Everyone Wants To Know ROI…

Everyone wants to know the “ROI”. But inevitably, once they get this number the next question is “what am I supposed to do with this?” (or, maybe, a slightly more polite question of “how can we get our ROI higher?”). The problem with ROI, or any other output-based metric like market share or sales, is that they don’t necessarily give you a clear direction. If your flyer is ROI-negative, does that mean you shouldn’t have a flyer? If your flyer is ROI-positive, does that mean you can’t improve it further? Is the more important question not “how can we get the flyer better, period?” At Fusion we would argue that ROI as a raw metric is not only meaningless, but is actually very distracting and counter-productive. The more important question of “how to get better” is actually very different and requires very different thinking, analysis and data. As we invest more time and resources into determining ROI, the less we have to get to the heart of the matter, which is how to improve.