<p>The <em>August 2010 CMO Survey</em> included a special section on marketing metrics. Seven important facts stood out when I analyzed the responses from the 574 marketing executives who participated in the survey.</p> <p><strong>1. Revenue metrics dominate:</strong> Revenue metrics (sales, market share) are the primary means they use to evaluate marketing activities. Unfortunately, few link marketing actions to critically important firm outcomes, such as customer retention (15%), profits (14%), brand value (11%), net promoter score (7.5%) and stock market performance (2 percent).</p> <p><strong>2. The quality and use of market insights not evaluated:</strong> While market insights are very important drivers of innovation and growth, only 25% of the firms surveyed use metrics to evaluate the quality of these insights, and only about one-third evaluate how market insights influence managerial decision making.</p>