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The Bull 💩 of ROI

  • Writer: Steph Ferreira
    Steph Ferreira
  • Aug 5
  • 3 min read

Why Your CEO Is Asking the Wrong Question About Brand ROI


When your CEO asks, “What’s the ROI on that billboard?” do you cringe?

You’re not alone—because it’s the wrong question.


For the last 15–20 years, marketers have been chasing a ghost. We’ve obsessed over measurable metrics—impressions, clicks, VTR, and engagements—holding them up as the gold standard of Return on Investment (ROI).


While the idea of measuring marketing’s impact has existed for decades, marketing ROI as we know it today was born in the early 2000s. Digital channels promised measurable, data-driven proof of performance. Clicks, impressions, and engagements became the core benchmarks of marketing effectiveness and accountability.


But here’s the truth: those numbers only tell part of the story.


The Problem with Direct ROI


Most attribution models—last click, first click, even GA4’s data-driven approach—focus on the digital journey.


But growth isn’t purely digital. What about the customer who:


  • Saw your billboard on the highway,

  • Heard your brand on a podcast

  • Saw your ad on TV and then;

Clicked an ad weeks later?


The last click gets the credit, but your brand-building channels did the heavy lifting.


By chasing short-term metrics, we’ve overfunded conversion channels and starved brand investment. That’s like trying to fill a leaky bucket by pouring water in faster instead of fixing the holes.


Why Brand Building Matters


Without strong brand investment, three things happen:


  1. Growth stalls – your volume plateaus after a few years.

  2. Brand health declines – recall and favourability drop.

  3. Pricing power erodes – you’re forced to compete on price, not value.


How We Actually Grow


1. Build Mental Availability (Brand Building)

  • Use broad-reach channels: TV, podcasts, OOH, influencers.

  • Create emotional stories that stick in people’s minds.

  • Invest consistently; brand equity compounds over time.


2. Capture Demand (Performance Marketing)

  • Make it easy for ready-to-buy customers to act: search, social, retargeting.

  • Fix your website UX: fast, clear, and frictionless.

  • Separate what drives demand from what captures demand.


3. Optimise Your Media Mix

  • Use Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) to measure how channels work together.

  • Track brand health metrics alongside sales KPIs.

  • Allocate budget based on incremental impact, not short-term (Return on Advertising spend (ROAS).


4. Strengthen the Business Fundamentals

  • Build pricing power through distinctiveness, not discounts.

  • Align marketing, finance, and sales around profit over time.

  • Deliver on your brand promise through innovation and experience.


Marketing Mix Modelling: The Smarter ROI Tool


Over the last decade, MarTech stacks like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Tableau have given companies a sense of “full-funnel” visibility. They’re powerful for tracking leads, nurturing journeys, and surfacing insights within digital channels.


But here’s the catch: these systems still focus mostly on the trackable journey—clicks, forms, emails, and conversions. They struggle to capture how offline and brand-building channels (like TV, podcasts, and billboards) actually drive demand.


That’s where Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) comes in. MMM doesn’t track individuals. Instead, it uses aggregated data—sales, spend, seasonality—to understand the long-term impact of every channel and how they work together.


It’s not perfect, but it shifts the question from:“What’s the ROI on that billboard?”to“How do all our efforts drive profitability together?”


MMMs are not perfect, they are only as good as the data they are given, but it is better than first or last click attribution models.


The Real ROI: Long-Term Brand Health and Profitability


True ROI isn’t a single number. It’s:


  • Brand equity that drives preference,

  • Pricing power that sustains margins, and

  • Profitable growth over time.


Start small:


  • Audit your current media mix.

  • Run a pilot MMM or brand health survey.

  • Share results in business terms leadership understands: profit over time, not clicks today.


Final Word: Stop Playing Defence


Marketers aren’t here to justify our existence with vanity metrics. We’re here to build brands that thrive.


So next time someone demands the ROI of a billboard?


Take a deep breath and say:


“You’re asking the wrong question. Let’s talk about how we actually grow.”


 
 
 

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