Why ROI Is So Hard to Prove

Modern marketers are expected to move fast, personalise content, and deliver across dozens of channels. But when it comes to proving return on investment, many teams are stuck in the weeds.

The problem isn’t reporting. It’s relevance.

Most platforms give you metrics (impressions, clicks, conversions) but struggle to translate those into outcomes the business actually cares about.

According to Gartner Research:

• 70% of marketers say measuring ROI is difficult,
  
  66% report challenges demonstrating campaign impact to stakeholders.

“Translating different metric types into singular business outcomes can be more difficult.”
– Greg Carlucci, Gartner

Fixing the ROI Clarity Gap

Disconnected dashboards and siloed reporting make it harder to align metrics with performance. And as campaign volume increases, up 31% year-over-year, that complexity only compounds.

Modern brand management platforms resolve this by embedding reporting, automation, and consistency into every stage of brand execution. These platforms shift marketing from guesswork to evidence, and from fragmentation to focus.

By reducing effort in low-impact areas, teams can reallocate their budget toward real growth. The savings are measurable:

Internal Cost Reductions

• Campaign Planning: Eliminate manual consolidation and coordination tasks.

• Digital Asset Management: Save hours searching, sharing, and version-checking files.

• Creative Automation: Replace custom production with scalable templates.

• Compliance Workflows: Unblock approval bottlenecks and reduce rework.

• Funds Management: Streamline reimbursement and claim processes.

Each of these frees up both time and spend, and that reallocation fuels higher-impact activities like media buying, segmentation, and creative strategy.

Beyond Cost: Unlocking Indirect ROI

As powerful as operational savings are, they only tell half the story.

“Beyond measurable cost savings, modern brand management platforms unlock a second, indirect ROI, through brand effectiveness.”

1. Creative Distinctiveness

Strong brand creative has lasting impact. According to System1, Distinctive, recognisable creative is 27% more likely to drive long-term profit growth.

When brand guidelines are embedded into the creative process, not retrofitted at the end, marketers produce consistent, recognisable, on-brand content that resonates.

2. Smarter Segmentation

Brand management systems make targeted messaging scalable and cost-effective. Personalisation lifts performance:

• Facebook/Meta reports up to 50% higher lift in audience-targeted ads.

• McKinsey shows up to 30% efficiency gains from smarter spend.

• Nielsen finds up to 30% better ROI on targeted TV campaigns.

Segmentation can increase relevance and reduce waste. But too much variation can inflate creative costs. The key is balance. Focus on meaningful segments and test incrementally.

3. Team Empowerment

When your distributed teams (franchisees, local partners, or regional marketers) are empowered to act with brand-safe tools, they move faster — without compromising control.

Reducing time spent on approvals, version control, and manual work doesn’t just improve productivity. It strengthens team culture. It creates space for better ideas. And it gives marketing the breathing room to think strategically.

Want to Measure the ROI of Brand Execution?

This is just the beginning.

 

Get a complete whitepaper outlining exactly how marketers are reclaiming thousands of hours, reactivating co-op dollars, and calculating all of this into measurable direct and indirect ROI.