I recently came across another article, this time by MediaVox, that discusses specifically how marketers are cutting spending on analytics, which tell them the effectiveness of their advertising. This might be the best case of cutting off your nose to spite your face I have heard yet in this advertising recession. I understand that budgets are being slashed and analytics may be considered discretionary spending whereas actual advertising is seen as a critical investment to stay in front of customers. Well this may be true, but if you can’t track your advertising, you have no idea if it’s working. Sure, if ignorance is bliss, you’ll be riding high. But when you come back down to earth and realize that you spend $1,000,000 on advertising that didn’t perform, and that you could have saved $500,000 of that if you invested $50,000 in analytics to tell you your money would be wasted, then you’re clearly going to feel a bit foolish. These are the tough trade-offs that marketers have to make. We’re all spending less on advertising at it is. Cutting analytics out of the picture is a terrible mistake in my opinion. I agree you don’t need to invest in the latest and greatest to prove your advertising works or doesn’t work. But advertising without analytics is like closing your eyes and driving into a crowded intersection. Inevitably, you’re going to get hurt. 🙂
