Yes, your CEO and CFO want to know which half of your advertising is working. They do want marketing communications -- often as much as 20% of all expenses -- to be effective in generating sales....


And they want marketing staff to be accountable for results, so they may even approve a budget for evaluating the outcome of your marketing efforts.
The problem is most of the work on quantifying the return on marketing investment (ROMI) is focused on evaluating Promotion, and Promotion is just one of the four-P's of marketing.
Suppose we marketers base our communications decisions entirely on data. Even suppose the data show us to be increasingly effective. What can we expect to happen for us inside our organizations?
One way to learn the answer is to look at direct response marketers. They have the discipline, and the luxury, to be data focused. They allocate costs and evaluate returns scientifically; they have perfect knowledge of direct revenue and marketing expenses. Some campaigns perform well and others don't, but they know how to test and control for continuous improvement.
Yet, if we look around at marketers who have achieved champion status in their organizations .... as I did for the book I co-authored with Allen Weiss of MarketingProfs called Marketing Champions .... I don't see a preponderance of direct response marketers. "Marketing champions" are leaders of cash flow production because they manage not just Promotion, but also Product, Price and Place (distribution) as: brand champions, new product development champions, new product introduction champions, sales champions, digital (web site) champions, and customer-centric champions.
My hypothesis, admittedly controversial these days, is that when marketing is understood by senior management to be strictly Promotion, marketing does not have seat in the executive suite. And, if you believe that is true for you, you have it in your power, regardless of your current role and responsibilities, to change the perceptions of marketing in your organization.
But while ROMI analysis might be necessary, it's not sufficient to get you where you want to go.