When it comes to measuring return on investment (ROI), only 3 per cent of digital marketers in India are calculating ROI correctly -- one of the lowest among all regions and lower than the global average of 4 per cent, a LinkedIn report said on Wednesday. While 78 per cent digital marketers in India claim to be measuring digital ROI long before a sales cycle has concluded, only 3 per cent of digital marketers are measuring ROI over a six-month period or longer.
This means that many marketers are likely not measuring ROI at all, said the 'The Long and Short of ROI' report by Microsoft-owned professional networking platform conducted among 4,000 marketing professionals across 19 countries, including India.
"The report highlights how Indian marketers are struggling to measure the true impact of performance; they are thinking short-term and are measuring KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) instead of ROI," said says Virginia Sharma, Director, Marketing Solutions - India, LinkedIn.
"Measuring too quickly can have a poor impact on campaigns, specifically in industries such as higher education and real estate where it can take months of consideration before sale," Sharma added.
Most Indian marketers measure ROI ROI within the first 30 days of the campaign, which results in an inaccurate reflection of the actual return, considering that sales cycles are 60-90 days or longer.
Fifty per cent digital marketers rely on inaccurate metrics and use cost-per-click as their ROI metric, which does not show impact-per-advertising dollar spent.
As opposed to 58 per cent globally, 64 per cent Indian marketers acknowledged that they needed to show ROI numbers to justify spend and get approval for future budget asks.
This clearly shows how pressured Indian digital marketers are internally, hence rushing to measure and prove ROI, the report noted.
While 60 per cent of Indian marketers who measure ROI in the short term end up having budget reallocation discussions within a month, 47 per cent of Indian digital marketers don't feel confident about their ROI measurements today, the report added.
With over 60 million users, India is LinkedIn's fastest-growing and largest market outside the US.
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