps on the road from Mad Men to Math Men. Here are several possible options that will also help you along that journey:

• Media Mix modeling: will tell you how much you should invest in your marketing channels. It will give you an overview of the impact of every channel on your sales. You can do Media Mix modeling using econometric or time series related models, with more details available on this solutions brief.
• Net Promoter Scores: you could measure NPS® and link it to the amount of revenue a certain customer brings to the company. For more info on NPS I would recommend reading this great white paper 'From Customer Risk to Corporate Strategy'.
• Bottom -up attribution modeling: With bottom-up attribution modeling you’re going to analyze a specific customer journey and try to breakdown the sales and relate it to the marketing touch points used during that customer journey. There are different ways to solve the bottom-up attribution problem. For more info on bottom-up attribution, read my next blog post on marketing attribution modeling.

These are just some of the methods I'd suggest you consider for your Math Men journey. Are you a data-driven marketer and have other ideas? Share your thoughts on how to analyze marketing efforts with me below!

If you’re interested in becoming a more data-driven company, take a look at my previous post on this subject, “5 hurdles companies are facing when investing in data-driven marketing.” I hope you find it helpful to get on the right track and engage the right people.