A Framework for Measuring and Managing Marketing Performance

António Pimenta da Gama

Professor and Program Coordinator

UNIDCOM/IADE - Instituto de Artes Visuais, Design e Marketing

antonio.gama@iade.pt

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Un Encadrement Pour Mesurer et Gérer la Performance en Marketing

Résumé :

La mesure de performance en marketing est un champ de recherche très évolutif qui a mérité

l’intérêt d’universitaires et praticiens du monde entier. Cependant, malgré la prolifération des

mesures isolés de nature financier et non financier, la performance du marketing dans son

ensemble, traduite en un instrument clair et universel, a reçu relativement peu d'attention dans

les instances appropriées. Pour promouvoir l'efficacité de l'évaluation en marketing, au-delà

des faits, il devient nécessaire l'existence des modèles holistiques permettant un langage

commun pour décrire, évaluer et améliorer les pratiques de marketing.

Dans ce papier exploratoire, nous développons un encadrement qui distille des concepts sur la

littérature existante et suggère les principales catégories de mesures sur lesquelles les

entreprises devraient attirer l'attention, afin qu'ils puissent mieux comprendre leur situation

actuelle tout en guidant les suggestions d'amélioration.

Mots-clés : Marketing, Évaluation de Performance, Mesures

A Framework for Measuring and Managing Marketing Performance

Abstract :

Marketing performance measurement has been a fast evolving research area which features

highly on the agenda of academics and practitioners all over the world. However, despite the

proliferation of financial and no financial isolated measures, marketing performance as a

whole, translated into a clear and universal instrument, has received limited attention in

relevant forums. To promote effectiveness on marketing assessment, besides facts, it becomes

necessary the existence of holistic models allowing a common language for describing,

evaluating and improving marketing practice.

In this paper, exploratory in nature, we develop a framework that distils concepts from the

extant literature and suggests key metrics categories on which companies should focus

attention, so that they can better understand their current situation while guiding suggestions

for improvement.

Key-words : Marketing, Performance Evaluation, Metrics

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A Framework for Measuring and Managing Marketing Performance

1. Introduction

Today’s competitive environment requires a marketing that is both effective and efficient, if

organizations want to achieve their market and financial goals. With market fragmentation,

offer variety, increasing consumer sophistication, and decreasing ROI (Return on Investment)

levels, measurement and accountability in marketing becomes essential.

At top management levels, marketing has not had the impact its importance deserves

(Cassidy, 2005; Webster, Malter and Ganesan, 2005), among other reasons, because it has

been largely practiced emphasizing its creative side at the expense of the analytical one. It is

an inescapable reality that marketing is undergoing a crisis in its "toolbox", that is, the means

by which their strategies and activities are represented in financial and value generation terms

(Brady and Davis, 1993; Wilson and McDonald, 1994). In many organizations, current

peripheral marketing position is largely a reflection of this traditional inability to justify the

employed resources and to quantify the corresponding effects (Doyle, 2000; Sheth and

Sisodia, 2002; McGovern, Court and Quelch, 2004; Shaw and Merrick, 2005; Petersen & al.,

2009).

Some professionals say that marketing performance simply can not be measured, but the

problem is that they don’t know what to measure or how to interpret results.

It is our belief that if companies develop an integrated set of relevant measures and

systematically collect, analyze and disseminate information about them, then marketing could

be viewed as a more informed, objective, … and recognized discipline! Among other things,

tomorrow’s winners will be those with the skills and the discipline of learning new ways to

make marketing more effective and efficient.

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This paper intends to contribute for the theory and practice of marketing in two ways. Firstly,

reviewing the literature and presenting a summarized view of marketing performance

perspectives and metrics. Secondly, by proposing a marketing performance assessment model

that expands the existing ones, adding new evaluative criteria and factors influencing process

effectiveness.

2. Marketing Performance

2.1. Perspectives on Marketing Performance Assessment

Additionally, the word "marketing" is commonly used to distinguish very different things. On

the one hand, it is considered as a management philosophy that seeks to express the why and

how a company should adapt to and influence its market. On the other hand, it embodies the

corporate subsystem, often with the name of department, which develops a set of tasks

regarding marketing implementation. In both possibilities although with different weights, it

is possible to identify three dimensions underlying the concept: an action dimension, an

analysis dimension, and a culture dimension. Probably the most visible trend in practice is the

one that reduces marketing to the action dimension, at the expense of other analytical and

behavioral components. The model here presented also intends to shorten this gap.

Weak marketing performance has been evidenced in the literature since the 1990s (Herremans

and Ryans, 1995; Sheth and Sisodia, 1995; Davidson, 1999; Ambler, Kokkinaki and Puntoni,

2004; Cassidy, 2005). In these studies, a common theme emerges, expressed into

dissatisfaction by top managers with marketing activity and by extension, with professionals

involved. In this context, marketing practice is frequently labeled as thriftless and short of

adequate assessment measures, namely in terms of the connection between actions and

results.

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Despite the proliferation of financial and non-financial isolated measures, marketing

performance as a whole, translated into a clear and reliable universal instrument by which the

respective merits can be evaluated, has received limited attention in the literature (Ambler and

Riley, 2000). Additionally, marketing as a discipline has focused more on results than on the

processes and systems enabling them. (O'Sullivan, Abela and Hutchinson, 2009; Grewal &

al., 2009).

Traditionally, marketing productivity analysis - mainly from efficiency perspective - and the

marketing audit concept - mainly from effectiveness perspective - have dominated the

approaches to marketing performance assessment. But neither these two approaches by

themselves provide a complete framework for an integrated evaluation, due to conceptual and

implementation limitations (Morgan, Clark and Gooner, 2002):

- Marketing productivity analysis. This type of analysis assumes that both inputs and

outputs can be accurately assessed. Tangible inputs and outputs (costs and revenues) can

be measured relatively easily and accurately, but less tangible ones are typically more

difficult to assess. Productivity analysis also largely ignores time lag differences between

marketing inputs and their effect on outputs. Finally, productivity analysis focuses upon

the amount and not the quality of marketing inputs and outputs.

- Marketing audits. Apart from conceptual weaknesses - the majority of existing checklists

were developed with few concerns for psychometric properties - there are also

implementation problems that can occur along the process: in the objective-setting stage,

data collection stage, or report presentation stage (Kotler, Gregor and Rodgers, 1989).

2.2. Marketing Metrics

A historical revision of the subject (Clark, 1999) suggests that marketing measures have

evolved in three consistent directions over the years: (1) from financial measures to no

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financial measures (2) from output measures to input measures; (3) from one dimensional

measures to multidimensional measures.

Initial works on performance measurement were largely directed to the analysis of

productivity and profitability of company's marketing efforts. Sevin (1965) can be considered

the main author of this work stream, and his book "Marketing Productivity Analysis" is still a

masterpiece on the specialized literature. Other important contributions include Feder (1965)

and Goodman (1970).

The 1970’s and 1980s brought an enlarged conception of output that included no financial

measures, since there are important marketing elements that are not translatable by traditional

financial dimensions. Financial indicators are snapshots of the present and say little about

marketing’s future health. Market share indicator attracted much attention during this period,

due to works at Boston Consulting Group in the early 1970’s. At the academic level we must

emphasize studies by Buzzell & al. (1975) and Buzzell and Gale (1987) under PIMS (Profit

Impact of Marketing Strategies) project.

Since late 1980's three new no financial output measures have attracted the attention of both

researchers and organizations: service quality (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1988;

Cronin and Taylor, 1992), customer satisfaction (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Oliver, 1997)

customer loyalty (Reichheld, 1993;1996; Dick and Basu, 1994), and brand equity (Barwise,

1993; Keller, 1993; Aaker, 1996). Recent emphasis on these measures form part of a general

movement considering financial output measures along with others occurring earlier in the

input-output process. Specifically, this reality can be pictured according to Figure 1:

marketing processes and activities lead to intermediate outcomes which by their turn lead to

ultimate financial results. Intermediate outputs can then be considered as marketing assets

leveraging superior financial performance.

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Figure 1: Marketing metrics evolution

Source: Adapted from Clark (1999-p.714)

Most existing performance measures focus on outputs. However, processes are the “glue” that

binds everything a company does. Therefore, input measures should also capture management

attention (Brownlie, 1999). Unfortunately, broad understanding of marketing input quality

under the form of processes has had a less clear impact largely because of the underlying

complexity. This is the reason why the definition of good marketing practice has most often

been subject of conceptual or qualitative treatments rather than rigorous statistical ones (Sheth

and Sisodia, 2002).

Progress toward multidimensional marketing performance measures has a great boost in late

1970’s with marketing effectiveness appraisal (Kotler, 1977) and later on with marketing

audits (Kotler, Gregor and Rodgers, 1989, Berry, Connant and Parasuraman, 1991; Parkinson

and Zairi, 1993; Brownlie, 1996) and the concept of market orientation (Kohli and Jaworski,

1990; Narver and Slater, 1990; Kohli, Jaworski and Kumar, 1993; Desphandé, Farley and

Webster, 1993).

No Financial Output Measures (Market Share, Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, Customer

Loyalty, Brand Equity)

Financial Output Measures

(Sales, Profit, Cash-Flow)

Multidimensional Input Measures (Marketing Audit, Market Orientation)

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It is worthwhile to note that the trends shown do not mean a radical shift from some forms of

evaluation to others, but only the need to consider a broader set of measures.

3. Proposed Model

3.1. Model Rationality

One way of achieving integration is through the concept of Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan and

Norton, 1996), a "measurement panel" to facilitate organizational coherence and

interconnection of functional measures and to allow better strategy execution. In general, this

type of integrated assessment and management tools intend to communicate the logic of a

business in terms of sequence and conditions necessary to success.

From an organizational point of view, the key to effective performance lies in first

establishing the desired effects and only then identifying the determinants of these results and

showing how they are related (Ittner and Larcker, 2003). The more thorough and unequivocal

is the understanding of how strategy translates into results and determinants of success, the

easier it becomes to find a set of metrics optimizing the entire process.

So the rule is to understand first and to measure later. Fundamentally, evaluating performance

should not be confused with filing maps or reports (reporting system) but instead seen as a

process allowing phenomena understanding that progressively will lead to better decisions

and improved results (decision guiding system). How Lebas and Euske (2002-p.68) argue, the

important is not so much the final quantitative score but the understanding of the situations

that led to such scores and therefore what can be improved next time.

By the other hand, competitiveness theory suggests that marketing performance is a process

(Hunt and Morgan, 1995;1996) composed by three stages. Firstly, identifying superiority

sources regarding company’s resources and capabilities’ acquisition, implementation, and

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development. Secondly, evaluating superiority positions arising from designing and

implementing marketing strategies. Thirdly, knowing the financial and no financial outcomes

as a consequence of the previous ones.

Thus, taking into account the above mentioned steps and also based on previous contributions

by Bonoma and Clark (1988), Clark (1999), Morgan, Clark and Gooner, (2002), Ambler and

Kokinaki (2002), Ambler, Kokkinaki and Puntoni, (2004), Rust & al. (2004) and Woodburn

(2006), the model here suggested highlights requirements, inputs, outputs and aspects

influencing marketing performance evaluation process. Model components and reasons for

their inclusion are considered in the next section.

3.2. Model Content

The model shown in Figure 2 proposes evaluating marketing performance along five

dimensions: Marketing Culture, Marketing Resources and Capabilities, Marketing Processes,

Market Performance and Financial Performance. Two components supposedly influencing the

design and use of assessment systems (External Factors) and their effectiveness (Internal

Factors) are also included as part of the model.

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Figure 2: An expanded model of marketing performance Source: From the author

3.2.1. Marketing Culture

Human systems need an environment within which behaviors can sediment. In its absence it

is difficult for employees knowing what and how to direct their energies. Organizational

culture thus provides the unifying ingredient for action undertaking.

From the moment marketing tended to be seen as the overall business from customer

perspective, marketing culture has been commonly understood as a set of norms and values

helping professionals to understand and feel marketing philosophy and providing them

behavioral guidelines. In other words, it concerns the importance attributed to marketing and

Marketing Culture

Service quality, Interpersonal relationships, Selling task, Organization, Internal communication,

Innovativeness

Marketing Resources

and Capabilities

Marketing investment, Market sensing, Market

relating, Strategic thinking

Marketing

Processes

Marketing audit, Market

orientation

Market

Performance

Marketing assets

(e.g. Quality,

Customer satisfaction, Customer

loyalty, Brand equity, Market

share

Financial

Performance

Financial metrics

(Sales revenue,

Profit, Margins, Cash-

flow)

Internal Factors: Organizational context, Focus, Integration, Interactivity

External Factors: Industry Dynamics, Competitive Intensity, Environmental Uncertainty

Marketing inputs

Prerequisites

Marketing outputs

Financial outputs

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the framework for implementing its activities (Webster, 1995). It is therefore a broader

concept than market orientation (Cameron and Quinn, 1999; Gebhardt, Carpenter and Sherry,

2006) and was defined by Webster (1993) as a multidimensional construct including the

importance placed on (a) service quality (b) interpersonal relationships (c) selling task (d)

organization (e) internal communication (f) innovativeness.

As the human element is typically associated with performance - namely the effective

development and implementation of market strategies (Dun, Norburn and Burley, 1994;

Piercy and Morgan, 1994; Appiah-Adu and Singh, 1999; Sin and Tse, 2001) - building an

appropriate culture that permeates the entire organization is crucial to marketing success.

Narver and Slater (1990) inclusively argue that marketing culture is the organizational

variable that most effective and efficiently creates the behaviors essential to value creation.

Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind that given its intrinsic nature, marketing culture

supposes some inertia and the association with performance benefits may take time to emerge

(Noble, Sinha and Kumar, 2002).

3.2.2. Marketing Resources and Capabilities

Resources and capabilities theory (Resource-Based View) sustain that sources of

competitiveness rely on existing resources and on the capabilities that allow their

enhancement and conversion into relevant outputs (Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 2001).

Resources are company controlled assets that serve as inputs to organizational processes

(Day, 1994; Srivastava, Shervani and Kumar, 1999). Management literature has identified

different types of resources: physical, human, legal, financial, and informational. In this

context, we consider marketing investment level as the appropriate performance measure.

Despite its importance, resource levels aren’t enough for good performance. It is the degree

by which they are transformed into valuable outputs through existing capabilities that defines

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the extent of performance (Vorhies and Morgan, 2005). Capabilities are therefore skills in

utilizing company assets and allowing to successfully meet market demands (Prahalad and

Hamel, 1990). They occur at multiple levels of organizational structure and functional

specialization and are based on learning and knowledge, being therefore difficult to imitate.

Specifically, “a marketing capability is developed when the firm’s marketing employees

repeatedly apply their knowledge and skills to transforming marketing inputs to outputs”

(Vorhies, 1998-p.4).

Day (1994;1999) argues that organizations can be more market oriented when they develop

specific capabilities of market sensing, market relating and strategic thinking, also sustaining

that capabilities and processes are intimately related, since the former support the latter. The

study by Jaakola (2006) confirms the close connection between capabilities and strategic

marketing processes.

3.2.3. Marketing Processes

Marketing processes have been defined in several ways. For instance Management consultant

A.T. Kearney distinguishes between strategic and tactical marketing processes, while other

classifications identify the links between the company and other related parts. An additional

and prevailing possibility consists in organizing them according to the understanding of

marketing as a set of processes aimed at creating, communicating, and delivering value

(American Marketing Association, 2007). Once marketing begins with consumers -

identifying needs - and ends with consumers - satisfying needs - then all activities susceptible

of influencing them should be considered in its scope and properly assessed (Woodburn,

2006). More specifically, the commonly accepted sequence has been (1) situational analysis

(2) strategic formulation (segmentation, targeting and positioning) (3) tactical formulation (4)

implementation (5) control (e.g. Lambin, 1998; Kotler, 2000; Doyle, 2002).

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Two concepts have been advanced in the literature to assess marketing processes and

activities: marketing audits and market orientation.

The first one intends to emulate accounting and financial audits in its procedural and logistical

aspects and, mutatis mutandis, apply them to marketing context. It is usually presented as "a

comprehensive, systematic, independent, and periodic examination of a company’s - or

business unit’s - marketing environment, objectives, strategies and activities with a view to

determining problem areas and opportunities and recommending a plan of action to improve

the company’s marketing performance" (Kotler, Gregor and Rodgers, 1989-p.50). Several

authors refer to audits as the preferred way to evaluate and improve marketing performance

(Rothe, Harvey and Jackson, 1997; Kotler, 2000; Wilson, 2002). Taghian and Shaw (2008) in

one of the rare empirical studies on the topic present evidence that justifies audit

implementation as a condition for market performance improvement.

The second concept, according the perspective, has the following main features: (a) a set of

beliefs that puts customer interests first (Desphandé, Farley and Webster, 1993) (b) the way a

company generates and uses market information (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Kohli, Jaworski

and Kumar, 1993) (c) coordination of activities and resources for creating superior customer

value (Narver and Slater, 1990).

Previous concepts should not be seen as opposed but rather complementary. It should be

noted, however, audit’s preponderance for professional purposes and market orientation for

academic ones.

3.2.4. Market Performance

Marketing activities and actions influence market performance. At company level these

metrics can be aggregated into what is often called as marketing assets, conceptualized as

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customer-based measures impacting financial performance (Rust & al,, 2004). The logic of

such measures stands on the primary source determining revenues and profits: customers.

Marketing assets are then the nearest outcome and also the link between marketing activities

and financial performance (Doyle, 2004).

Traditional accounting view of assets includes only those tangible elements contained in the

Balance. However, market value of modern businesses lies mainly in their intangible assets

(Fisk, 2006), where marketing is predominantly included.

A simplistic approach to marketing performance chain could consider only two stages:

investment and marketing activities on the one hand (inputs) and sales revenues and profits on

the other (outputs). But in practice these links are often unclear due to the amount of

moderating influences. It therefore arise the need for intermediate measures bridging these

two realities. Specialized literature has advanced such measures, among which we select those

who have evidenced to positively impact financial performance: awareness, reputation,

perceived quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer equity, brand equity, and

market share (e.g. Clark, 1999; Ambler and Riley, 2000; Kokinaki and Ambler, 2002;

Ambler, Kokkinaki and Puntoni, 2004, Gupta and Zeithaml, 2006).

3.2.5. Financial Performance

As previously mentioned, accounting and financial based measures have dominated

quantitative approaches to evaluating marketing performance. In its review of commonly used

output metrics in studies on marketing effectiveness, Bonoma and Clark (1988) identify

profit, margins, sales revenue and cash flow. More recently, findings by Ambler & al. (2004)

pointed generally along the same direction. Other possibilities include return on sales (ROS)

and investment (ROI) and also metrics reflecting value generated for the company, such as

economic value added (EVA) and market value added (MVA).

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3.2.6. External Factors

At individual company level, significant variances among different approaches to evaluating

performance suggest their contents are not universal, i.e., there is no such thing as a set of

indicators that it is always the most appropriate in all circumstances. Instead, such systems

must be adapted to each company’s context, while taking into account what is normally

considered as good industry practice. By other words, there are contingent factors associated

to the design, use, and consequences of marketing performance evaluation systems.

In fact, a basic proposition of contingency theory is that strategies systematically depend on

certain organizational and environmental variables. Based on this theory and on literature

about strategic marketing, several empirical studies have shown environmental and market

factors play a role not only shaping strategy and performance evaluation but also moderating

those relationships (Jaworski, 1988; Nedungadi and Day, 1994; Slater and Narver, 1994).

We conceptualize external factors as the combined effect of the following forces (Morgan,

Clark and Gooner, 2002, Rust & al., 2004): (a) industry dynamics - magnitude and pace of

changes related to customer’s preferences and composition - (b) competitive intensity -

competitive level associated to competitor’s number and quality - (c) environmental

uncertainty - business environment predictability degree -. These aspects are expected to

influence metric selection in each dimension, performance goal setting, benchmark selection,

and evaluation frequency.

3.2.7. Internal Factors

As to internal factors, we consider the aspects influencing decisively the effectiveness of

performance evaluation process (Spitzer, 2007): organizational context, focus, integration,

and interactivity.

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A. Organizational context

True power of assessment can only be materialized in a positive psychological and social

climate, that is, in an environment allowing favorable perceptions and emotional responses

from those involved. Although the “technical” aspect of measurement - metrics, processes and

technical infrastructure - is fundamental, the atmosphere surrounding it also largely influences

its effectiveness (Krueger, 1992). Organizational context thus reflects existing feelings of

openness, trust and cooperation spirit regarding certain practices of performance evaluation.

Because humans and not machines transform data into information and information into

knowledge, actual attitudes in this respect seem to be of utmost importance.

B. Focus

The second aspect essential to progress consists on emphasis placed on certain measures. If it

is true that we can’t manage what we don’t measure, it is no less true that we manage on the

basis of what is measured. Therefore it becomes vital to select the right metrics because they

provide clarity and sense of action to management and facilitate the alignment of incentives

and rewards (Napier and McDaniel, 2006).

It is a fact that professionals from different functional areas have today at their disposal a

much more complete and sophisticated set of indicators, compared with what existed in a not

too distant past. What happens is that this variety and richness also brought with it some

confusion regarding the selection of the most suitable measures. It is then necessary to

sufficiently distinguish between those critical few measures that have a decisive impact on

performance and the immensity of others that permeate all functional areas. Efforts should

concentrate in searching for those factors determining success, i.e., the factors that have the

greater power to leverage results and value generation (Goldratt, 1991).

C. Integration

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The third important idea is integration, since individual performance measures are almost

irrelevant. For powerful some individual metrics can be, its true potential is only fulfilled

when used in a more comprehensive measurement framework showing how they interact and

impact each other and how the concepts they represent are combined to create organizational

value (Rummler and Brache, 1995; Ittner and Larcker, 2003).

Cause-and-effect logic must be given special attention due to the inherent possibility of

predicting each element composing the chain. It must be recognized, however, that exists an

intrinsic difficulty inherent in such claims due to the many elements involved and the

dynamic nature of their connections (Pawels & al., 2009).

D. Interactivity

Finally, if professionals view measurement as something limited to a set of routine

calculations and judgments, they are losing sight of an inseparable component of any

performance evaluation system: learning and improvement. In fact, learning is one of the

most important organizational capabilities and mostly elapses from daily interactions and

experiences (Senge, 1990).

The main challenge in this context is to create an environment in which data can be

effectively and efficiently converted into useful information by its turn transformed into

knowledge, which constitutes the basis of real wisdom. And for that to happen there must be

considerable interaction and dialogue at every stage of the process, leading to renewed

perspectives on what to measure and how to measure, ways of gathering and analyzing

information, decision-making, and improvement initiatives.

Dialogue allows for viewpoint diversity along and across functions (Kaplan and Norton,

2002; Bossidy and Charan, 2002). In organizations where there is no concern for knowledge

sharing the facts are ill questioned and collective commitment is normally reduced. The

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consequence translates on the fact that any possibility of converting data into knowledge will

most likely be more haphazard than systematic.

4. Conclusions

Benefits from extending existing knowledge about marketing performance are substantial.

Proficiency among professionals regarding what to measure and how to measure and the

consequences associated to measurement process - including the demonstration of

relationships between marketing inputs and outputs - will lead to greater efficiency and

effectiveness of marketing efforts. We also believe that properly designing and handling the

here proposed model could not only contribute to strengthen accountability in marketing

practice but also to better understand the issues underlying the functioning of “marketing

value chain”. If marketing is to survive into the 21st century as an identifiable management

function, it must address some shortcomings in its ability to contribute to the strategy and

business design dialogue within the firm by integrating its culture, strategic, and tactical

dimensions.

A good performance appraisal system has also the merit of reinforcing marketing credibility

at top management’ eyes (McGovern, Court and Quelch, 2004, Webster, Malter and Ganesan,

2005) and facilitating financial markets judgments (Davidson, 1999). Regarding this last

aspect, marketing performance information in annual reports hardly goes beyond general

statements about advertising budgets or some other aspects related to the marketing mix. But

at a time when over half of firm’s market value is sometimes accounted by intangible assets

(Fisk, 2006) such as brand strength, customer equity, innovation or specific skills, it is of

utmost importance understanding how marketing practice and its assumptions will translate in

future consequences for the business.

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As mentioned, marketing metrics have historically focused on outputs, whether in terms of

market share and customer impact - perceptions, attitudes and behavior - as with traditional

financial variables. This article aims to draw attention not only to the processes that lead to

such results but also to the requirements - culture, resources and skills - necessary to proper

accomplishment of activities. Although some of the models presented in the literature (e.g.

Clark, 1999, Morgan, Clark and Gooner, 2002; Kokinaki and Ambler, 2002, Rust & al., 2004)

suggest the sequence presented, none is sufficiently explicit about how each step can be

measured. We try do so now, in an integrated manner.

Moreover, the proposed model is intended as a framework that facilitates the development of

an effective dashboard (Lehmann and Reibstein, 2006; Pauwels & al., 2009). Unlike isolated

measures of performance, which are often insufficient, irrelevant, or error inducing, this

model positions itself as a tool allowing to measure not only the conditions determining good

marketing practice but also its contribution to value creation.

We hope this contribution can enhance awareness as to the importance and the need for

marketing performance evaluation and may also stimulate further research, particularly in

terms of testing the content and sequence of variables composing the chain and the effect of

influencing factors. We believe longitudinal case studies will be particularly useful in

achieving a more solid understanding of marketing’s health and vitality in an organization.

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