How to decide if you need a marketing attribution and performance management platform

A marketing attribution and performance management (MAPM) platform employs statistical modeling and machine learning to holistically evaluate the performance of a company’s marketing initiatives on bottom-line impact. It helps marketers allocate future spend and bring it in line with business goals.

Dig deeper: What is marketing attribution and performance management and how can it help you?

Use the following questions to decide if one would work for you.

1. Does the platform fit with our current processes, or would we need to change them? In some cases, it might be worth changing your workflow to take advantage of a platform but, in others, that change will create more problems than it solves. Ideally, you want to find a platform that can be easily adapted to the way your employees are accustomed to getting tasks accomplished. Doing this will also let them learn to use it faster, as their familiarity with the process will make the platform more intuitive.
2. How do our employees manage their own productivity? The people fulfilling the functions within an organization have their own ways of working to achieve their objectives. Some may use the Pomodoro method to maximize productivity, while others might subscribe to the GTD (Getting Things Done) philosophy. Knowing how your employees work best will help you determine the best platform to adopt.
3. Do we have C-level buy-in? Marketing work management platforms can serve as the foundation of an enterprise’s activities, and some objectives — cross-departmental coordination, for example — are more easily reached if a platform has executive support and is adopted companywide.
4. What systems must the marketing work management platform integrate with? Many companies have strong commitments to existing tools like an office suite (Google Workspace or Microsoft Office), a CRM or a creative editing platform or a digital asset management system. Which integrations are must-haves, and which are nice-to-haves?
5. Do we have the right technical resources? If you find a platform that works well for you but doesn’t have an out-of-the-box integration that you require, can you dedicate the development resources to creating a connection?
6. Can we invest in staff training and educate outside stakeholders, as well? It is vital to train all employees who will be utilizing the platform, ensuring they are educated on it and know what is expected of them when they assign or are assigned a task. If you will be using the platform to engage with outside entities — clients, contractors and the like — you will also need to familiarize them with it.
7. Have we established KPIs and put a system in place for tracking, measuring and reporting results? If you’re justifying the investment in a platform by how it achieves the desired results, ensure you have ways to compare the before and after, so you know whether you are getting a good ROI. For example, are you experiencing fewer snags in producing deliverables? Do clients ask fewer questions about the status of a campaign because they’re able to obtain the information themselves through the tool?
8. Do we have realistic expectations? Installing a marketing work management platform won’t instantly get your operations organized. It takes time to customize a tool for your needs, for employees to be trained and become familiar with the platform, and for projects to get off the ground.

Download the MarTech Intelligence Report: Enterprise Marketing Attribution and Performance Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Implementing an MAPM platform has implications for every aspect of your marketing operations and business as a whole. To evaluate the suitability of an MPM for your organization, do a comprehensive assessment of business needs, staff capabilities, management support and financial resources. Considering the following questions:

MAPMs’ capabilities make them very attractive to marketers. However, their expense and the additional resources needed to operate them must be weighed carefully when considering one. You also must to assess whether your organization needs everything an MPM platform can do. If it doesn’t, look for less expensive solutions to add to your existing stack. Finally, is your company capable of getting the most out of such a system? Do you have the staff and organizational alignment this will take?