Speculate all you want about how successful an online marketing campaign has been. But once someone brings hard data to the table, all bets are off: The answers are plain to see.

Surprisingly, however, the average company doesn't make marketing decisions based on data. Why? Some companies explain that they are too big—with too many complex processes and diverse goals, making standard metrics difficult to establish and track. Others attribute the problem to lack of expertise or resources, due to small marketing budgets.

What's the root cause? Fear, says Mike Moran in a blog post on Internet Evolution:

Fear of change. "It's hard to deal with the pain of changing when you don't feel the pain of the status quo." Many marketers are just fine with the way things are and prefer to focus on familiar tasks like messaging over the less familiar task of measurement.

Fear of numbers. Some marketers got into marketing so they could stay clear of math altogether. "They like making decisions about creative approaches and messaging from the gut. They don't like having to pore over numbers to decide what to do next."

Fear of accountability. "Maybe the biggest fear is that marketers don't know how measuring marketing will change the way we measure the marketers."

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