Digital marketers should play the long game when it comes to LinkedIn

For digital marketers, ‘ROI’ is not a new term. It’s a metric that is consistently measured against efforts and budgets when reporting on performance. But how is ROI calculated and influenced? And how can we be sure we’re not getting ROI all wrong in the beginning?

LinkedIn has published a new report that highlights the most common mistakes made in measuring Social ROI. Here’s what they found:

• Marketers are measuring ROI too quickly. According to their report, the average B2B sales cycle length is 6+ months. However, their findings found that digital marketers try to prove ROI within one month. This means that marketers are trying to prove ROI in a shorter amount of time than the length of their sales cycle.
• Marketers are under pressure. As pressure for funding increases, so do budget discussions. The report found that 46% of digital marketers have a minimum of one budget allocation discussion per month and 90% are expected to prove results within the first month.
• Marketers lack confidence and are less motivated to share ROI. The LinkedIn report found that 63% of marketers don’t feel confident in their current ROI measurements and that 40% are reluctant to share metrics with stakeholders.

The solution, the LinkedIn report suggests, is that we should shift our focus to longer-term turnaround and ensure that our campaign ROI measurements are better aligned with our actual goals.