What’s a marketing measurement mistake you often see?

Three weeks ago, I had dinner with 20 CMOs here in San Francisco. One of them turned to me and asked: “What’s the biggest mistake you see in how companies measure marketing?”

There are 4 that come to mind every time…

1. No clear definition of success 

Everyone wants to say “revenue”… but that’s not always the right answer. If your sales cycle is long (6 – 12 months), you can’t just hold marketing to closed-won deals. You need leading indicators that marketing can actually move today.

2. Messy, unreliable data 

Doesn’t matter if you’re a $20M or $200M company… bad data is everywhere. No structure, no cleanup, no validation. If your data’s messy, your measurement will be, too. Full stop.

3. The “we tried that, and it didn’t work” mindset 

Drives me crazy. Sure, you might’ve tried it. But did you measure it correctly? Did you have a control group? Enough budget? Was the test set up properly? Most of the time, people are reacting to a bad test, not a bad idea.

4. Assuming causation from sequence 

Just because one thing happened before another doesn’t mean that thing caused it. Classic mistake! This shows up a lot in click-based attribution, and it leads to all sorts of bad decisions.

Every CMO in that room had faced at least one of these.

But if you can avoid these four traps, you’re already ahead of 90% of the market.

What’s a marketing measurement mistake you often see?