Assessing Marketing Performance: Reasons for Metrics Selection

In recent years both practitioners and academics have shown an increasing interest in the assessment of marketing performance. This paper explores the metrics that firms select and some reasons for those choices. Our data are drawn from two UK studies. The first reports practitioner usage by the main metrics categories (consumer behaviour and intermediate, trade customer, competitor, accounting and innovativeness). The second considers which individual metrics are seen as the most important and whether that differs by sector. The role of brand equity in performance assessment and top management orientations are key considerations. We found consistency between orientation and metrics. Within these categories we identified 19 metrics that could be regarded as primary and could therefore serve as a short-list for initial selection. However, the sector importantly moderates that selection, not least because competitive benchmarking requires similar metrics to be available. Control, orientation and institutional theories appeared to influence metrics selection and the absence of agency theory is probably due to the research method of this paper. We concluded with some propositions formally to test the basis of metrics selection.