Byron Sharp and Jenny Romanyuk, professors at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, announced at Cannes Lions that marketers should stop using ROI as a key performance indicator in reports to the finance department. In their view, attempting to speak the CFO's language using borrowed metrics only undermines trust in the marketing function and leads to poor decisions on budget allocation for blogger advertising and other channels.
Why marketers shouldn't use ROI when working with the finance department
Byron Sharp, author of the bestseller How Brands Grow, insists that the marketer's job is to explain the campaign goals to the CFO and propose appropriate metrics for measurement, not to make promises based on return on investment figures. ROI works for short-term activations, but it doesn't reflect the contribution to brand awareness, expansion of the consumer base, or the accumulation of mental availability.
When an agency builds a media plan for influencer integrations, it's important to set metrics that show growth in reach among the target audience, changes in brand awareness levels, and the frequency of mentions in relevant contexts. These indicators reflect the actual work of influencer marketing, whereas attempting to reduce everything to ROI distorts the picture and forces brands to abandon long-term strategies in favor of immediate conversions.
Marketers should stop pretending to be amateur CFOs and using terms like ROI — it only makes financial professionals think of them as amateurs
How obsession with metrics diverts budgets off course
Jenny Romanyuk, head of communications at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, pointed out the problem of fixating on narrow metrics: when brands chase CPM in every integration or measure campaign success only by direct clicks, they ignore the cumulative effect of presence in the information field. This is especially relevant for blogger advertising, where much of the impact occurs not at the moment of a click, but through the formation of associations and expansion of the pool of potential buyers.
The professors also touched on artificial intelligence: the hype around AI distracts companies from the fundamental principles of marketing. Brands spend budgets on technologies promising a revolution, but forget about basic tasks — reaching new audience segments, creating distinctive assets, and systematic work on brand awareness. Tools change, the laws of brand growth remain the same.
Application to the Russian market and working with influencers
For brands in Russia, Sharp and Romanyuk's conclusions are critical when planning campaigns with bloggers. When a client demands from an agency a guaranteed ROI on each integration, they're setting up a strategy failure: influencer marketing works on awareness, building loyalty, and expanding mental availability of the brand, not just on direct sales. The right approach is to fix metrics on reach among relevant audiences, frequency of brand contact across different touchpoints, and the dynamics of brand recognition.
When planning media buying, the team builds a forecast of KPIs based on the product's specifics and the brand's goals: for some tasks, reach and engagement are critical; for others — growth in search queries or changes in demand structure. The selection of influencers is not driven by a universal ROI formula, but by specific business objectives, taking into account how the influencer's audience overlaps with the client's target segment and what associations the placement context creates. This logic aligns with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute's principles: metrics should reflect goals, not substitute convenient numbers for reporting.
Frequently asked questions
Why is ROI not suitable for evaluating blogger advertising?
ROI measures short-term financial returns, while influencer marketing works on brand awareness and expansion of the consumer base — effects that manifest in the long term. Attempting to reduce everything to immediate payback distorts the actual value of the channel and forces brands to abandon strategic investments in favor of tactical activations.
What metrics should be used instead of ROI when working with influencers?
Focus on reach among the target audience, growth in brand awareness, frequency of contact across different touchpoints, and changes in search queries. These indicators reflect the contribution of influencer marketing to mental availability and expansion of the pool of potential buyers, which is the foundation of brand growth according to Byron Sharp's model.
How do you explain the value of influencer marketing to a CFO without ROI?
Frame the campaign goal in terms of business results: entry into a new segment, growth in brand knowledge within the category, increased consideration frequency at purchase. Then propose metrics that measure movement toward this goal — reach, dynamics of mentions, changes in demand structure — and show the connection between these indicators and long-term revenue.
In brief
- Professors from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute urge marketers to abandon ROI as the primary metric in reports to the finance department — the metric doesn't reflect long-term work on awareness and brand growth
- Obsession with narrow metrics leads to incorrect budget allocation: brands chase short-term conversions and miss strategic goals
- The hype around artificial intelligence distracts companies from fundamental marketing principles — reaching new segments and systematic work on brand awareness
- For blogger advertising, the right metrics are reach among the target audience, growth in brand knowledge, and contact frequency, not just direct payback
- The marketer's job is to explain campaign goals and propose appropriate measurement metrics, not to promise immediate financial returns on each integration
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