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While metrics are becoming increasingly important for marketing’s relevance, there is also a need to understand how they, as enablers of learning, affect marketing’s adaptive capabilities that ensure its long-term success. Therefore, this study aims to test the association of marketing and financial metrics use and the metric-based orientations of training and compensation, with two key marketing routines – exploitation, i.e. the perfecting of existing activities while allowing for incremental adaptations and exploration or experimentation accompanied by radical adaptation.

The study gathers data from 205 managers and uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.

Marketing metrics encourage both forms of marketing adaptation. Financial metrics use discourages exploration. Market orientation and long-term orientation strengthen (weaken) the positive (negative) relationship between marketing (financial) metrics use and marketing exploration. Metric-based training is more positively associated with both adaptive capabilities than a metric-based compensation orientation, albeit weakly.

The study’s central proposition – that different metrics or metric orientations are associated with distinct types of knowledge, interpretations, mindsets, motivations and cultural contexts – provides a deeper theoretical understanding of the pathways by which a metric emphasis affects marketing adaptation.

Marketing managers should emphasize marketing metrics and training more than compensation, to promote marketing exploitation/exploration, while exercising caution in overstressing financial metrics given their negative association with exploration. This latter negative relationship can be weakened (as can the positive one between marketing metrics and exploration be strengthened) with increased market orientation and long-term orientation.

This study addresses the research gap regarding the relationship between metrics as a configurational element of marketing organization and marketing adaptation.

Despite the availability of many metrics and tools for marketing performance measurement, the way in which firms use their marketing metrics remains underexplored. This study aims to address this gap by empirically establishing the differing effects of the diagnostic and interactive uses of marketing metrics on firms’ market-sensing capability, contingent on competitive intensity and focus on market-related metrics.

This study builds on survey data collected from 210 Irish-based firms, complemented by 21 in-depth interviews with business managers. Survey data are analysed using regression analysis.

This study finds that firms using marketing metrics interactively to communicate organizational focus are better able to sense their markets, especially under high competition. The authors observe a positive impact of the interactive use of metrics on market-sensing capability, but a U-shaped impact of their diagnostic use, the magnitudes of which further depend on competitive intensity and firms’ focus on market-related metrics.

This study provides a nuanced view of marketing performance measurement (MPM) practices within firms, particularly focussing on diagnostic versus interactive uses of marketing metrics. It also sheds further light on how two diverse uses of marketing metrics – diagnostic and interactive uses – influence a firm’s market-sensing capability. Moreover, the identification of boundary conditions also contributes to the discussion of contextuality in MPM, highlighting the importance of aligning a firm’s uses of marketing metrics with its business environment.

This study provides novel insights into how diverse uses of marketing metrics may benefit firms. The differing effects of diagnostic and interactive uses of marketing metrics on market sensing highlight a primary need for developing the latter and for using the former only with caution. It establishes that all firms would equally benefit from an interactive use of marketing metrics that is pivotal to improving their ability to anticipate, detect and sense market changes.

This study provides novel understanding of the role of marketing metric uses in firms’ market-sensing capability and contributes to the discussion of contextuality in marketing performance measurement. It highlights the importance of aligning a firm’s use of marketing metrics with its business environment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perception of marketing managers in a transition country Montenegro with regards to marketing metrics. The paper examines the degree in which managers are familiar with the way marketing metrics are applied and how important they are in the process of making business decisions in a company operating in a Montenegro.

Data was collected during 2020 through a survey of 171 randomly selected companies and was analyzed using structural equation model and the statistical method of analysis of variance tests.

The obtained results show that managers are quite familiar with financial and non-financial metrics. Both groups are applied to a significant degree, as managers believe that these indicators provide valuable information needed during the decision-making process. Still, more emphasis is placed on the knowledge, implementation and importance of non-financial metrics compared to financial metrics. This is probably due to the specificities of the economic activities of the companies operating in Montenegro, as most of them are service companies, which is why non-financial metrics (such as consumer metrics) are the most important indicators when it comes to ascertaining the market position of the company. Additionally, in recent years the primary focus in Montenegro, as country that is still in the process of transformation from planned economy to a free-market form, has been placed on strengthening of competitiveness and advancing the market orientation of companies. This led to an increase in the importance that managers in transition countries attach to non-financial metrics.

The fact that the survey only covers companies from one country is its limitation.

The obtained results will have a significant empirical contribution, which is reflected in providing guidelines for managers on how to improve the system of measuring and controlling marketing performance, all that to strengthen the competitiveness of the company, and can serve managers of hierarchy levels in a company as guidelines for making decisions on the implementation of marketing strategy and marketing metrics, to improve business performance, multi-context customer interaction, cost-saving and strengthen competitiveness.

Obtaining necessary knowledge management and implementing marketing metrics are important conditions for consideration when it comes to the continuous monitoring and improvement of business results, increasing competitiveness and advancing the market position of the company.

The originality stems from the analysis of the interconnection that exists between marketing metrics and strategic decision-making, which is expected to be positively reflected in the development of society, i.e. strengthening the competitiveness of companies based on knowledge management achieved through the assessment of the degree of knowledge, the implementation and the significance of each of the metrics covered within this research in business decision-making processes. The paper provides insights into the extent to which managers understand the meaning of these indicators and are able to combine different marketing metrics to obtain more complex indicators, serving as necessary inputs when making strategic business decisions.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework, in an effort toward building a contingent theory of drivers and consequences of managerial metric use in marketing mix decisions, this paper develops a conceptual framework to test whether the relationship between metric use and marketing mix performance is moderated by firm and managerial characteristics.

Based on reviews of the marketing, finance, management and accounting literatures, and homophily, firm resource- and decision-maker-based theories and 22 managerial interviews, a conceptual model is proposed. It is tested via generalized least squares – seemingly unrelated regression estimation of 1,287 managerial decisions.

Results suggest that the impact of metric use on marketing mix performance is lower in firms which are more market oriented, larger and with worse recent business performance and for marketing and higher-level managers, while organizational involvement has a lesser nuanced effect.

While much is written on the importance of metric use to improve performance, this work is a first step toward understanding which settings are more difficult than others to accomplish this.

Results allow identification of several conditional managerial strategies to improve marketing mix performance based on metric use.

This paper contributes to the metric literature, as prior research has generally focused on the development of metrics or the linking of marketing efforts with performance metrics, but paid little attention to understanding the relationship between managerial metric use and performance of the marketing mix decision and has not considered how the relationship is moderated by firm and managerial characteristics.

This chapter integrates research that highlights and demonstrates the importance of the marketing mix and customer attitudinal metrics in influencing the customer’s path to purchase. A key objective of this chapter is the provision of an integrative conceptual framework that links marketing actions to customer mindset metrics along the consumer’s path to purchase and the identification of the mechanisms by which customer mindset metrics contribute to consumer purchase journey. Specifically, it delineates two routes for the effects to manifest on sales: the “mindset route” where marketing actions influence customer mindset metrics, which in turn influence brand performance, or the “transactions route” where marketing actions influence market performance directly without influencing the intermediate mindset metrics. A second objective is to identify empirical patterns on incorporating marketing mix and mindset metrics along the path to purchase by reviewing key papers in this domain. Finally, the chapter concludes with the formulation of a rich, forward-looking research agenda on the customer mindset metrics – path to purchase link.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a host of issues related to the use of marketing metrics and firm performance in the context of the Middle East. Specifically, it seeks to explore which marketing metrics relate to perceived performance, to understand how frequency of metric reporting impacts perceived performance, to identify the impact that marketing dashboards have on perceived firm performance and to analyze how measurement ability relates to perceived performance.

This paper used an online survey administered to marketing managers at firms located in the Middle East. A total of 55 participants provided usable data. Participants provided the frequency at which 71 different marketing metrics are reported by their firms and their assessments of the firm’s performance with respect to sales growth, market share growth, and profitability. In addition, they indicated whether or not a marketing dashboard was used to report these metrics, and if so, how long ago the dashboard had been implemented. They also assessed their firm’s holistic ability to measure and use metrics compared to their competition.

As expected, marketers in the Middle East found the marketing metrics examined to vary in their usefulness as judged by their relationship to perceived performance. For those metrics that were perceived to be useful, their utility tended to peak at a moderate level of reporting frequency. These findings also varied by the type of performance considered. The use a marketing metric dashboard did not relate to perceived performance, but the frequency with which the dashboards were reported was found to have a negative linear relationship to perceived performance. Overall, the more capable respondents judged their firms to be with respect to measuring and reporting metrics, the higher their perceived performance.

This paper offers new insights into the usefulness of a wide variety of marketing metrics to marketers in the Middle East. It also provides guidance on the ideal reporting frequency for those metrics. The findings suggest that marketers in the Middle East should focus on reporting key metrics at an appropriate frequency, regardless of whether or not a dashboard format is used. If a dashboard is used, the results of this paper suggest that care should be taken that it not be reported too frequently.

This paper contributes to our understanding of how marketing metrics relate to performance. As the first such study undertaken in the context of Middle Eastern marketers, it represents an important replication and extension of previous findings in other contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the benefits of data‐driven services marketing and provide a conceptual framework for how to link traditional and new sources of customer data and their metrics. Linking data and metrics to strategic and tactical business insights and integrating a variety of metrics into a forward‐looking dashboard to measure marketing ROI and guide future marketing spend is explored.

A detailed synthesis of the literature is conducted and contemporary sources of marketing data are categorized into traditional, digital and neurophysiological. The benefits and drawbacks of each data type are described and advantages of integrating different sources of data are proposed.

The findings point to the importance and untapped potential of data in its ability to inform tactical and strategic marketing decisions. Future challenges, including top management support, ethical considerations and developing data and analytic capabilities, are discussed.

The results demonstrate the need for executive service marketing dashboards that include key metrics that are service‐relevant, complementary and forward‐looking, with proven linkages to business outcomes.

This paper provides a synthesis of data‐driven services marketing and the value of traditional and contemporary metrics. Since the true potential of data‐driven service management in a connected world is still largely unexplored, this paper also delineates fruitful avenues for future research.

This study provides empirical evidence for the contextuality of marketing performance assessment (MPA) systems. It aims to introduce a taxonomical classification of MPA profiles based on the relative emphasis placed on different dimensions of marketing performance in different companies and business contexts.

The data used in this study (n=1,157) were collected using a web‐based questionnaire, targeted to top managers in Finnish companies. Two multivariate data analysis techniques were used to address the research questions. First, dimensions of marketing performance underlying the current MPA systems were identified through factor analysis. Second, a taxonomy of different profiles of marketing performance measurement was created by clustering respondents based on the relative emphasis placed on the dimensions and characterizing them vis‐á‐vis contextual factors.

The study identifies nine broad dimensions of marketing performance that underlie the MPA systems in use and five MPA profiles typical of companies of varying sizes in varying industries, market life cycle stages, and competitive positions associated with varying levels of market orientation and business performance. The findings support the previously conceptual notion of contextuality in MPA and provide empirical evidence for the factors that affect MPA systems in practice.

The paper presents the first field study of current MPA systems focusing on combinations of metrics in use. The findings of the study provide empirical support for the contextuality of MPA and form a classification of existing contextual systems suitable for benchmarking purposes. Limited evidence for performance differences between MPA profiles is also provided.

How can customer service be so bad in an era when companies collect endless data on customer interactions? The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the important challenge of elevating customer service delivery by providing guidelines for when and how to select optimal measures of customer service measurement using a new decision framework.

The paper uses a comprehensive, multi-dimensional review of extant literature related to customer service, journey mapping and performance measurement and applied a qualitative, taxonomic approach for model development.

A process model and customer journey mapping framework can facilitate the selection and application of appropriate and relevant customer service experience metrics to enhance customer service experience strategies, creation and delivery.

The taxonomy of customer service metrics is limited to current publicly and commercially available metrics. The dynamic nature of the customer service environment necessitates continuous updates of the model and framework.

Selection of customer service performance measures should match relevant stages of the customer journey; use perception-based, operational and outcome-based metrics that track employee and customer behaviours; improve omni-channel measurement; and integrate data-sharing and benchmark measurement initiatives through collaboration with customer service communities.

A reimagined perspective is offered to the complex challenge of measuring and improving customer service, providing a new decision-making framework for customer service experience measurement and guidance for future research.