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An ever-growing tidal wave of information has given communications pros more data than ever to work with, but their ability to connect the dots provided by that data is in short supply.
That’s the conclusion of 10Fold’s “The Communications ROI Reset: What B2B Leaders Measure, Trust and Act On,” a study conducted by Sapio Research that surveyed 400 B2B technology marketing and communications leaders.
More than half the leaders responding say they are tracking a wider range of business-impact signals than they did previously. Those signals include website traffic, AI visibility, AI referral traffic and downstream actions. But only about a third (38 percent) measure how pipeline or revenue influence correlated to those metrics. Fewer (35 percent) say they have fully integrated reporting across earned, paid social, content and digital channels.
The shifts in data measurement are being felt in the amount of money invested in communications. More than 80 percent of respondents said that measurement is changing strategy and budget decisions for paid social, paid media, digital, owned content, earned media, earned content and organic social.
One of the main sources of the growing amount of data is, expectedly, AI. AI visibility has rapidly moved to the top of the communications measurement heap. AI referral traffic is measured by 54 percent of respondents, and the same number look at AI search visibility or brand citations in AI-generated content.
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When communications pros try to make the puzzle pieces of gathered data fit together, they a major hurdle. Not all metrics of communications performance carry the same weight with executives. More than a third of respondents (34 percent) cite the revenue impact of communications as the most reliable metric, followed by website traffic (27 percent) and social engagement (25 percent).
The big takeaway: Almost nine out of 10 (87 percent) marketing leaders said that CEOs or corporate boards are more likely to trust metrics when they are closely aligned with business outcomes.
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Also, while AI often appears to be in the driver’s seat, traditional communications metrics still matter. Even so, they are usually not enough to build trust on their own. Coverage volume, social engagement and share of voice become more powerful when they are connected to buyer behavior, AI discoverability, lead generation, pipeline influence and revenue impact.
Based on the study’s findings, 10Fold recommends a connected, communications scorecard, which includes visibility (earned media, social audience growth, AI search visibility and share of voice); engagement (content engagement, downloads, social amplification, website behavior and time on page); authority (analyst or influencer inclusion, message pull-through, AI-generated answer citations and summaries); and action (click-throughs, form fills, demo requests, event registrations and newsletter signups).
“Marketing leaders are not short on metrics. They are short on connected metrics,” said Susan Thomas, CEO of 10Fold. “The C-suite does not need a longer dashboard. It needs a credible story that shows how visibility creates trust, how trust creates action and how action contributes to business growth. And, ideally, the communications metrics are aligned with other marketing programs, to support a fair attribution model. That is the communications ROI reset.”
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